Slow Progression In A Bad Direction

When Katherine James and her husband learned that their son had been smoking marijuana as a high school student, they were concerned for a number of reasons.

A lot of kids smoked pot, and it turns out to be something stupid they did when they were younger. But for my son, I really did know. I knew he was susceptible to addiction. Runs in the family, certain things about him, some of the things he struggled with.

I just knew that he was high risk for addiction. This is Family Life Today. Our hosts are David and Wilson.

I'm Bob Lapine. You can find us online at familylifetoday.com. The pain that comes with being a parent of a prodigal, especially a prodigal who has become involved with addictive behaviors, with drugs and alcohol, that pain is a pain that leads all of us to prayer. We'll talk with Katherine James about her journey today. Stay with us. And welcome to Family Life Today.

Thanks for joining us. The word that just keeps coming to mind as I think about what we're going to talk about is heartache. You know, families go through seasons, moments, experiences, episodes of heartache, and I always try to remember what Jesus said at the end of the Sermon on the Mount. He said, Winds and rains and storms are coming your way.

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Let's just say it right now. Thank you for whatever you're able to do today. And we hope that today's conversation is going to be an encouragement to families who may be in a very difficult situation.

In fact, I think there are going to be a lot of listeners who can resonate with our guest today. Katherine James is joining us on Family Life Today. Katherine, welcome to the program. Thanks. Katherine is an author and a fellow staff member with us at CREW, Formerly Campus Crusade for Christ.

She and her husband live in suburban Philadelphia. They have three kids and she's written... Before you get there, Bob, you got to talk about her entrance into the studio today. That was memorable. Wait, wait, wait. Are you really going to bring this up? I could see me doing that, you know?

We brought her in, asked her to sit down and the chair we're sitting in has rollers and hers just rolled farther than ours did. Someone took it and wiped it out from under me to intimidate me and I fell on the floor. And broke a glass, you know? And a lawsuit is coming. Katherine has written a book. It's really a memoir. It's the memoir that no mom would ever want to write.

It's called A Prayer for Orion. Take us back to the genesis of this story. When you first recognized that your son was in a bad place. Well, the genesis of the story would be way, way, way back when my husband and I decided to have kids.

Right. But my son was in middle school. Something seemed to change with him. He suffered from a few things, anxiety, a little depression. He had some great friends and then started hanging out with some iffy friends.

And then from there it was kind of just a real slow progression in a bad direction. I think that probably the beginning of high school is when we really began to get concerned. So he's 13, 14, 15 when you're starting to see things?

Exactly. What kind of things when you say anxiety, what caught your eye when you were watching that? Well, he had anxiety from when he was a little kid. So he had some sort of predisposing factors that a lot of times kids who end up struggling with drugs have. So it had been going on for a long time, but he was at the same time a really good kid.

Just kind and thoughtful and intelligent. He had friends. He tended towards just one particular friend or this particular friend. But he always had just a real heart for them and even talked to them about Christ at different times and that sort of thing. But then for whatever reason, I think he started hanging out with some kids maybe that weren't a great influence.

However, he probably wasn't a great influence on them either. I think a lot of times kids assume that somebody else is responsible. Some other kid is the one who's... Are kids the good kids? It's the other kids that are the bad kids.

Right, exactly. Mine's probably the one that said, hey, you want some weed? It's not always the way that we picture it. I mean, when you started to see that, some signs, did you have any idea of drugs? Or was that one of the last things? It wasn't the first thing in our minds. No, I would say no to that answer. It wasn't until one specific thing happened that I realized, uh-oh, you know, this is bad.

We're heading in the wrong direction. Where did your son fit in the family birth order? Yeah, he's the third only boy. Third of three. And you guys are involved in ministry.

You're in crew staff. So church is a part of life. Jesus is a part of life. So that's the background and the foundation he's growing up in. Yeah, very much so. But you said there was one thing that was the wake-up call for you guys that we're dealing with something we never imagined we would be dealing with.

Right, right. The first thing, it might sound a little innocuous at first, but it was when my daughter found him smoking weed with some friends. And for us, that was a shock because he just wasn't the kind of kid we ever thought would do that, which usually is that situation for parents, you know, who have a good kid. And the other thing is, as Christian parents, we think that it's a matter of do this and then this, do this and then this, right? So did all the right things, read the Bible stories at night, you know, modeled a Christian life, loved each other, all these sorts of things. And so in my mind anyway, it was sort of, well, that's not going to happen.

It's not like you saw mom and dad smoking weed. Right, right. Yeah. So he, we did the right things. He would turn out to be the right kid. So that was a shock when he really was doing the wrong things. So, I mean, what happened? Your daughter tells you. Did you go confront him or did he own up to it or what happened?

He was, I think my daughter took him to youth group, dropped him off there and then came and told me what they had been doing. So I just went over and just basically burst into the church and just like, get over here right now. And I was not the sort of mother that is an angry mother. I'm just always like, I'm not going to be, you know, I'm not going to yell.

I'm going to be very sweet. And so I yelled and I actually pushed him. It was like, you stupid idiot. I remember saying that.

You stupid, stupid idiot. So that was the beginning. When your daughter told you, what did you feel? Well, she's feeling angry. I know.

I know. But anger is a second emotion. So I'm wondering, like, oh, what's the first emotion? You know, what was at your gut level? Look at you going, you're going deep.

Get all deep on me. This is what happens when we talk at night. This is what happens. It's like, honey, what are you really feeling? Oh, gosh. Sort of what, what did I do wrong?

Which is interesting. I don't think most moms would have thought that. But that's where my mind throughout our whole journey constantly, I just struggle with that.

You know, how do we get here? I think a lot of us as moms think that. Yeah.

The way you describe going and getting him out of youth group, it sounds to me like if you had a do-over, you might do it differently. Perhaps I might. But maybe not. Maybe I wouldn't.

I don't know. I wasn't doing anything wrong. I was very angry. I was showing him I was angry.

Anger had never been a big part of our life and our family. I kind of felt like it called for it right then. And, you know, when I say I pushed him, I wasn't abusive at all. I think the question is, was it a calculated, you know, the Bible says, be angry but do not sin. So anger is appropriate in some cases.

And sometimes it's the wake-up call that somebody else needs to see what's going on. I'm just wondering if we could dial back the years and we could say, okay, you're going to get your son out of youth group because you just learned he's smoking weed. Would you do it the same way, do you think?

I think I would. And I think it was one of those situations where it was be angry and do not sin. It was calculated anger? Yeah, it was more calculated.

If I really have to kind of hone in on it, I would say that it was sort of calculated. And here's the question. So how did he respond? How did he respond? Very quietly. He didn't fight back or say anything, never said anything mean to me. What did he say? I don't know that he said anything at that point.

He got in the car and I drove him home and he sat down and my husband and I sat down with him and we talked it through. But that was the general way things went in our home. You know, we would talk with him. I'm sure there was some sort of discipline.

I don't know what it was. Well, you know, since Bob was probing in that area, let me ask Bob, so if you caught one of your kids in the same situation, what do you think you'd do? I would hope that what I would do, first of all, is to pull back and pray and just say, Lord, I'm going to need to walk by the Spirit, whatever that's going to look like.

And I need wisdom here to know what my full of grace and truth encounter with my child needs to look like. Man, I should have done that. And I'm not saying that's what I would have done. And this is from a dad of grown children now. Well, that's right. And because I'm just thinking... Well, I'm just going to say, I'm sitting beside a mom who did exactly what you did. Oh, okay.

It's one of our sons after a night of him getting drunk. I remember you going out there and, you know, I tried to be... You had to go out of town. Yeah, so it was on her.

But anyway, she... Man, our neighbors heard that one. Yeah. And I will say that I probably reacted instead of responded. And I think that the base on the root of that was fear. Fear of, is this who you are? Is this who you're becoming?

And it was fear of what it could lead to, maybe. You're good. Thank you.

That's exactly what I felt. No, it is. Is it?

Yes. And I'll tell you what, that same son has said to me now as an adult, I wish you would have been harder. I wish you would have yelled more. I wish you would have been like in my face, like, what are you thinking, son? Rather than, I understand what you're going through.

I've been, you know... So, I mean, sometimes, you know, the righteous anger is needed. This is where a calculated spirit-led approach... That's the key. Because you have to have the wisdom of God. You don't have wisdom on your own in that moment. What you want to avoid is just a response of the flesh that is, this is what I'm feeling, therefore I'm justified in whatever I do at this moment. Reacting. And when the neighbors were hearing you, it was more...

I might be exaggerating a little. I wasn't yelling. I was having him dig out bushes. Yes, you put him to work. And you think you're going to sleep in today, you're hungover?

Guys, watch this, you're working. Was that a calculated spirit-led response from you? I didn't pray. I, as I said, I reacted. And so, and I think God would probably give us a different response to each child because he knows who they are. And so I really do wish I could go back and talk to me as a younger mom and say, sit down, pray, ask God, and get wisdom. Maybe even call people or whatever, get some godly counsel. But no, I did not do that at the time. You hate to want to call anybody because who wants to say, guess what my son did last night, right?

It's true. It's embarrassing. Especially when you're in ministry. In ministry and when it involves... How was your husband a part of it? How was the marriage part? Was it you're in tandem together? Yes, I trusted my husband.

I knew that as we were, as I was going and getting him, that he was praying without ceasing. I think we were both clueless enough where we were kind of like, I don't know what we should do, you know, we didn't. Yeah, what'd you talk about that night in bed? You know? I have no idea.

I have blocked out these... I bet. No, I really, I don't remember. You know what, I know we prayed. We spent most of our free time praying. And that's really what got us through this. Did you walk away from that confrontation with your son thinking, we're going to keep an eye on him, but I think this is probably a one-time thing and we'll watch, but I can't imagine that this is the direction he's going to go? I think that that's what we hoped, but I think we knew that it wasn't, that was sort of unlikely. That he, once he had entered into that scene, that it was likely that it was going to be something he'd do again.

And actually right from the very beginning. And my fear had a lot to do with the fact that I knew he was susceptible to addiction. Runs in the family, certain things about him, some of the things he struggled with, I just knew that he was high risk for addiction.

You know, a lot of kids smoke pot and, you know, it turns out to be something stupid they did when they were younger, but for my son, I really did know. And you hadn't seen this in your daughters? Well, our middle daughter had some of it, but it wasn't to the same extent. Did they have any advice for you and your husband? Yes, our older daughter did. Our middle daughter was dealing with her own issues at that point, so we had stuff going on with her sort of separate from our son. But our older daughter did definitely have advice.

She's the one that, you know, caught him smoking weed to begin with, and she was just a blessing throughout everything. Now, was there any sense, I mean, you're, like Bob said, you're this Christian family, you're in full-time Christian work. Was there any sense of, we've got to sort of hide this or cover it up or keep it quiet?

We don't want the church to know? Or was it sort of out there? It was sort of out there just because we were sort of set up that way. We'd always had a very open home since the kids were even young. We had seminary students and that sort of thing. Friends stay with us, you needed a place to stay.

And so our kids had brought their friends over. We were just an open family, so it kind of just became known. And so we never had that option of are we going to tell people or are we not going to tell people. Although I could see, especially a family in ministry, that it would be really hard to make that decision if you were ever given that situation where you kind of had to, well, am I going to tell somebody or not tell somebody?

And then when things just continued to get worse and worse with our son, I think in the end I was, I'm really grateful that we had never been secretive with people. Yeah, and you know, so many churches, I mean, really, in ministries just they keep things that are darker, that don't line up with what's supposed to be, like you said earlier, A plus B should equal C. It's sad, but the church is often the place you hide the most rather than go and be real and find healing with other people going through the same thing. Well, this is true for people in the church, not just for people in leadership in a church. But there's a sense as if people knew, they would judge me. They would conclude things about me or about our parenting or about our home. And the reason some people feel that is because there are people who will.

I think, too, it's interesting. I got cancer later on. And, you know, you get cancer, you get casseroles. Yeah. You know, you get a kid doing drugs, hard drugs, you get silence.

Right. So it's a unique struggle to go through, having a prodigal. When you were first aware that your son had been smoking weed, you have this confrontation with him. I'm imagining the next thing as parents, there's probably some grounding involved. You're watching him like a hawk, trying to see what you can do to try to modify his behavior so that he's learned his lesson and he's not going to do this again. But as a parent, you can't be there all the time.

You can't know what he's doing all the time. Were you wondering if you should be doing more? Yes.

Yes, definitely. There's this constant sort of unsettledness. What should we be doing? What shouldn't we be doing? We're trying to rely and listen to the Holy Spirit. But, you know, you just kind of want something to drop down from heaven to tell you what to do.

And that doesn't happen. So it was definitely a struggle. I'm sure we did things as far as grounding-type things.

I know we did. But still, you know, he had these friendships. There was also an ongoing struggle because of some of the issues he'd struggled with. And we knew that if those anxiety issues, if he wasn't dealing with those appropriately, then things could get worse, too. Were you watching things happen where you're going, I wonder if he's getting high?

Did you see him coming home and wonder, I mean, how did you handle the next several weeks or months? Yeah, we were clueless. It seemed like the more time that went past, we thought it was just a one-time thing. Our son was never a kid who came through the door stumbling.

It just didn't happen. He was always very, and also never lost his temper with us. He was always very kind and thoughtful, and we liked all his friends.

So it wasn't a clear thing until later. Well, it's interesting, even in your book, you don't name his name, but you call him Sweet Boy. Throughout the entire book, which I thought, that's so interesting. It reveals so much to me about him.

Describe him to us, the fact that you even, that's the name you gave him in the book. Yeah, just from a young kid, he was just a really kind, kind person. He only got in one fight that I know of. He was in middle school, and this one kid was picking on one of his friends, and he punched him in the face.

So, you know, and that was it, and he never gets in fights, you know. So he was just sweet, just so sweet and good to his friends. When he was younger, he wanted them to know Christ. I remember one thing he did when he was a kid. He probably would have been four or five maybe, and we used the four spiritual laws, which is a crew thing that kind of shares Christ with people. And so he'd seen this thing, this little booklet, and so he went up to his room, and he spent all this time and stapled together a little booklet where he wrote his own four spiritual laws. Wow.

And then he went out to the street and waited for cars to stop at the stop sign because he wanted to share Christ with them. And I remember standing there thinking, this is the most amazing thing. I can't believe he's doing this. What an awesome thing. And at the same time, I'm thinking, please don't do it. Yeah. What am I going to say?

This is embarrassing. The neighbors, yeah. So, you know, then I'm kind of like, oh, geez, where's my heart at? So anyway, that was one of the things he did as a really young kid. And so when you talked to him and you said, son, sweet boy, what's going on in your heart? Could he ever open up and explain what was happening? No, that was one of the hard things about him. Very much an introvert, very internal, and I think that it would have helped him a lot if it wasn't. And I don't know if that was because of his anxiety, but that was a huge issue.

We wanted so much for him to talk. In that period of weeks or months when you thought, okay, this was a one-time thing. We're not seeing anything. Things are back to normal. Was that because he was hiding better than he had before?

Probably. There's a time where things got really unclear what was going on. And another thing that really showed me, and this is a big deal, too, is probably six months or so after that first youth group thing that happened, I did get the sense that I should at least be looking through his room.

I need to at least be searching for things and make sure that I'm doing what I can to make sure that he's not doing anything. And there's a little crawl space in his room, and I kind of got in there, and then there's sort of this insulation that's stuck to the ceiling. And I pulled it down, and there was one of these liter Coke, plastic Coke bottles. It had a hole in one side and duct tape and all sorts of strangeness going on with it. And I was just like, this is so a drug paraphernalia thing.

I have no idea exactly how it works. I guess it's a bong. I didn't know.

But I Googled it, and yeah, there was tons of them on there. So I knew exactly what it was then. And another thing, I just don't remember exactly how I handled it or what we did, but probably sat in the living room and talked again and came up with some sort of a plan. A supplier, yeah.

Yeah, so. Did you ever think we need to get him into a treatment program, we need to go see a counselor? I'm just imagining as a parent, you don't want to overreact, but knowing what's the right reaction, I don't think any of us know that in the moment. I think as a mom, I would have been freaking out inside, like just kind of panicky. I found a homemade bong in the insulation, yeah. Yeah, there's something desperate about that.

You know, almost like do you use it in your room by yourself? I mean, that was a big wake-up call to me for sure. And as far as counseling goes, that was another tough thing because he wasn't receptive to it at all. And anything that had to do with his own anxiety really was like he's going to run away from it. It's not like, oh, I'm going to make you go, so here, go, I'm dropping you off. It was more of a he's going to run, I'm going to drop him off, he's going to leave, you know. And that really had more to do with the anxiety than anything else. And if you would say, what are you afraid of, he couldn't come up with an answer for you.

Oh, no, no, no. Yeah. I don't know if he didn't get it himself or whatever. I think that he puzzled himself.

I don't think he knew exactly why. And there had to be, I mean, I'm guessing we all do this as parents. We're just what did I as a parent, did we as a parent contribute to make this what's happening with our son? Is that where you were living?

I can imagine laying in bed every night. Yeah, absolutely. And the answer to that is maybe there are things you could or couldn't have done, but ultimately, kids make their own decisions.

Right. God pours grace on our parenting mistakes, and we have to own what was our contribution, if there is a contribution we made. But we can't own the choice a child makes and say we were responsible. If we had done this right or this wrong, we could have spared our son.

There's no guarantee on any of that. And the hard thing is, too, that we need to remember is the spiritual battle going on even for us as parents where the accuser is constantly accusing us and getting us to feel so horrible about maybe what we've done as a parent. And he loves to put the blame on us. And I'm sure there's things every single parent we have done wrong, but there's still that point of saying, God, I need to hear from you, protect my mind and my heart and kind of that surrender continually of your child and yourself to him. Yeah. And I told you, you know, I guess I can say this. We're finishing up this parenting book and I got up at four thirty this morning and I'm doing edits and I keep as I'm reading it, trying to say, OK, there's no way we're saying if you do this, you'll get this, you know.

But you think you're writing a parenting book like, oh, I want to read this because they're going to tell us. It's like, no, we can't guarantee anything. But I can't guarantee one thing.

And I know you know this. There is a God. He can be trusted. He's with you in the cave, in the in the crawl space.

He's there in that moment. That's all I can guarantee. I can't guarantee anything besides that. Yeah, there's scriptures, there's principles in the word. But at the end of the day, your son, your daughter's going to make decisions that make no sense sometimes. And there's a God that's with them and with you and you can trust him.

Lots of prayer, lots of wise counsel to open your story to others who you can trust, who can pray with you and give you godly guidance in your journey. And maybe together with others, read a book like the one Catherine's written called A Prayer for Orion, a son's addiction and a mother's love. We've got copies of the book in our Family Life Today Resource Center. You can order your copy from us online at FamilyLifeToday.com. Again, our website is FamilyLifeToday.com.

The book is called A Prayer for Orion by Catherine James. And on our website, you'll find additional resources, help for parents who have children who are involved in substance abuse. Again, the website is FamilyLifeToday.com. Now, this is the last opportunity I'll have to encourage Family Life Today listeners, those of you who listen regularly. Today's the last day for us here at Family Life to be able to take advantage of a very generous $2.7 million matching gift that has been made available to us during the month of December.

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Make your donation online at FamilyLifeToday.com or call 1-800-FL-TODAY and help us end this year where we need to be. We look forward to hearing from you. And we hope you have a safe New Year's Eve and a happy New Year. Hope you can join us back tomorrow as we're going to hear from Katherine James about her son's first overdose and how that landed him in the hospital. We'll pick up the story tomorrow.

Hope you can be with us for that. I want to thank our engineer today, Keith Lynch, along with our entire broadcast production team. On behalf of our hosts, Dave and Ann Wilson, I'm Bob Lapine. We'll see you back tomorrow for another edition of Family Life Today. Family Life Today is a production of Family Life of Little Rock, Arkansas. A crew ministry. Help for today. Hope for tomorrow.