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Welcome to the Embrace Family Recovery Podcast. Today, I’m honored to share the powerful story of Jay, a father who experienced the heartbreak of his son Jayson’s battle with addiction.
Jay opens up about the shock of discovering his son’s addiction, his initial attempts to help, and the painful realization of its complexities. 
Join us as Jay shares his journey, the lessons he’s learned, and the vital importance of support and understanding for families navigating addiction. This is a conversation you won’t want to miss, meet Jay.

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Bumper  00:01

You’re listening to the Embrace Family Recovery Podcast, a place for real conversations with people who love someone with the disease of addiction. Now here is your host, Margaret Swift Thompson. 

Intro:  Welcome back! In this episode we meet Jay a father whose son Jayson struggled with the disease of addiction for nearly a decade before tragically passing away at the age of 26. 

Through heartfelt reflections Jay recounts Jayson and his family story from a promising young athlete to someone grappling with the weight of a substance use disorder. Please meet Jay.

You are listening to the Embrace Family Recovery Podcast.

Margaret  01:07

I’m really grateful, Jay, that you’ve chosen to come on the podcast. I know this will be a very meaningful conversation for people that watch and listen, and I want to give you the opportunity, because I would introduce you in many ways, but I would love you to give yourself the introduction that you would want. And I always ask people when they come on the podcast, who your qualifier is? So, who in your life had the disease of addiction that led you to explore and learn about recovery for yourself?

Jay  01:38

Yeah, it was my son, Jayson, so I have a daughter, Jenna, and my son. Jayson was younger than Jenna and yeah, Jayson is the reason that I’m here today.

Margaret  01:51

Prior to Jayson having the disease of addiction, was anywhere in your family system? Had you been exposed to it without necessarily disclosing who, for confidentiality, whatever’s comfortable, but did you have exposure to the disease of addiction in your family history?

Jay  02:05

No, addiction was very new to me. So as a matter of fact, I’m still learning about it, and I wish I would have known back then what I know now about addiction.

Margaret  02:15

I hear that from a lot of families. I hear a sense of regret or remorse that I wish. I knew I wish, and I understand it, because I I have that feeling with clients, I’ve worked with who have passed or not achieved the recovery they desired. But I think it’s so important to know that you do the best you can with what you know when it happens, and that’s the gift you give your child, your spouse, or whoever it is you love, with this illness. So, do you remember the day you learned that he had struggles with substances?

Jay  02:53

Well, I remember very well. We had many days prior to that. You know, while he was still in high school, even that, we could see that he had changed. But he had a shoulder injury, he was a very good pitcher in baseball on a high school team in 11th grade, and between his junior and senior year, he was just playing a game of pickup football, and he hurt his shoulder. Didn’t know what happened at the time, but so, long story short, he couldn’t pitch his senior year, and it crushed him.

 So, we were wondering what was happening with him. We knew he was very depressed about not being able to play his senior year and showed it in his grades. And I think he struggled to graduate, to be honest, but he did what it took to get out of there. 

Yeah, so he had issues. Well, it could have been two or three years even that he’s just not getting any better from this. He’s, you know, out of high school and into college. And he did pitch again in college for a year, and with that said, he did what he had to do to qualify to pitch with his grades and stuff and nothing more. 

And so, to answer your question, one day in our backyard, I remember like it was yesterday he said Dad, which hadn’t called me in a long time. It was just, you know, like that all the time. And he goes, I have problems with pain meds, and it goes all the way back to when I had my surgery for my shoulder. And he said I just could never get off them fully. I got off them for a while, and then back on them. And that’s why I’m like, what I’m like. So, yeah, that’s, that’s the first I heard of it. So, for me, I was like, you know, this is awesome. You know, that’s something dad can fix. It’s, you know, just like an addiction. It’s not mental, mental illness that we thought it might be or severe depression or something that I can’t fix. And so I was, I wouldn’t say, fired up about it, but I at least we knew what it was. 

Margaret  05:00

Yeah, so you had answers, and you felt like you could help solve the problem?

Jay  05:04

Right? Exactly, you know, dads solve everything.

Margaret  05:08

And a natural feeling of a parent, I think both sides of moms and dads, you know, we are the ones that clean up the Boo Boos all the way along. So why would we not think we can help fix this problem? That’s what’s so counterintuitive about addiction, isn’t it? Jay, it’s not the same. You can’t fix it for someone else.

Jay  05:27

Right? Exactly.

Margaret  05:29

So, when you said before he shared that with you on the lawn, you two were kind of like this. Talk to me about that. Was it the frustration of just like, how do I reach this kid? What is going on? Like the unknowns led to the battle. Was it partly his wanting to keep you at bay, because he not necessarily consciously, but he needed to keep everyone at bay to continue using what do you think it is in retrospect?

Jay  05:56

Yeah, hindsight, I think he was probably embarrassed and ashamed, and that it had even gotten that far because he, you know, all through his life, we were pretty good friends. You know, as far as father and son can be a friend, and, yeah, he just to me as a father, you know, why are you doing these things? Why are you, why don’t you ever have money? You have plenty of jobs. You know, why are you getting in car accidents all the time? Why are you doing this? And, yeah, it was just I didn’t have a clue what was going on. My wife didn’t have a clue what was going on. And he always needed something. And he and he just wasn’t that close anymore. It was just really hard to go from coaching him in baseball and just loving everything he did to, him keeping us at a distance all the time.

Margaret  06:46

You mentioned Jenna, his sister. Did he ever tell her earlier? Did she know? Was it a struggle for her as a sister to understand, or did she have a better sense of it, but felt scared to share? 

Jay  06:57

I think she had a I don’t think she had a sense of his addiction. She had a sense that he was probably smoking pot and things like that. And I think she’d end up missing things, you know, like money and items from, you know, her room and they, towards the end, didn’t get along very well. I shouldn’t say they didn’t get along. They just didn’t associate with each other, but she would tell us, as parents, that, you know, Jayson isn’t the angel you think he is, and you know, and of course, we didn’t want to hear that, and we weren’t quite seeing probably what she was saying. So, she had probably a better sense than we did, but I don’t think she had any idea that he was addicted to painkillers at the time. 

Margaret  07:39

And I think what you describe as a very common sibling experience that’s really challenging, right? They may know more, but they’re in this dual relationship between the parents and the and the sibling, plus they’re seeing behavior that they think is not okay, and they’re mad at them, but yet they’re worried. But like, do I tell? Do I not? It’s a tough spot for a sibling when they’re growing up next to someone in this illness. 

And it’s interesting, you describe the distance between them. I think that the visual that I use for that, or that I think of when I hear that is, of course, there’s distance. There’s an enormous buffer between the person and everyone around them, which is the substance or the disease, and it creates this inability to kind of reach in and touch and get hold of and understand, because there’s that necessity to survive an active addiction with a buffer to keep the people that love us away the most, because they’re the ones who are going to stop try and stop it. And we think we have to survive by using. So, it’s a very complex situation that I think we try to oversimplify. And the woulda, coulda shouldas don’t do any of us any good, right? 

Jay:  Right, right. 

Margaret:  But natural, I think it’s a very natural parental role to take. 

Bumper  08:49

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Hi everyone, I am Margaret Swift Thompson of the Embrace Family Recovery Podcast I wanted to jump on in this bumper and just share how grateful I am that each and every one of you has chosen to listen, review, share this podcast.

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Margaret  10:38

So, you mentioned you coached him, and you had a good relationship prior to the disease taking hold of him, baseball was a commonality you shared.

Jay  10:47

Yes, yes, I played baseball as a child, and I played all kinds of sports as he did. He played football, baseball, basketball, he bowled. He didn’t want anyone to know he bowled, because that wasn’t the cool sport, but, but he was very good at all of them, any kind of ball he touched. He was very good and very humble. You know, it was not that big a deal to him. But as a parent, you know, it’s like, wow, I’ve got this kid that this is so much fun to watch him grow and, you know, and I always say that me coaching him probably hindered him more than helped them, but, and, you know. We butted heads at times and, and that’s probably the hardest thing as a son or daughter to be as the player with a parent that’s a coach. Yeah, it’s, you know, you discipline the whole team through them and things like that. And I always realized what’s happening, and I apologized to him more than you know, but yeah. I mean, it was a cool time.

Margaret  11:47

Sounds like it, and it shows on your face when you talk about it. So I want to touch on a tough subject, possibly, but I’m curious if, if you’re willing? One of the things that comes along with this illness is an enormous amount of shame, and you talk about that with him being maybe afraid to talk to you because of that possibility. When you’ve watched your kid do all these sporting events and been active and excelled, and then you watch the decline and the change in character, and the change in behavior, was shame, a part of that for you? How do you discern that when you look back?

Jay  12:22

Shame for myself about him? Not really. I didn’t feel that emotion at all. It was, it was just wonder and confusion, and I just didn’t know what was wrong with him. But I, I wasn’t ashamed of him. I know he felt shame. I didn’t know that at the time. You know, afterwards, I learned a lot more about everything that happened with them, and even we’ll probably hit on it, but the class that I had with you at Hazelden that time, learned a lot about what he was going through there.

Margaret  13:00

So, I think that is one of the things about you, Jay, you don’t appear to have struggled with the shame, that you loved your son. You love your son. You would do whatever to assist him. You just struggle with not knowing.

Jay  13:13

Yeah, well, one of the hard things that I don’t call it shame, but as Jayson was getting out of high school and doing some college. He wasn’t very dedicated to it, but all his friends and peers were being successful. There, you know, moving on and graduating from college. And the hardest part for me, I think, was, you know, talking to other parents. 

Margaret:  Absolutely

Jay:  Little Johnny’s, you know, going to be a doctor now, and what’s Jayson doing now? And, and our answer was always, he’s just finding his way, you know. And, but I didn’t really feel shame there. It was just, it was just a hard question to answer, and it was, you kind of got tired of answering it after a while, and you felt good for the other people. Because all those kids, you know, either I coached them or I knew them and I liked them and I still know a lot of them today, and I still talk to them today. So good for them, but it was hard when you watch your son just in this spiral, and you don’t know what it’s all about.

Margaret  14:16

And did that lead to isolation or pulling back, or did you stay engaged with families?

Jay  14:21

I would say, I stay engaged with families. Yeah, 

Margaret:  Didn’t change that. 

Jay:  No, when it did change is, you know, hardly anyone knew that Jason had this problem until he passed away. But after he passed away, that’s when it changed it, I would say maybe some of them pulled away from us a little bit like they just didn’t know what to do or what to say or felt guilty that their son or daughter was still here and successful and ours is gone now. So that’s the only time there’s any kind of pulling back, I would say. 

Margaret  14:55

And let’s talk about that in a minute. But since you brought up that Jayson passed from this illness. Yeah. Talk us through what, what the steps were leading up to his passing. At what age did he pass? 

Jay  15:07

He passed May 23, 2019, which he was 26 at the time? 

Margaret:  Okay.

Jay:  Yeah, cuz I remember we got him into Hazelden when he was 25 before his insurance ran up. You know, it was an ultimatum at the time, either you go, or you go there, you find a different place to live. But so, leading up to that, to answer your question, yeah, he’d been at Hazelden. He, you know, he never really admitted that he had a problem that much, you know, I don’t do that anymore. You know, he was, like many people that are addicted that I’m not judging anyone, but from other parents I’ve talked to that have had the same problem, just a master manipulator. You know, he’d say the things you’d want to hear, and you’d, you’d take that hook and go with it, because it was hope, you know.

Margaret: Of Course.

Jay:  you know, I need money because I want to get help. You know that money would probably go towards drugs or something, but there’s a glimmer of hope. So that’s a whole different area.

Margaret  16:15

Let’s touch that. Because I think what you bring up is very important that a parent, a partner, child, everyone struggles with wanting to help and wanting to believe because they love the person and the need to manipulate is almost a symptom of active addiction. In order to survive as an addict, in active addiction, one has to do a lot of things to keep everything in the air and be able to continue to use, desperation to need it, desperation to hide it, desperation to cover it. 

So, yeah, manipulation, dishonesty, those are all symptoms, is the words I would use, so it’s not about judgment that they’re bad people, because I don’t believe any of them are bad people at their core. The disease creates bad behavior to continue the using process.

Jay  17:00

Yeah, but totally agree. I mean, he, its survival. For him, it’s right. And again, what we’re talking about before, that’s where the shame comes in and the guilt. And for them, they got to feel about an inch high for the things they’re doing.

I mean, we, you know, we come home at times and go to watch TV, and the big screen TV is gone, or snow blowers gone, or jewelry is gone. Or, I mean, at the end, we had very little, and I don’t blame him for it. I mean, he had to survive at the time, yeah, I was angry as heck. I was like, what is going on here, you know? But, yeah, things would just disappear. And, I mean, it’s been four and a half years, I still see things once in a while. I don’t have that jacket anymore. I just kind of smile and, you know. It’s just stuff. Now, back then, it was, you know, I worked hard for that, but now I was like, it’s just things.

Margaret  17:57

But like you say, the anger, the natural reaction of, my kid wouldn’t do this, but on their side, his side, the shame that That’s how desperate he was that he would take from his parents or his sister. It’s a low, a very low, low.

Jay  18:14

You know. And I said it a bunch of times, I’m kind of proud of him for some lines he didn’t cross, like, you know, our safety, and there’s a lot of things that when you’re addicted, you could do that could be a lot worse. And he had that line, and he never crossed it. And we’re very grateful. I mean, we were, I can’t say we weren’t scared at times, you know. I always said we slept with one eye open, because we never knew who’d be at the door. You know, someone that he owed money to, or things like that happen a lot of times, but he did his best to keep that from happening. 

Margaret  18:52

So it sounds like he battled the disease progressively getting worse the illness within him for about 10 years. Is that pretty accurate? 

Jay  19:00

Yeah, you know, when he first passed I, I’d say he was battling for six years. But no, it’s probably 10 years. It was I fully believe now that was pretty close to right when he had his surgery, when he was a senior in high school. So that was 2011 and past 2019 so yeah, 910, years, something like that.

Margaret  19:25

And probably a sidebar here, but one of the things that has evolved since Jayson passed is a lot more awareness about pharmaceuticals and the horrifying changes, they made to make things addictive. And I don’t want to go down the rabbit hole, but I wonder, did you ever feel angry at the drugs he was given medically, for the right reasons, but maybe given an enormous amount of not necessarily needed, that tripped his switch to be addicted? Or did you not struggle with that? Yeah. Blame or anger?

Jay  20:02

Not as much as I think I should, but very early on, I wish I could remember the book I read, but it was about grief and what you’re going to go through and how you’re going to need to save your energy. And it’s like, you know, losing a son is like having a heart attack and going through that surgery and that’s where your body’s at. So, so I kind of told myself, there’s certain fights or battles I’m going to fight and certain I’m going to kind of let go. Yeah, it angers me. And, you know, watching the whole Purdue Pharma thing and it probably angers me more what they did to a nation or a world rather than just one person. But no, I didn’t get hung up on it too much. It kind of makes me bummed out that you could have a simple surgery and become addicted. Some people do, some people don’t. They it’s just their makeup. But yeah, that’s, that’s just totally sad. But I didn’t really go out blaming people, but I still watch the shows and trying to, trying to think what I’m watching Netflix now, I just started watching

Margaret:  Painkiller.

Jay:  Yeah, Painkiller, yeah.

Margaret  21:08

That’s what made me think of it. I just started watching it too. And I find it hard, and I haven’t lost a child to it, right? So.

Jay  21:13

Yeah, it’s, it’s It sickens you. Dope Sick was the other one I watched. That was, was amazing, and I’ll watch it again someday when I feel up to it.

Margaret  21:25

 Well, I think it’s really pertinent that you just said something I believe very profound that you had the wherewithal to do, which was you read something that gave you a description that you resonated with losing a son’s like having a heart attack and having surgery. You benefit from pooling your reserves, because you need something to help you, and so you made an effort at that point to not go down the rabbit hole of the anger towards something bigger than you that you can’t change because you needed the reserves to take care of you and be present to your wife, and your daughter. Is that interpreting what you said accurately?

Jay  22:03

Yeah, exactly as for, you know, a little bit, it’s like, let’s go after big pharma, you know. Let, let’s join the crowd. And then quickly, I thought, I’m just one little person in this big pool of people, where people are already doing it, and I commend all those people that are doing it but is it just didn’t feel right. It was, and it wasn’t like I was afraid that I’m going to get sick or I’m going to be unhealthy. It’s just like I kind of got to get through this because I’ve got a daughter, I’ve got a wife, I’ve got, you know, and we’re all struggling, and I just trying to save my strength and not go there.

Margaret  22:41

Well, and it sounds like in knowing a little of your story, part of it was you put your energy into your memorial and your baseball tournament and some of the things to go out and speak, is that fair? Like you put it towards trying to help others rather than go after.

Jay  22:58

Yeah, it just kind of happened. It was, we’ve got this shop in Woodbury. It’s a Herbalife shop that a lot of people come into. And one day, either Vicky or I put up, put a wristband on the table. You know, take a wristband if you want it. Jayson wristband and then we started putting pictures up. But it started with a tip jar. We had a tip jar, and I was like, I don’t know, we don’t really want to take tips, but we decided to give it to opioid awareness. So, we didn’t know what that was at the time. Was just going to pool this money and give it to them. And then we put a little picture of Jayson, and the next thing you know, what? I made a plaque with them and told the story about Jayson, because people would ask, what’s, you know, who is this? And now we’ve got, like, a whole wall that’s got his pictures and, and it’s just generated so many conversations. It’s just such a blessing and, and that’s how it evolved. It’s just like, well, that’s what we’re meant to do, is just provide an awareness. And we can do that, we can tell Jayson’s story. That’s easy. It happened, you know, it’s, I’m not a scholar, I but I can say what happened in my life. 

And in the middle of all that, Jayson’s old baseball team, his coach who’s still coaching. We have a Jayson Pernu Opioid Awareness Day, and would you mind coming talking to the teams? So that happened, and, you know, we had special hats, and then the wheels just start spinning. You know, now, Jayson’s got this ribbon that everyone knows, and that’s on hats, and jerseys and, yeah, it just became a big awareness thing. And out of that, one of the health coaches as a health teacher, said, would you come talk to my health classes at Stillwater? And like, wow, that’s, that’s out of the box but why not? You know, I’m saying yes, yes to things now and so now I do that twice a year each semester, and, matter of fact, I go there December 5 this year, and I get to talk to this year, be like 350 kids. You know, split up between five or six classes. But it’s it. It’s just the, probably the hardest thing I do all year, and it’s, it’s just a drain, I don’t know why. You know, you tell the same story six times.

Margaret  25:08

it’s a drain because he’s your son. It’s a drain because you lost him.

Jay  25:12

And you could just tell these kids are like, holy cow, he went here, and he died. I got pictures of him with his Stillwater jersey, and you get so many good questions. It’s just, and you can tell there’s so many kids that are affected by this. It’s, you know you have a class of 50. There’s probably at least 10 that have some kind of tie to someone that they know. And they’re young kids. They have ties with this stuff already.

Margaret  25:38

So, it organically came to be. It wasn’t something you thought.

Jay  25:43

Instead of being, you know this activist were just people that make other people aware of what happened, so.

Outro: Thank you for joining us for this heartfelt conversation with Jay. As he shared the lessons he’s learned from Jayson’s story. Join me again next week as I continue my conversation with this courageous father, Jay.

Margaret  27:03

I want to thank my guest for their courage and vulnerability in sharing parts of their story. Please find resources on my website, embracefamilyrecovery.com

This is Margaret Swift Thompson, until next time, please take care of you!