Welcome to the Embrace Family Recovery Podcast, where we explore the challenges and resilience of families impacted by addiction. Today we return to Jay who courageously shares his story of navigating his son’s battle with addiction and the devastating aftermath of his death from fentanyl.
Together, we delve into the complexities of parenting a child with addiction, the painful questions of what could have been done differently, and the vital role of self-compassion in the healing process. We also tackle the stigma surrounding addiction, how anger can shape grief, and the importance of support and understanding for families walking this difficult path.
Through this heartfelt conversation, Jay reveals how he has channeled his grief into advocacy, raising awareness about the realities of addiction and the importance of community in healing. Join us as we honor the memory of those lost and learn how to find strength, connection, and hope amid heartbreak.
Click here to grab your copy of Healthy Strategies for Family Members to Cope and Even Thrive Through Addiction and receive my weekly newsletter.
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.
Welcome back! Today I continue my conversation with Jay, a father whose life was forever changed by the loss of his son Jayson to the disease of addiction. Jay shares his honest reflections on navigating the complexities of loving someone with the disease of addiction, the lessons he’s learned through grief, and the transformative power of grace. Let’s get back to Jay.
The Embrace Family Recovery Podcast.
Margaret 01:08
You honor your son too in sharing his story of a disease he battled, a disease he struggled with, and one that sadly took his life. And destigmatizing it and showing up as a father who admits I was at a loss. I didn’t know what to do. And so, if I can speak to you and give you some of my awareness on Jayson’s story to help you moving forward with knowledge, what a gift you give those kids.
Jay 01:36
Yeah, it’s a good feeling to talk to the kids while you’re talking there. I just thought of the question they always ask is, what would you have done differently? Everyone asks that. Every class asked that. And it’s a hard question, it’s and it comes back to what you said earlier. Is, if you know, if I’d known, then what I know now, I would have done a lot of things differently, but I learned to give myself grace that I did what I could at the time. You know, you just beat yourself up as a father saying, you know, I should do this or this. I should have known this, but we had lives too, or trying to hold jobs and, you know, that kind of thing.
Margaret 02:18
And you didn’t know what you were dealing with for a long time.
Jay 02:22
And yeah, the hard, I think the hardest person to give grace to is yourself. You know, I can give grace to, you know, whoever gave him the fentanyl that he died from, and they probably got the same problem he had. And that, that’s one thing, like we’re talking earlier. I just can’t go over after those people, you know, it’s who knows where they were and if it was someone that was giving kids multiple kids, Fentanyl but it’s probably a friend or something. And I kind of know, but it doesn’t matter.
Margaret 02:53
Well, and who knows if they knew what was in the product.
Jay 02:57
No they, they most likely didn’t. As a matter of fact, when he passed away, when the paramedics were here and stuff, they were like, it’s most likely fentanyl. And we’ve, we’ve just lost like 10 in the area, like within the last week. So, there was something going around.
Margaret 03:13
When those kids asked you what you would have done different, do you give them an answer similar to what you just shared with what I know now.
Jay 03:22
Yeah, the biggest thing, after thinking about it for four years, and I get better at answering it, but I probably would have loved him more you know, instead of fought with him during that time. I just didn’t know that these would be like the last months or days or minutes, and we were just surviving and kind of speaking for myself, feeling sorry for myself, what I was going through, and I knew he was going through hard times, but I just didn’t know how hard. And I tell them that I don’t think, I don’t know if I could have changed the outcome. I probably couldn’t have, especially with fentanyl and what that does today. But yeah, if I were, if I could have just, you know, told him a few things and but you know, thats that opportunity is gone now, except for in prayer. But he knows, he knows.
Margaret 04:14
He knows, you know, oh, Jay, you’re one of the most loving fathers I’ve met. I also understand that when you are in it, you know hindsight is what it is, and you just, you’re doing what you can to survive and support and love. But I hear you. I hear from families. The whole concept of detaching with love is confusing for people, right? They’re like, how do I show my love without enabling. And my answer to that is it’s, how do I show up with love, knowing I can’t fix, and knowing my kids in there somewhere and hold boundaries against the disease? Because that’s important, and it’s tough. It’s this is not an easy journey. I haven’t met anyone who’s been. On this journey who’s found it easy because it’s not simple. It’s not black and white, it’s not ,it’s counterintuitive, right? It’s counterintuitive to any other illness he might have had.
Jay 05:11
Yeah, yeah. It’s, I remember, I remember hugging him once, and I was just saying, I still want to, you know, I want to bowl with you when I’m older, I want to play golf with you. I want to do all this and, we had some good moments. And he, you know, I love you dad, and but you’re still judging him. You’re like, is he just saying that because he wants something or it’s just a bad place to be in, you know, you can’t even experience things like that fully like you should.
Margaret 05:39
So, so again, my language. So, when I’m hearing the I love you’s, when I’m having those moments of connection, the Monkey Chatter is saying, well, is this just a bunch of hooey? He’s going to rob me; he’s going to manipulate me. Does he really mean it? Is it, right? And on his side of it is, I believe, those moments where I will not use, I love you. Those commitments that are made are intended and meant from their heart. What then happens is the disease takes over, if they’re not in care, and tells them they can’t survive without me. You know what I mean. And so, it’s this double-edged sword that both sides are struggling with. The other thing is, have you ever considered that Jayson wondered if maybe you could still possibly love him when he’d stolen everything, he had from you?
Jay 06:24
Oh, yeah, yeah, I thought that a lot, you know, and especially showing anger and stuff, it’s like, we’re back to shame again. But how can you possibly believe and care about me, you know? But, yeah, I tell the kids, when he passed away, he actually passed away in this room, like, about six feet away. But I remember the anger I had, and then when I realized he was gone, it was like, I mean, just instantly, like a switch, it turned to compassion as it was like, what did this poor kid go through? It was all the things and the in the police coming over and this and that, it just went out the window. It was like what this poor kid lived like this and then as your grief goes on and the days go by, it just builds, and you just keep thinking of instances, and how could he possibly have dealt with all this and even survived as long as he did, and it’s just really hard to comprehend, you know, where he was at. And, yeah, just, it’s just hard to know that your son was there, you know,
Margaret: Right?
Jay: And probably the harder part in this is, I talked to some I know a parent that has a son that’s dealing with this, and she is right where I was, angry, and she doesn’t care what happens to him. And I keep trying to tell it, just love him, you know, just that’s all you can do. He’s going to lie. He’s going but that’s all he can do, you know, that’s all he knows how to do to not be dope sick, you know, have withdrawal pains, that kind of thing. That’s all he knows. And you try to get through to him, and maybe it does a little bit, but.
Margaret 08:09
Yeah, and I think that to your point, the anger, you know, when we’re living in that place, and I dealt with it with a partner in a very different way. But when I was living in that place, my anger, I tried really hard not to show him because I was trying to protect him, but that anger fueled me to keep going when I didn’t know what else I was going to do. I think anger serves a purpose. Yes, it’s destructive at times. Yes, it pushes people away, but it gives us energy to keep surviving in a situation that feels like a crisis, perpetual war zone,
Jay 08:42
Yeah, it keeps you from curling up in a ball and just existing. Yeah, you got to have some fight in you. Otherwise, right? You’ve lost.
Margaret 08:52
I just wish we could direct it at the disease and stop letting it get off scott free, instead of each other, right. Instead of me or instead of my person could I put it at a disease? Could I find an outlet that gives me that opportunity because I think that’s where it gets to be hurtful, and then you live as you share in sadness.
Jay 09:12
Yeah, yeah. Well, the thing that probably bothers me most today is how people still don’t understand addiction and that horrible stigma that goes with it, and that they want to be that way, and it was their choice, and it was. You know, I’ve talked to people that had wisdom teeth taken out, and they’re addicted now, and it’s there’s a lot of people that didn’t want to but even if you go to, let’s say you’re a high school kid at a party, and you find, you know, some kind of pill, and you know, they didn’t want to become addicted. They just wanted to take the pill and see what it did. It’s nobody wants to be addicted. Nobody. I can’t imagine anybody does.
Margaret: I agree wholwheartedly.
Jay: People don’t understand that, and that’s why things aren’t getting done today. That’s why I’m not saying it would take everything off the streets, but that’s why people are slow to react. It’s and the other thing that scares me is families, because of who they are, how they brought their kids up. Some brought them up, stellar. But, you know, no one’s immune to it. It’s just it happens so often to so many people, and you don’t want people to live scared, but you want to them to be aware anyways,
Margaret: Right?
Jay: That it can’t happen, and if it doesn’t happen to them, you know, give grace to the people it does happen to.
Margaret 10:32
I agree, and I’ve said it before. I’ll say it again. I’ve had a former supervisor who said, who amongst us did not audition for the part of addiction.
Jay: Yeah
Margaret: Most of us have,
Jay: Yeah.
Margaret: I did. I ended up getting it in a different form, but I tried with substances. I didn’t go out to be an addict, but I certainly dabbled in alcohol at a young age, and thankfully, my need to control kept me going down that path because I didn’t like to feel out of control, and watching people be drunk and stupid was a turn off. So, it was like, okay, that ain’t going to happen for me. But I went down another path with food that I denied for decades, and so I think that’s a really great way to look at it, that who amongst us take the judgment off the plate, who amongst us hasn’t auditioned in some form and only by the grace of higher power, if I don’t have the illness, do I not get it.
Jay 11:26
Yeah exactly. I struggle with that when I talk to the high schools, because I want to say, yeah, I drank, I did this, I did that, but and I kind of lay off it a little bit. But kids know, you know, they know how the world works, how their parents, you know, have beers and stuff. But what I try to tell them is, today it’s a lot different. Maybe when I was in high school, I had a beer, but today you have a Xanax laced with fentanyl, and it’s one and done. It’s
Margaret: Right.
Jay: yeah, no, no replay. You’re gone, and that, that’s a scary part to me. So, addiction has taken an evil turn.
Margaret 12:00
Yeah, as it always does. I mean, yeah, we go through a decade, and we have something new that just gets worse or causes trauma in different ways. I mean, meth did a number in rural communities around this country, and it was easy to make, and it was cheap, and it was killing people, right? So, like, there’s just, sadly, evolutions amongst the properties that are created that create newer consequences. And we’re in now the fentanyl opiate stage, and it’s devastating. The one consistent through them all, Jay though, is alcohol. It keeps, keeps doing damage for, for many, many people every day.
Jay 12:39
Yay, I totally agree. It’s, it’s, it’s, I don’t know you call it, it’s, it’s kind of one of those starter drugs that lead you to bigger and worse things. But, yeah, alcohol is and alcohol so widely accepted, and I do take some time to talk about advertising with alcohol. And my whole thing is, like, addiction, opioids and stuff. But it’s just, I always talk about, like these MC Ultra commercials and stuff, and they show everyone all buff and stuff and I tell them that they know that you’re not dumb enough to believe that that’s going to make you a good athlete or but there’s other things in that advertising that just hook you and you don’t realize it. There’s so many subliminal things and, and there’s nothing pretty about it.
Margaret: No, no,
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Margaret 15:23
So, with the journey Jayson had for the eight or nine years, did he have any periods of sobriety, any times in there where he was able to journey into the recovery world?
Jay 15:38
Little bit, little spots here and there we had, I remember not the Christmas before he passed, but the Christmas before that was just an awesome time, and probably the best family time we’ve had and but you might have to help me with this, because I keep forgetting, is it suboxone that you can take that?
Margaret 15:58
Yes, people abuse Suboxone, and have attempted to abuse Suboxone, if it is tapered and at the right level, it can offer people a quality of life where they’re not going into withdrawal and they’re not high, and they’re able to manage life and do it differently.
Jay 16:13
Right? And back then, they hadn’t come that far. I mean, they probably knew all that, but it was so hard to get back. Then it was like, no, you can’t have that. And, and so he get that on the street and, and he was very normal when he was doing that. And, you know, we didn’t know when he was doing it or but you could tell it was different. But, yeah, there were a few times, but not, not a lot. I mean, if there were times, they were short lived.
Margaret 16:42
Did you and or any of your family members engage in recovery for yourself along the journey of those eight or nine years?
Jay 16:52
You know, Vicky and myself went to Quest 180 which is a program at our church, Eagle Brook church, and it was for families that had kids that were addicted. And, you know, how do you deal with that? And yeah, it was, it was okay, but, but Jayson was still with us, and it was just hard to see how some of these families were just perhaps worse off than we were. I mean, they had some had three, four kids that they didn’t know where they were at the time, and were like, how do they even survive? And it was just, we eventually dropped out, it’s a great program, but we just like, it was just too hard for us to see that and deal with what we had. And yeah, when Jayson was alive, yeah, we that’s probably the biggest thing we did.
Margaret 17:42
And you seem to have, since he passed, gravitated towards support communities differently than you did prior to him passing. Is that accurate, or am I making that up?
Jay 17:59
Yeah, as far as yeah, awareness and yeah, we didn’t do it while he was addicted and with us. You know, for one thing, a lot of lot of them, we didn’t think were working. You know, he was here, he went here, he went here and they weren’t working. And I don’t blame any of them. He just wasn’t a spot where they’re going to work. But yeah, afterwards is when we gravitated more towards the different things. Like Adult Teen Challenge was a place he tried. Was going to get in he never did. But I think they do amazing things, and we’ve done a lot with them.
Margaret 18:35
And it is also, you know, our paths cross. Do a panel you’re on, sharing about your grief journey, and it feels like you really leaned into the community of people who’ve lost someone to this illness as a support to navigate the grief journey.
Jay 18:53
Yeah, afterwards, I think the panel I was on was with Gloria, who, you know, Gloria and Bob England. And I think the way we met her as I picked up her book and somehow found out she’s got this grief community. And so, we went to, you know, a class on that, and in the middle of that, Bob was trying to reach out to males who, you know, you don’t see that anywhere. It’s always either a mixed group or females. And so, he was developing this program with just males, which I still do today. We meet tomorrow night again, Gloria and Bob and the whole group. And just a wonderful, wonderful thing to be involved with. And there’s so many sad stories there. And I think the thing that awakened us is the same things were happening them, that were happening to us, that almost step by step by step, things missing, or you could they’re not always exactly the same, but it just amazed me how close our stories were with others that experienced family members with addiction.
Margaret: Right?
Jay: And yeah, then we well, we didn’t speak about when I first saw you at Hazelden, and that was during Jayson’s month long stay. And yeah, there’s a family class, right? And I was there, and that’s where I first met you, and first learned of Monkey Chatter. But, you know, I’ll gloss over that, but when we’re at this panel you’re talking about, then that’s where we met in the lobby. And I’m like, man, I know her from somewhere, and, and I think you thought I was one of the families that was coming, not one of the speakers.
Margaret: Yeah,
Jay: and we got to go talking in a hey, you’re the Monkey Chatter lady, yeah. So, it was just awesome to see you again there.
Margaret 20:50
As it was you Jay, because I think that I might have even said it that night, when you work in the world of a treatment center, you don’t get a lot of updates, and when you do, they’re usually sad, and to see you there continuing your own healing journey after what is a loss that’s incomprehensible to accept as a person who’s not experienced, it like how would you do it? How do you do it? But then to have the grace that you had to say that you had a different relationship with Jayson, with the education you received at a Family Program, was really quite profound, as a person who does their very best to teach anyone, anywhere on the journey, but knows that this is a potential life taking disease. That grace astounded me, still hits me hard, because I always, as I asked you around the opiates go to would I be God willing, God forbid, God everything, be able to be as gracious, or would I be wanting to find somewhere to put my blame or get angry at? Because that would be energy providing when I feel like I couldn’t maybe make the next step. Does that make sense? I don’t even know what I said.
Jay 22:13
No, yeah. I know what you’re talking about, but I don’t know. I don’t want to take credit for the paths I take, or anything like that. It’s I’m not special. It’s just the way it happened. And, you know, and a lot of credit goes to my wife, and that’s another thing I realized reading and all that, is how hard something like this is on a relationship. There’s blame. There’re very high incidents of divorce and somehow, we just leaned in to each other
Margaret: Beautiful.
Jay: you know. And I think a lot of it was the struggle that we experienced before he passed. So, we’re kind of used to and we had to figure it out, you know. Are we, am I going to blame her for what’s happening to Jason or are we going to fight together and try to and, man, she, she’s just been a rock star. She hasn’t been as vocal as I have, but, but she, she’s there, and she’s, if she’s prompted to talk, she goes, and it’s, it’s, it’s fun to watch her go. And yeah, I think we had the same beliefs. We’re just like, I think she gets a little madder at like, if she watches Dope Sick, or what’s it called, again,
Margaret: Painkillers.
Jay: Painkillers, she gets mad. She’s like, well, if I saw Matthew Broderick, who’s, you know, one of the Sacklers, one of the main characters, let him have it, and she probably would.
Margaret 23:38
Well, in the and the piece is, is, I feel that way, and I’m not where you two sit, so amazes me, and I’m glad for you, because I don’t think it would help, right? But I also get why people get that is their passion, like, I can’t change what happened to my loved one, but by God, I’m going after anything and everything I can to make a difference and change something. And it sounds like your approach and your wife’s approach is organically paying homage to Jayson, sharing his story, and fundraising, and raising awareness and destigmatizing is the path the two of you have taken through your shop, and the wall, and the conversations, and the speaking, and the annual event.
Jay 24:21
Yeah, yeah. I mean, I don’t blame anyone that wants to go after someone lose a child, that’s the hardest to lose a child is the hardest thing in the world. And they took something that’s near and dear to you, and sometimes maybe it was, could have been Jayson’s choice, I don’t know, but whoever did it, you know is wrong, and you want to, especially the opioid thing in general, you know that that’s just, just wrong. I mean, the way they spread opioids across the US, but it’s just the fight that, like I said, we don’t have the energy to win, and it’s not worth it. It’s just. Life short, and someday we’ll be together again, and we’ll be glad we didn’t fight that fight. You know?
Margaret: Yeah.
Jay: We spent our times honoring him rather than being mad at someone else.
Margaret: Yeah.
Outro: Join me next week when I conclude my conversation with Jay and we discuss the importance of support and community following loss.
Margaret 26:30
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!
