A circle is completed

Looking back to where I started these Diaries, exactly a year ago, I can see the huge changes that we have made to our family situation, yet also how much work it has been.  Making the recent decision to step right back from our eldest son, Will, who began smoking cannabis at age 14 or 15, and who is now 20, has been long in coming, but I know that it is the right one for us, and for him. It still hurts though, and I can’t quite believe that we have had to do this. It is Christmas Eve; I began the Diaries exactly this time last year, a circle is completed.

Having been excluded, Will was last Christmas Eve living with his grandmother in Surrey, it was going to be our first Christmas without William living as part of our family. As I re-read that first entry I am struck by how few glimpses there are of the optimism that I used once to have when our son first began smoking cannabis. I spent most of those preceding years, before beginning to write the Diaries, genuinely believing that we could have a new beginning, and keep our family together.  Anything else was unthinkable. Even though at times I doubted my husband could do so, I was willing to forget the past, to forgive William, to begin again - so many times I announced to everyone that were going to do this, each time looking over at William as he would nod and say that was what he wanted too. Then I began to give up, and it happened a year ago.

The reason was that living life in a house which we had had to convert into a fortress was unworkable. We had bought a safe to put our valuables in, and were locking doors upstairs when we were downstairs, so that Will could not rifle through looking for cheque books to forge or anything he could sell.  But it was impossible, and exhausting, to police it all, and anyway he would still enter our other children’s bedrooms, even at night when they were asleep, taking things to sell. We were also a drug-free and smoke-free zone, and trying to police that was beginning to get to me and Guy too. We were on red-alert constantly, gearing up for the next time when we would have to be strong about some infringement, a bit like trying to run a rehab unit. (Just as in rehab, the rules were that if Will brought drugs into the house he would be excluded. Zero tolerance in action, but at a price). Our family life had become a living nightmare, and the underlying feeling that we were on our own with it all was becoming more than we could bear.

This was one of the hardest things. Our respective families were clearly confused by what was happening to us. Guy’s family seemed to be choosing to ignore that it was happening at all, which was one way of dealing with it!

On Christmas Day each year we take it in turns to host lunch – us, Guy’s older sister, and my older sister – both of our sisters are married with one son each , now 16 and 22.  Three years ago, when Will had just turned 17, I went to my sister’s house for the celebrations with my hand in bandages.  Guy’s sister and brother-in-law seemed not to notice, and didn’t ask me about it. You could hardly miss it! My hand was bandaged tightly and I was still in a sling. I was wounded by their lack of concern. Guy’s mother had been shocked, but assured me that William had explained everything to her, and that it had been an accident. That became the fixed reality for her – an accident.

What had happened was that William had flown into a rage a week before Christmas, and begun trashing the house when I refused to give him the allowance we had agreed on (with the proviso that he must go to college each day). He had lain in bed for the previous days, stoned and refusing to go, so I told him that his allowance for that week was suspended. When I had tried to leave the house to get away from him he raged after me, slamming the heavy Victorian door on me as I passed through it, catching my hand. It was only when I was sitting in the car,  thinking I would drive away, that I realised that my index finger on my right hand was badly split and oozing blood. Looking down at the steering wheel I could see large red drops forming on the hard plastic.

Our next door neighbour was on the street as this was all happening. As I had walked down the pathway after the door had been slammed on me, he asked me if I was alright. ‘Fine’ I said. (What am I saying? But I couldn’t tell him what was happening or ask for help because I was so ashamed. After all, this is a nice neighbourhood. That man was something big in banking, and everyone knew that he had recently paid over a million quid for that house.) Holding my bleeding hand up to stop in dripping, I wondered what my new neighbour made of all of this, and then, looking up, saw William sit down heavily, arms crossed, on the car bonnet in front of me.

Curiously, my sister in law had rung in the middle of it all too. William had breathlessly answered the phone, as it rang in the hallway, panting due to his rage.  

‘Oh, hi, Martha, yes we’re fine. Really? Great. Yes, okay, thanks then, sure. Bye’, he was smiling, trying to catch his breath and had even laughed at something she had said, really polite. (She later said that she thought she had phoned in the middle of an orgy.)

Martha was calling.  The phone. Maybe I should call the police, but not on your own son, that was impossible.  William had sounded almost normal then, as he talked to his aunt, surely he would stop now. But he didn’t – he began again – swiping more things from the hall-way tables. I retreated into our front room, closing the door heavily behind me, and prayed that he would calm down. I could hear Jack, who was then 14, talking to William.

‘Hey, just calm down, what are you doing? Stop it, leave mum alone. She’s my mum too. Leave her alone, what’s the matter with you. Stop it!’

William forced open the door to the front room, pushing hard; I was behind it trying to keep it shut. Retreating to the sofa, I held my head in my hands as I became sure he was going to strike me. It was then I decided to escape and then the ‘accident’ happened.

Later in A & E, I apologised to the nurse, who cleaned me up, for not being able to stop crying. She said she understood, I’d had a terrible shock. She asked how old my son was, and I told her.

‘You don’t have to have him in the house, you know. He’s seventeen, you can ask him to leave.’

I wasn’t sure she was right, but I was glad of the sympathy, although it made me cry more. When I got home hours later, Will had gone. He had borrowed money off Jack and scarpered. We didn’t see him for days after that.

I’d been sure, at the time, that it would be a turning point: that William had crossed an invisible line and would be so shocked by what had happened that we would be able to have a new beginning. How naïve I was, and how little I knew about addiction. I knew no-one else that this was happening to. I wasn’t convinced you could even be addicted to cannabis, although I was aware that there were stronger strains available now to when we were at college. I had little understanding of the risks to mental health of smoking in teen years, only what I’d read in the newspapers. I just wanted our son to stop and for our lives to be peaceful once more.

It was after this that we insisted that William went to counselling with us. We made an appointment to see our family counsellor, who we knew quite well, both our eldest children had been to see her – William about his phobia over injections and Jack after he had been mugged twice, which had affected his confidence. The counsellor was a woman in her thirties, of West Indian origin, working in an inner city environment: I felt sure that she could help us in relation to our fears around William’s cannabis use. But she admitted to me at the first session that she knew nothing about cannabis, and urged me to look to other things to focus on that might be going on in our family. When I mentioned my hand having been damaged in the door, she also gently asked me when I would stop mentioning it, so we could look at other things.

Three years ago. Things didn’t get better, there were many false ‘new beginnings’ which really only happened in my own personal reality and  in no-one else’s.  We are now estranged from our son, and our extended family is in tatters too. This is the first Christmas in the 20 years since Guy and I have been married, that we have not all spent Christmas Day together. But that is impossible this year.

My sister has always been understanding about William, and over the years has taken to calling him ‘a little shit, because that is what he is’, and her anger and support has been good for all of us.

My mother in law has recently been attempting to get William reunited with us, as you will know if you have been following the recent Diary entries. Guy has been firm, asking her to stop meddling.

‘We don’t like having our strings pulled’ he recently told her.

A mistake I made was to tell her on the telephone last month- when she asked me what I expected from my son – that William should fulfill his promises after coming into a considerable sum of money.

I expected him to do what he’d said, I told her – to replace the necklace he had stolen from me and sold, and to give us the cheque he had promised, for a thousand pounds, as a gesture of recompense for the amounts he has stolen from us over the years.  I’d told her that his excuses were that he had bought me a replacement necklace but it had been stolen, and that he had no chequebook. I expected her to sigh, and agree with me that this was probably more lies. What she did say was that she had a chequebook. She also mentioned that she knew that Guy and I liked apologies in writing.  What did that mean, I wondered? What is it with her, she comes across as an intelligent woman who can talk about most subjects and appear normal, why can’t she accept that Will needs to take responsibility here? It’s surely obvious that we don’t want money from her, or anything material from her, that’s not the point, we want Will to begin to put things right himself. We’ve told her this repeatedly. What part of it is so difficult to understand? Christ!

Guy’s birthday came: 22nd November (Will’s birthday would be following on the 24th). Guy left for work before the post arrived.

I was happy to see a brown envelope arrive, with Guy’s name on the front hand-written by William. He had remembered his father’s birthday! It was a thick packet too, so maybe a cheque would be in there. That’s great, I thought, we are getting somewhere! There were also other cards too, one bearing his mother’s writing.

Guy rang later to say he was on his way home. I told him, brightly, about Will having remembered his birthday, feeling relieved that I had good news about Will for once.

‘Is there one from my mother aswell?’ he asked.

‘Yes’

‘Look at the franking on both of them, I’ll bet they are the same’.

Sighing, I picked up both the letters to compare the stamps and frankmarks, wondering why Guy should be cynical about this. Will had remembered that should be enough, shouldn’t it? But both the letters bore the same Kingston- on- Thames franking.

‘They’re both the same’ I said slowly and quietly. ‘Posted in Kingston at the same time.’

‘Sorry, Deb, but I know my mother too well. They probably all met up in Kingston, my sister and mum’s old stomping ground, she’ll have stood over Will while he wrote it all. I’m not going to open it, there’ll be a cheque in there but you can bet your bottom dollar that my mother’s behind it all. Will wouldn’t do anything without her behind him. They’ve cooked this up themselves, I’m not interested. ’

‘Oh’ I said into the phone, far away now, staring at both letters again, comparing the stamps again, disappointment in my voice.

‘I’ll send it back to her, I don’t want it’ he was saying.

That is what he did too. Alex opened the envelope later when Guy came home. There was a birthday card, a long well-written letter from William wishing his father a happy birthday and apologising for being an awful son, and a cheque for £500 from a building society in Kingston, purporting to be from William but not drawn on an account of his.

‘Seal it up again, I don’t want any of it’ Guy said, slipping off his jacket and hanging it on the back of a kitchen chair.

We sang happy birthday and Guy blew out candles. Make a wish! I could guess what Guy was wishing for.

He sent Will’s letter to his mother the next day, with a type written letter politely telling her to butt out: to give up meddling because we would never have Will back and that was that.

William rang the next day. He was with Grandma he said. I could hear her saying something in the background. Here we go again. Oh god, had they got the letter back when they were both together then? How appropriate! Instant karma in action!

‘Did Dad get the letter I sent?’ Will sounded strong and upbeat.

Oh, it would appear they hadn’t got the letter then.

‘You’ll have to ask him.’

‘I just want to know if he got the letter and card I sent him, surely you know that ? With the cheque for £500 I sent? Ring any bells?’

‘Look, I’m not getting involved, you’ll have to ask him.’

‘Oh, well okay I will, I just want to know if he got it that’s all. Surely you can say? Anyway I’m down here with Grandma, I didn’t want to be alone on my birthday. My family doesn’t want to know me…’

‘So, do you have an address, there are birthday cards that have come for you and I can post them on.’

‘No, I don’t. I have moved, but I don’t know the address yet’.

Come again? More fantasy from Will-land.

‘I’ve got a necklace here for you, I’m going to leave it here with Grandma unless you’d like to meet up.’

‘I’m guessing Grandma bought it, Will, do you think I’m stupid? I don’t want it. I don’t want to meet either. But have a lovely birthday on Saturday, look after each other’ I said, feeling my heart open as I said these last few words, really meaning what I said.

A necklace eh? I told Guy later and he smiled saying that I need to understand just how literal his mother will have taken my words.

‘You say you want a cheque and a necklace, so she sorts it, meddling cow.’

My mother in law rang me later that day apologising for upsetting me a few days before by asking for Will to come back and live with us. She obviously had still not got the letter that had been sent back.

‘Look, let me give you some advice, Caroline.’ I said ‘You are going to have to be more dispassionate about Will. You need to step back more, and be more of an observer, rather than getting sucked into his world and then trying to fix things here. Stop trying to save him because you can’t do that,  only he can save himself. There was an interview in the paper about one of the Rolling Stones who said he would have kicked his addiction long before, if he hadn’t had people always trying to bail him out, and it’s the same with Will. And there is no way that we can have him back, we have two other children to look after don’t you see that? You are also going to lose your own son if you carry on like this. I’m serious about that – listen to what I’m saying. You are going to lose your own son, and that would be awful wouldn’t it?’

I knew that the letter would arrive back on her door mat the next day, and wanted to warn her without spelling out what Guy had done.

I cried all day the next day I anticipation of Will’s birthday, knowing that I had no intention of remembering it in the sense of sending him anything this year, nor of seeing him. He was going to be 20. I was in pain about Guy’s family too, why they had decided long ago to pin their colours to Will’s mast. It wasn’t fair. My parents had both died when I was a child; I suppose I always wanted a close extended family because of that, and now we were in dispute, and not communicating properly – all over Will who had chosen a highly destructive pathway. And yet it was we who were being punished by the attitudes of Guy’s sister and mother. One was ignoring our pain and the other was trying to add to it.

Exactly a year ago, on Christmas Day at my sister’s, Caroline had told us that her friends thought it was ‘disgusting ‘ that her grandson shouldn’t be with his family at Christmas. We had had Will back soon after, only to return to the chaos that had convinced us to exclude him previously. She didn’t have our family’s best interests in mind. She wanted to paper over the cracks, to please her and her bridge friends perhaps, with no thought to the trauma that we have all been through – including three people who are her own flesh and blood -  her son and two other grandchildren. It was hard to understand, and my pain at being estranged from my own first-born was compounded by this behaviour.

Alex, 13, began to be ill again at the end of last month. He vomited at school, and I was asked to go in and bring him home. Alex goes to the same independent boys’ school that Will attended. Alex was ill the next day too, and then said that he was sorry he had to go into school the next day either.

‘You’re lucky, you can stay here. I feel safe when I’m here with you’ he said.

‘Safe? How do you mean – that you don’t feel safe at school still? They asked that boy to leave though, Alex – the one who was dealing cannabis in your year. At least they did that, thank goodness. The head of your year came to the Briefing too, that’s an improvement, they are doing something about the drug thing you know.’

‘Yes, well I still don’t think it’s enough. Boys are bragging about dope, saying on the coach that they can point the younger boys in the right direction to get it. It makes me sick, school say they want to change things round drugs, but they don’t. Just expelling that boy is not enough, they’ve missed out on really making a difference. So many of them are stoned there. It’s a big competitive school, mum, and I don’t feel safe’.

I was standing in the kitchen, staring at Alex who was sitting at the kitchen table looking down at his hands as he spoke. My beautiful boy, this massive boy who at thirteen looked more like sixteen – who made me tingle when he spoke, he was so articulate in the way he expressed himself. His unique gift. I remembered the effect he had had on the audience at the Briefing, and how many of us had tears in our eyes as he had stood in Parliament telling his story of living with an addicted  brother.

Taking the stairs two at a time up to my study, I emailed his school immediately, reporting that the dope-smokers were in confident mood and warning them that I would be looking for an alternative school for my son, saying that history would not be repeated in our family. I reminded them that our eldest son’s addiction had begun when in their care. Mary Brett and I had been asked to go into the school to talk to the Deputy Master and head of Middle School about the possibility of going in to talk to the parents and boys. That had been a month previously, and we had heard nothing back. I began to wonder where their manners were in not responding and giving us an answer either way.

The Head of the Middle School had surprised me at our meeting by saying that they had an outside agency who was employed to come in and talk to the boys.

‘Alex will have told you about it’ he said, turning to me.

‘No, he hasn’t mentioned anything’ I said, puzzled.

I later asked Alex about this company – Red Threads.

‘No, we’ve had one 35 minute lesson on cannabis given by our PHSE teacher in the whole time I’ve been there. That’s not enough.’

After the email I sent to the school, I was summoned by the Master of the school to go in and see him urgently. At least I had a response. Alex, meanwhile, had become ill again and was at home. We talked again, and I asked him how he would feel about not going back. He looked up at me and in his eyes I could see a brightness that hadn’t been there for some time. For the first time he said that he’d like to leave and go to another school. ‘Where I can be myself’ he said. He explained to me that he had held back from getting too involved in anything because Will had been in the same school House, and been active and popular, and that part of him was worried that if he did the same he too would be pressurised to take drugs and then what?

‘I’m surrounded by boys who all look like William, how can I work for my house to get the house tie when all I remember is Will wearing that when he was being such an idiot at home. You can see it in the eyes of the boys there, they are stoned and the school does nothing.’

We talked for a long time. I then began phoning other schools to see how the land lay. Alex said he wanted to go to a co-ed school. My sister, who had been a teacher, agreed that it was obvious that Alex liked the company of girls and even if that was the only reason he went to school, at least it was a reason. He had to start going to school, again, we both agreed.

My meeting with the Master of the school was unpleasant. Guy had warned me that it may be ‘charm offensive’. I had hinted in my emails to them that I may begin writing more openly about the school and its drug problems. There was no charm offensive, merely a defensive wall that was almost palpable as Guy and I walked into the Master’s huge office. The last time I had been in there was for a meeting concerning one of the teachers who had been fired after ‘debagging’ boys on a field trip to France.

The Master was in grim mood, telling me that they were doing all they could, that their drugs policy was working and they were satisfied with that. When I told them that Alex had no knowledge of Red Threads, the outside agency who I had been told was giving lectures to boys, and that he had had only had a 35 minute class on cannabis, given by a member of staff, I was told that I must be confused – this was a future arrangement and had not yet happened. 

Alex never returned to school. One positive from the meeting was that the Master agreed to waive next term’s fees if we decided to take Alex away. He had smiled then.

I found Alex another school within two weeks. He’s even done a trial day there. A good friend of mine recommended the school to me – she said she could see Alex there, that her kids were happy there. We were in Greenwich Park walking our dogs on a freezing morning. I listened to her, and smiled, glad of her friendship. This was the same friend who had recommended I pitch the Cannabis Diaries to The Guardian last spring. I followed her advice then – and look what happened! Without that the Parental Action Group may never have been formed. She is an important guide to me, I told her recently, and she laughed saying that she also told me not to get a dog and I did and look what a great success that had turned out to be! I smiled, and said that she couldn’t always be right but on two important occasions she had been.

Lily, our puppy, is now ten months old. This will be her first Christmas with us and I’ve bought her a doggy stocking and a bone for tomorrow. I have no experience with dogs, but knew that having her would be a healing experience for all of us. I didn’t know how, but I knew that it would be. She has helped me get over William. Without her, having to look after her, walking her irrespective of what the weather is doing, has been good for me. She loves me with an intensity that I have not experienced since the birth of William, who as a baby was so close to me. I suppose having a baby is the nearest you ever get to being One with anyone, because for 40 weeks you are just that – one.

The sadness of the loss of him has been healed. I now care little whether he returns to us or not.  I’m too busy to care. The web-site has been a huge success; I feel I have a reason to do the work I am doing, because I know that it has helped so many other families. I look forward to 2008, knowing that we have much work to do – I and the other parents who have gathered around me, determined to do something about the misery that smoking cannabis can bring to families when children begin to smoke in childhood and teen years. I am grateful to William for the story that he has given me to write – without it I would never have begun these Diaries, and many people would still be in the wilderness, believing that it was somehow their fault that their children began to change. ‘It’s not us, it’s the drugs stupid!’ – to quote one father who wrote to me after reading extracts in the Guardian.

I wish every one of you a very Happy Christmas. Thanks to everyone who has shared their story with us, and to everyone who has supported Talking About Cannabis in our first year.

From my heart to yours.

Debra

PS Last weekend Guy and I returned from Ireland, after celebrating a friend’s birthday there, to find a letter addressed to William. Guy opened it. William is not allowed to use our address for correspondence, and has been told so repeatedly. It was a letter from a loss adjustor on behalf of Boots the Chemist. Will was caught shop-lifting at one of their London stores on December 10, it would appear. The company was seeking to recover over £80.00 in damages from Will, separate to any criminal prosecution it said.

The next day I sent the letter back to them, explaining that Will no longer lives at this address and has not done so since last February. For a couple of days after I was close to tears almost permanently, angry and ashamed that my son was still stealing, that he is still causing chaos in the world. How dare he involve us too by using our address? One of my first thoughts though, was to send a copy of the letter to Guy’s mother, as proof that our decision not to have Will in our midst again is the right one. Putting her case for having him back to live with us she had said to me that he had changed, and she was certain he would never steal again, that he had put his past behind him. Well, clearly he hasn’t changed, so we have had to do so instead.

We are not seeing William nor Guy’s family this Christmas. Presents have arrived. There is one to me from my mother in law. It looks as if it  contains a  box that might house a necklace………………….

© Debra Bell 2007