SALEM — The day you learn your child is an addict, your life changes forever.
Fear and guilt and anger and other people’s ignorance sever you from the world you knew. Maybe, before, you had your own life. You decided how your days would go; imagined a future. Not now. Now, you belong to heroin, almost as completely as your child does — the child to whom you always gave everything, thinking that would save her from this.
When your kid is using, or trying not to, all you can do is pray, and wait. And hope like crazy that the call you fear most doesn’t come.
“There will not be a night for the rest of my life that I won’t dread that phone call,’’ said Alice, whose son, 22, began using heroin in college four years ago.
Unless you’re living it, the sufferingis unimaginable. Friends and relatives fall away. If your kid had cancer, they’d be bringing you casseroles. Instead, they avoid the topic. They avoid you. Or worse, they judge you, assuming this happened because you failed as a parent. Even now, with the opiate abuse crisis finally being seen for the epidemic it is, plenty of people still don’t get it.
And so, on Thursday night, Alice and 60 other unlucky souls were gathered in a conference room at Salem Hospital, at their weekly Learn To Cope support group. The Massachusetts network for families dealing with addiction had just a few of these groups six years ago. Now there are 23, and that’s not nearly enough. On this night alone, the Salem group welcomed 11 new members. For 90 minutes a week, they get to be in room full of people who know what they feel.
“My son relapsed,’’ said a dark-haired woman. He was kicked out of rehab, and she refused to take him back into her home. He is 31, and has been using opiates for 10 years, relapsing 10 times. “Every time he screws up, I’m getting stronger,’’ she said. “Last night, he was so high I just felt like slugging him.’’
A child on heroin forces gut-wrenching choices. Lorraine and Wayne, who run the Salem meeting, had their son “sectioned’’ — forced into treatment by the courts — 15 years ago, when he was 19. His sobriety didn’t last. A few years ago, her son called begging for $20, and Lorraine refused. He was so desperate he tried to rob a bank, and was sent to prison. Lorraine beat herself up for not giving him the money — until a friend pointed out that the hit he bought with her cash could have been the one to kill him.
One woman’s daughter — 24 and pregnant with twins — was sent to jail in Florida on a domestic abuse charge. Her mother fought her every instinct and refused to bail her out.
“She said, ‘I can’t believe you’re doing this to your pregnant daughter,’?’’ she said.
Her daughter’s medical bills will cost her parents “thousands and thousands and thousands of dollars,’’ the woman said, and the others groaned with recognition. Many of them have drained savings accounts to cover attorneys, medical emergencies, rehab facilities. They’ve spent countless hours calling around for treatment beds and dealing with health insurance. Their kids have nothing to give them in return, except reason for worry.
“I almost feel like his soul is dead,’’ said another woman of her son, a 19-year-old who was arrested for statutory rape last week. The arrest allowed his parents to force him into rehab. He sounds better, his mother said, but she can’t trust him.
On and on the gut-wrenching updates went, all delivered by sweet, loving people who would not be out of place at a PTA meeting. That’s what they wish everybody could understand. They’re good parents. They raised nice kids. If addiction can rip apart their families, it can rip apart anyone’s.
A parole supervisor visited Lorraine and Wayne recently. He seemed pleased to find that the home their son will return to after his release in April is safe and loving.
“But this is the home where he grew up,’’ Lorraine said. “And he’s an addict!’’
Globe columnist Yvonne Abraham can be reached at yvonne.abraham@globe.com.
