ABOUT ME

I am a wife and a mother of two young men. My boys are the light of my life. We live in Arizona in a seeming normal neighborhood. We raised our kids in a traditional fashion, I was a stay at mom and my husband worked to support the family. We wanted it that way so that at least one of us was always home with them. I was your average everyday mom who volunteered at their schools, went on field trips, took them to little league and football practices. I loved every minute of it and will never regret quitting my job to raise my kids. I will always consider myself a lucky woman to have a husband who could give that gift to us.

My son is just like yours... He had a normal, loving home and family. When he was born he was a beautiful baby boy with big brown eyes with long lush eyelashes... in grade school he was ambitious, insightful and smart... in high school he was popular, funny and friendly. He loves sports his friends and his family.

My son and I have a special connection. I call it a soul connection. I can feel his energy even if we are apart I can still feel it. Around his freshman year of high school I started to feel something off and towards the beginning of his junior year of high school I could feel his anguish. By the time he was suppose to graduate from high school there was nothing but chaos, confusion and struggle rummaging through his body. I could feel it but you could see it too, it was obvious! He was so unpredictable, sporadic and he turned into someone I did not recognize. He didn't want to live that way that I knew for sure. He didn't want that life of addiction. But it found him and tortured him for 7 long years.

We were going through life trending through what felt like dense fog trying to find our way out of this for 7 years. Out of the seven years he was doing drugs he has attempted to get clean twice. From 2009 to 2014 he would not dare to admit he was a drug addict or had a problem using drugs. In his eyes he was not abusing drugs he was using them for recreational prepossess, having fun. Why not he had the prefect enabler someone struggling with addiction just like him. It wasn’t until he saw a psychiatrist in July of 2014 he finally realize or maybe he just gained the strength to finally admit he was not well and that he was a addict. I truly believe that was a pivotal moment for him. 

When you have a child you never think something like this could ever happen to your family. You never could imagine that this amazing soul you gave birth to would carry so much anguish and hatred for them self, do things you never thought they would ever do. Abuse their bodies in such a way that they could kill themselves. I never thought in a million years this would happen to my son.

Al is 9 years clean and sober. There is hope.

Al playing football his senior year