T Q&A

Bill Ford started the blog Dad on Fire in July, feeling empowered
after taking a leadership class with Landmark Forum in Phoenix. At the
time, Ford was embarking on a new relationship with his 22-year-old
son, a recovering heroin addict. The Tucson architect wants to create a
resource and forum for others to learn more about drug
addiction—and to perhaps create more compassion in society for
addicts and their families. Check out Ford’s blog at dadonfire.net.

Before your son, did you have any experience with
addiction?

I started my life as a 13-to-14-year-old kid experimenting with
things. What drove me to that is up for debate. My dad was a military
man who was always stationed in foreign places. So I think it left a
lot up to me. At the time, drinking was very acceptable, so I drank. I
started as a teenager. That continued for 20 years. After college, I
made a decision to end it.

Your son isn’t the only child you have who has struggled with
addiction, right?

That’s right. When I left my hometown, I got married, just like
that, at 19 years of age to a 17-year-old, and we had a kid right away.
Our bad habits had not come to a conclusion, and we certainly paved the
way for our daughter to get involved.

Do you think addiction is hereditary?

The problem is so difficult and complex. You want to say, “Well, the
kid had a bad upbringing,” and then you see a kid who supposedly comes
from a good family. … My 22-year-old son, who is a lot younger than
my daughter, is a product of a (different) marriage. I was sober when
he was born, and I swore that I wasn’t going to pass this legacy on to
him. But it still slipped through the cracks, and he still became a
user. He is a heroin addict.

How did you first deal with his addiction?

I threw him out of the house about three years ago. He’s been an
addict for five years. His life after I threw him out in Tucson was, at
best, chaotic. … I sent him to California to live with his sister. He
got involved in pretty much the same thing, even though the intent was
to get him into recovery. He hobbled along for many months doing their
methadone program. Eventually, things just kind of came crashing down
on him. … I honestly thought he was going to die if he stayed
there.

What changed?

His mother convinced me that he could live here and move back in
with me. But so far, it is actually working. I’d say on a scale of 1 to
10, it is about a seven or eight, and I think that’s pretty doggone
good. I immediately got him hooked up with a private doctor who’s a
member of the American Society of Addiction Medicine. My son then took
the initiative to sign up with COPE (www.copebhs.com), so he got into their
Suboxone treatment program. … So far, it has proven to be very
successful.

Why does Suboxone work?

Suboxone is a much easier drug—(with) far fewer withdrawal
symptoms, and they add another chemical called Narcan, which sends you
into an immediate withdrawal and stops the effect of the heroin. … It
greatly reduces the possibility of getting high off heroin, so when an
addict is taking Suboxone, and the dose is correct, and then he goes
out and tries to shoot up some heroin, chances are, he’s not going to
get high. After doing that a few times, and spending money, he’s going
to say, “I’m not doing that again.”

What is the hardest part of being a parent of an addict?

Just yesterday, I got a call from an obviously distressed father,
about my age, with a son the same age as my own, struggling with heroin
addiction. He’s working with a counselor and being told to turn his
back to his son. That is one of the hardest things for a parent to
grapple with—to understand how to detach with love. There’s
always this feeling that when (you) detach, in a way, (you are)
enabling him to go out there and die, because the percentage of heroin
addicts who overdose is quite high. When you detach with love, you have
to accept inevitable death. … I have had to accept that, but I have
also learned how to detach emotionally enough to stay involved without
enabling. The conditions I set up are for him to be productive and
recover.

This article appears in Oct 29 – Nov 4, 2009.