Nov. 20, 2023 – Ken and his now late wife Barbara turned to support groups for loved ones of people with substance use disorders. The meetings helped them find resources about treatment and how to talk with their other children about Brendan. The members of the groups understood what they were going through.
The main advice they got was to be tough — to not tolerate Brendan’s drug use because that would enable it. Other parents told Ken and Barbara their children didn’t get better until they refused to let them come home if they were using drugs.
“They said, ‘You don’t want to feel like it’s your hand on the syringe that’s going into their arm,’” Ken recalled. “So there’s a really heavy message of, if you’re tolerating it, you’re playing a role in it.” Ken took what he calls “a big gulp of that Kool Aid” and told his son to leave the house.
“It sounded very reasonable because nothing we were doing was working,” he explained.
After that, Brendan lived in his car and on the streets for several months.
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