I left off last with leaving the hospital after Ava’s OD. I’d like to really emphasize a few things here. First off, she had dabbled with IV use, but she OD’d sniffing, her primary mode of use. I know a lot of people in active addiction (herself included at the time) who don’t realize this is possible. It does not matter how you are ingesting heroin, you can OD!!!! Secondly, an OD is most likely to happen after a period of clean time such as after a rehab stint, after jailtime, after a not so seamless transition from detox to rehab, which I see every day! We need some serious changes here to avoid this!!! Okay, public service announcement is over. Back to my regularly scheduled story.



I get Ava home and realize just how screwed we really are. She had been in so many programs without “success” (whatever the fuck that is because this disease never goes away. It could rear its ugly head again at any moment.) that the insurance told us we had to wait a month to try another. I knew in my heart she wasn’t going to live another month.

As I’m in the middle of writing this, I’m crying for a mother who just found out her son who had 3 months of clean time was discovered alone in a hotel room. I can’t even see what I’m writing now through these tears… There is always that feeling, like the song “Always on my mind” playing out of key as background noise, that this could be me, at any moment. We aren’t ever “safe” or “in the clear” from this beast that comes to steal our children away. I can’t and don’t normally let it consume me, but as I’m sitting here with my heart breaking for my friend and her son who had his whole life ahead of him, and he seemed to be doing so well, ya. I’m going to be consumed for a while. I don’t want to say any names yet since I’m not sure the family has made this public but Rest In Peace sweet boy, and please, if there is a god, don’t let these beast steal my daughter, or my now many, many other loved ones who fight this monster every day. As this young man’s mother just said to me “This wasn’t supposed to happen.” Again, FUCK YOU HEROIN, fuck this disease, just FUCK!!!!



So, we are now at a point where Ava couldn’t stay in our home due to the horribly negative impact the symptoms of her disease was having on my younger children. She wasn’t eligible for treatment. What are we supposed to do now???

We tried to get her on my ex-husband’s private insurance and it looked promising, which I was so happy about, this would open some opportunities for more quality care! I had hope! Then we found out it wouldn’t kick in for at least a month…we had to wait to get the official denial from Medicaid for this to happen. Back to square one, and square one was so dangerous. Deadly. She had been so happy about her success in this most recent program, the longest she had achieved in clean time since she started her fight, getting kicked out for alcohol made her really seem to give up.



(Animals really do just sense a lot. They know when you are sick)

I realized just how imminent danger was when she bolted and was back out using with the guy she left rehab with I believe the very next day, may have been 2 days tops. I knew I was going to lose her if I didn’t do something really drastic and “outside the box”. We had no more box!!!



I spent hours talking to Dan, trying to figure something out, but we really had nothing! I’m still so grateful to have had him during this time for support, and to help me in understanding the behaviors that just don’t make sense to a non-addict. Her situation became very complex, as many do in heavy active use. The black hole, the abyss I kept seeing in my dreams seemed to get rounder and rounder….until I got a very interesting proposition.