Chemical Warfare

Life is strange. I work in mental health and have seen every kind of psychiatric condition listed in the manuals of abnormal psychology. I've worked with drunks, addicts, psychotics and personality disordered clients. I've worked with assaultive and abusive clients. And I've excelled as a RN in the treatment of all the many clients I've come across. I've come to recognize the incredible bravery of my clients trying to function in our dysfunctional world with the many issues they have. So often my clients have shown great courage in overcoming daily struggles to sort through thinking and emotions that adversely affect them. So often they have shown me kindness and concern even as they struggled so greatly to maintain a semblance of stability. I've often been in total awe of them in watching them overcome their demons.

I wish I could do it as well as my sickest clients. My demons constantly display themselves and cause me to lose the path of my heart. They haunt me in the struggles I see my sons going through because of the sins of their father.

Both my sons are addicts. The worst kind of addicts; they're addicted to crack cocaine. Crack, along with meth, is such a powerfully addictive drug there are few treatment programs for those caught in the horrible spider web of its addiction.

Crack is like a death sentence that insidiously kills its victims in a long drawn out death of many horrors. The horrors of the addict seem almost matched by the horrors of those loving them as they watch the destruction of the body and soul of the child they love.

Crack is part of a war that goes on without recognition of the victims. A crack addict is sentenced to a life of an eroding soul. Dante couldn't have imagined a more horrible part of the living dead in his "inferno".

Crack is a political drug along with all the other addictive agents dumped on the streets of America. The stories of the pusher-man in dark corners of the urban jungle are more urban myth than real. The pusher-man is a small time part of a bigger reality of a war against young, black, brown and marginalized citizens by their own government.

A conspiracy of a government intent on dividing and subduing dissent against the powerful and elite is a war against the people of any nation. Sheepish citizens free of the addiction wars refuse to listen to the facts of the conspiracy. The mention of conspiracy makes their minds close and their eyes roll until…..until one of their children is captured by addiction.

Too often, though, the desperation of parents and families to find an answer and a cure blinds them to the conspiracy that made their loved ones prisoners of war. Only after exhausting all avenues of hope do we come to understand our sons and daughters have been sacrificed to keep the rich and powerful in control.

The American people don't want to believe "their" government would sanction black bag jobs of the CIA being paid for by the drug money the agency garners in supporting local drug lords around the world. From the "Golden Triangle" of the Vietnam War's era, to Nicaraguan contras to Taliban drug lords, CIA involvement is well documented. The majority of Americans don't want to know these alleged patriots have introduced drugs like heroin and cocaine into American cities in an obvious ethnic cleansing.

The young black male was the perfect target for this secretive distribution. The dumping of narcotics into the areas of Los Angeles disenfranchised by layoffs at automobile factories created carnage and wasted potential for generations. The destroyed areas of Detroit were ripe for invasion.

The CIA doesn't care that they played a role in the addiction of my two sons with their drug sales to finance illegal activities around the world. They don't care if they addict your daughter or my granddaughter. They don't care if they cause the incarceration of a huge portion of the black males in this nation. They don't care if they took part in an ethnic cleansing of black and brown neighborhoods. They don't care that my high school friend; my best friend in grade school, died in a prison after being strung out on heroin and imprisoned for crimes committed to feed his habit. Billy Padilla didn't mean a damn thing to them. Kids don't mean a damn thing to them.

Addiction was the logical way to attack the communities likely to have the greatest grievances against a racist, sexist and imperialistic government. Addiction is perceived as a "choice" of an individual. Like an individual would choose the hell of an addict's life. Sadly, few in this nation want to accept addiction and alcoholism is a physical illness quite often having a genetic predisposition. Far too many still believe addiction is a character flaw that can be controlled if only the addict wanted to do so.

If the CIA had spread cholera or the plague, the outrage would likely have been there from the American people. But no money was to be made from those diseases. The victim of those diseases wouldn't be seen as lowlifes or criminals.

No, the CIA saw it could not only fund immoral actions such as the Phoenix Program in Vietnam but also shut the marginalized communities up by spreading the "plague" of addiction in those communities. The CIA went to war against its own people and my sons became their prisoners. Millions of POW's have been taken in their war. And the American people stand on the sidelines just as much in this war as they have for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Funding for treatment continues to decline while addiction continues unabated in the targeted communities. But what the hell, it's only some blacks, white trailer trash or poor and marginalized most often the victims.



ADDENDUM:

Addiction is treatable and the addict must want to find recovery but recovery is a lifelong struggle. Like diabetes or other lifelong illnesses, addiction requires treatment for the rest of the addict's life. 12 Step programs such as AA or NA have been the most successful programs for crack addicts. That could be because there's a plethora of 12 Step programs or that there's such a dearth of viable treatment programs that last long enough to get true lasting recovery. Recovery isn't something that comes and stays forever. Relapses are expected in the recovery process but the addict needs to identify the "triggers" that lead to relapse and develop safety plans to avoid repeating the same behaviors.

Families of addicts are damned if they do and damned if they don't in supporting the addict. Parents have a natural instinct to protect their child from harm. An addict or alcoholic often uses that instinct against the parent in order to "score" or get safe haven after a binge. If the addict won't go into treatment or return to treatment, the family only enables them by offering safe haven.

I've been accused of abandoning my son after I told him he could no longer live with us if he wouldn't go into treatment. After more than twenty relapses and nights we spent wondering if he was dead in some seedy motel, we came to the sad conclusion we had to let him go and hope he'd hit bottom to see how bad it was and decide to go into treatment.

I have a friend who told me from her own experience as an addict that the addict will expect their family to forgive and forget all that has occurred. She said the addict will constantly keep the family wrapped up in their drama. Looking back, I realize she was exactly right.

Another friend told me I had abandoned my son. It stung to hear such criticism. I can only say unless you've lived the twenty years my wife and I have lived with two sons being addicts, you can never know how false a statement it is to say we abandoned them.

I have a friend who is the Pastor of a Presbyterian church. He told me it was more like we abandoned our sons when we continued to allow them the safe haven without strong expectations they be in treatment and stay in treatment. I agreed. The problem with such simple answers is the heart of a father and mother doesn't create practical and common sense answers like these. Our hearts think first of protecting our children. We live in the here and now with that.

Like I said, damned if we do and damned if we don't. The tragedy is the loss of spectacular potential for lives that can experience times of peace. The tragedy is the loss of potential for lives that can work to bring peace and justice to all people.

My wife and I have to either carry on or perish. It's that simple. We would be devastated if we do get the phone call telling us one of our sons is dead from overdosing on drugs. But, as the cynical veteran I am, I see that our loss would be no worse than the loss of an Iraqi mother pulling the lifeless body of her small child out of the rubble of an area bombed by American planes. The loss would be no worse than the parent who stays awake all night worrying about a son or daughter deployed and the day comes they see the uniformed team getting out of a government car to "regrettfully inform" them of the death.

Easy to say while my sons have managed to survive. But I've resigned myself that the call could come any day. But, again as a veteran, I know any day could be the day death hits me or any member of my family. I saw in Vietnam that death is commonplace and without rhyme or reason.

Hopefully, I will live long enough to see both sons in recovery and at peace. The saying that sounds trite but rings so very true is "one day at a time".

What'd we say in 'Nam...."it don't mean nothing"? It does mean something. We must resist the forces that create children needing to self medicate and in the process lose their lives.

I spent many years not speaking about my kids' addiction. It was my denial. I bear some responsibility for the conditions that led them to drugs and alcohol. But I went into treatment and stay in treatment for the PTSD that made the childhood of my kids chaotic at best. Now my kids need to make choices to reclaim their own lives for themselves.
One day at a time....peace.





Wm. Terry Leichner, RN

Denver VVAW member

USMC combat veteran – Vietnam (67-69)