Jeannie Out of the Bottle - Barbara Eden [95]
Meanwhile, I tried every conceivable way of helping him in his battle: maternal love, tough love, Al-Anon. One of the hardest lessons came after he’d attended yet another rehab. The counselor explained to us that if a child is using drugs, he has become the drugs; he is no longer your child and he no longer has a home with you. I found out Matthew was still using, and I locked him out of the house.
Over a period of fourteen years, Matthew was in and out of drug rehab constantly. And each time I went through the same process, rather like a sleepwalker following the same steps over and over.
When he left for rehab, I’d stand there crying, praying, Dear God, please let this work. He’s a good boy—let him lick this addiction before it destroys him. Then the waiting began, battling the fears and rejoicing in the hope that this time he would come out cured and start his life again, for real and for always.
After I met Jon, he became the greatest support possible to me during all the vicissitudes of Matthew’s struggle with drugs. We’d just begun our relationship when I went to visit Matt in Hazelden. Like I’d done many times before, I flew to Minnesota by myself and checked into a hotel. I saw Matthew at the clinic, spent time with him there, and spoke with his counselors, then flew back to LA a few days later.
This time when I got back to my hotel near Hazelden, the manager greeted me with the words “Your friend is very worried about you!” and handed me a sheaf of messages from Jon. I called him immediately, happy because I finally had someone in my life who cared about me. I wasn’t accustomed to that anymore, and I loved and gloried in it.
By the time Matthew was in his twenties, I’d learned the cruel and bitter lesson that no matter how much I loved him, it was foolhardy to fall into the treacherous trap of trusting him. Although I longed for his visits and enjoyed every moment of them, after he left I would be confronted with harsh reality: silverware was missing, and often money from Jon’s wallet. Matthew became almost brazen about how he stole from us in order to fund his drug habit, announcing, “Here I am, better lock up everything in the house!”
But when he was sober, he’d tell me, “I’m so sorry, Mom. I love you more than anyone else in the world.”
I believe he did. But drugs held more power over him. There were some hopeful times, but they rarely lasted. When he was twenty-seven, he fell in love with a marvelous woman, an accountant, and they had a big, glamorous wedding in Oregon. I was so proud and happy, particularly afterward when he got a job and began studying creative writing at UCLA part-time. Then the cycle began again.
Heroin became both his master and his mistress. His wife couldn’t take it anymore and, understandably, left him, though she didn’t stop caring about him.
One night, just after her separation from him, I received a call from Matthew. He sounded half dead and managed to moan, “Please help me, Mom, I’m sick, I’m really sick.”
Dolores and I, and Michael’s wife, Beverly, swung into action. Together we raced to Matthew’s apartment in Venice, which I’d rented for him in the hope that he would create a new and healthier life for himself there.
By the time we got to the apartment, Matthew was unconscious, clearly having overdosed. Terrified out of our wits, the three of us carried him out to the car and rushed him to the hospital. I was worried to death about him, but I was also as mad as hell. I’d been paying the rent at the apartment, but it was filthy. There were no sheets on the bed, and cartons of old food were moldering on the floor. He was hooked on heroin again, and there was nothing on God’s earth that I could do about it.
When he was twenty-nine, Matthew was diagnosed with clinical depression and given medication, but that didn’t help him. He still couldn’t keep a job and couldn’t stay in school, and he was still hopelessly hooked on heroin.
In 1999, however, he took part in a documentary about me,