Loosing Freddy - сохранить на будущее - длинный пост

Недавно, прочитала статью-рассказ в Evening Standard (UK) о борьбе, чувствах, переживаниях, мыслях отца, чей 18-ти летний сын умер от передозировки героином. Как маме мальчика, мне было ее сложно, страшно, жутко читать. Сильно чувствовалось отчаяние от бессилия и боль отца, который, может быть, через эту статью, хотел как-то оправдаться перед сыном, собой, что не смог его спасти. 

Оригинал статьи http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-23961216-losing-freddy-a-father-speaks-out-about-his-sons-heroin-death.do  Ниже будет текст на английском и краткая версия на русском, хочу сохранить ее для себя, т.к. ссылка скорее всего не будет работать через некоторое время.

По словам папы, мальчик рос музыкально одаренным, талантливым и счастливым ребенком до 13-ти лет, когда он связался с плохой компанией подростков, увлекающихся рок музыкой и наркотиками. Его идолом стал Pete Doherty. Учеба скатилась на нет, начались проблемы с учителями, одноклассниками, с родителями. Мальчик стал очень раздраженным, закрывался в комнате и ни с кем не хотел общаться. Родители боролись, пытались что-то изменить. Из-за проблем с Фредди они отдалились друг от друга, и в итоге развелись. Мать осталась жить с младшей дочерью, которой поведение брата и ограниченное в связи с этим внимание родителей к ней нанесло большую душевную травму, а отец остался жить с сыном. Ребенка исключили их школы. Два раза родители отправляли его в реабилитационные центры для наркоманов, в США и ЮАР. После них он взвращался "очищенным" и более менее психически уравновешанным, но через какое-то время опять начинал употреблять наркотики. Итог известен.

Надеюсь, нам с мужем хватит мудрости воспитать сына так, чтобы выходя в реальную жизнь, он смог разобраться в плохом и хорошем без опасности для своей жизни.

We live in Norfolk. A little over two weeks ago, having heard nothing from our son Freddy for 48 hours, my ex-wife Annie and I asked a friend, Sarah, to go round to his London flat to check he was OK.

It was late evening when Sarah arrived, and although the bedroom light was on, no one answered when she rang the doorbell. Extremely worried now, we called the police, who broke into the flat. Freddy was lying face down on the bed, having died some hours earlier from a heroin overdose. He was 18 years old.

Those are the cold, hard, clinical facts, and as his parents, Sarah's distraught voice crying, "He's dead, he's dead" down the phone will haunt us for ever.

The initial shock was devastating in a way we couldn't possibly have imagined. I felt as though I was vomiting emotionally; one moment crying with an intensity I had never before experienced, followed by short periods of unexpected relief. This continued almost uninterrupted for four days. Then, because there was so much to organise, a kind of numb efficiency took over. We functioned perfectly well. We spoke to the local vicar; we designed the service sheet; we sat with the undertaker, drinking tea while calmly and politely discussing the design of our son's coffin. It felt utterly surreal.

I still feel numb, but I know it won't last, and I'll welcome the tears. Limbo Land is not a nice place to be. Annie and I have both had a chance to reflect, to think back, to ask ourselves how our beautiful, precious boy could have gone from the happy baby who sang in his cot, to a pitifully thin, lifeless shadow lying on a filthy, needle-strewn bed.

We knew Freddy was unusually bright very early on and we weren't especially surprised when, at the age of six, he was assessed as a "gifted child". Much later, he became a member of Mensa.

Apart from the fact that we both worked at home - Annie's an artist, I'm a composer - we were a normal family. We did normal family things: school runs, shopping, going on holiday. Freddy was forever restless and curious - about everything. He loved to spill out the contents of Pandora's box for examination, regardless of the resulting mayhem. We adored him, of course.

At his primary school, it was suggested that we "bump" him up a year - which we did - and we've sometimes wondered if that wasn't a dreadful mistake. He may have been ahead of his peer group mentally, but emotionally he was still his chronological age.

Though often refusing to follow the designated path, when there was something which did fire Freddy's enthusiasm, he went at it with almost frightening determination. At 11 he decided to get a scholarship to our local prep school; for no other reason, I think, than to prove that he could. And he did.

Also, aged 11, he decided he wanted to compete on BBC's Junior Mastermind. Choosing the life of Mozart as his specialised subject, he went at it with an enthusiasm bordering on obsession, immersing himself in all things Mozart. He appeared on the programme and won his specialised subject round.

When he was 12, it was table tennis. For two years he focused his being on the game and was a quarter finalist in the under-15 UK championships.

Freddy saw each achievement as its own end, rather than as a gateway to something else. Once he'd done what he wanted to do, he lost interest and moved on to something new. To us, it always felt as though he was searching for something just out of reach.

It was at 13 that he found it. He discovered music and a love of writing. This latest enthusiasm was inspired by the songs of Pete Doherty. For the rest of his life, the musical content of Freddy's iPod was dominated by Babyshambles and The Libertines. He idolised Doherty and Doherty's lifestyle; he dressed like Doherty, with a facsimile of Doherty's trademark black trilby permanently perched on his head. He began teaching himself to play the guitar and he began writing songs.

Coincidentally or not, this was when the first subtle hints of trouble began to appear. Because he had remained a year ahead of himself, academically, his peer group were that much older than he was. This made him both vulnerable and impressionable. At an age when the need to fit in becomes paramount, Freddy gravitated towards what he considered the "cool" crowd at school, who were already experimenting with drugs.

If only one could change the way one's children see others. Obviously one can't. As parents, so often you have to sit by, watch and pray that they'll somehow get through it and sort themselves out. Freddy didn't, and little by little he began to change. The high-spirited, sometimes difficult behaviour deteriorated into outright aggression - often violent. His schoolwork began to suffer noticeably, and home life became increasingly difficult. Annie and I found ourselves treading on eggshells around him - anything to prevent yet another outburst.

One afternoon the school rang us to say that Freddy had been suspended for two weeks for being found in possession of poppers (amyl nitrate). We were horrified. Freddy fiercely denied it, insisting that the poppers had been planted by someone else and that he was a scapegoat. (In fact, he always denied it, even years later, so I'm inclined to believe him now.) Nonetheless, he was certainly taking drugs on a regular basis.

Returning to school, he was almost immediately suspended again, this time for bullying. This we scarcely believed. Bullying was such un-Freddy-like behaviour. But there was no question it was true.

Desperately worried, we consulted several therapists, both with and without Freddy. He was now 14, taller - and stronger - than Annie. She actually confessed to being physically frightened of him. Freddy simply wasn't Freddy any more. It was terrifying to watch his decline and we both felt utterly powerless to stop it.

In the midst of this, Annie and I separated, which only added fuel to the fire. However, despite our marital difficulties, we were completely at one where the children were concerned. Freddy came to live with me nearby and Annie was able to devote some time to our daughter.

The school was reticent about taking Freddy back yet again. He was becoming still more aggressive and stole money from me to buy, first alcohol, then drugs on the internet. Being bombarded day after day with the deceit and manipulative logic of an active addict - and by this stage Freddy had unquestionably slipped into addiction - it's truly terrifying how quickly and easily one's mind becomes infected. His powers of persuasion were staggering: "These drugs aren't addictive, Dad," he'd say. "They're only Benzos. All rock stars take them; it's normal." One morning, when I'd intercepted yet another envelope stuffed with various pills of differing shapes and sizes, disguised as a CD case, I actually found myself questioning why he shouldn't have a few pills? After all, if they helped keep him calm, what was the harm?

Thank God I realised how insane that was; I knew we had to do something. After further soul-searching, we decided, very, very reluctantly, that our only choice was to send Freddy to a Wilderness School in the US - better known as Brat Camp. It was a hideous decision to make and the sense of betrayal I felt as I took him - and left him - was almost unbearable.

For two and a half months, life was relatively calm. We were able to focus on our daughter and undo some of the emotional damage which Freddy had undoubtedly inflicted on his sister.

The Freddy who returned home was unrecognisable. He was fit, tanned and healthy. He was polite and co-operative. Above all, there were no lingering traces of the dreadful anger and aggression. We gave a tentative sigh of relief.

The school refused to take him back. It was too soon, they said. We tried various other options, but in the end we agreed to home educate him through his GCSEs. We had made good progress with our daughter and we didn't want to lose momentum, so Freddy came to live with me again. I couldn't teach him myself - though I did try - and had to bring in tutors for him. The next two or three months were among the happiest I ever spent with Freddy. True, the Doherty hat came out again, as did the iPod, but I didn't mind as much. He was such a delight to be with. He got back to his songwriting and guitar playing and I could hear in his songs the beginnings of a "voice" which was uniquely his own.

Beginning to trust him again, we agreed to start allowing him to take the bus to Norwich to visit friends at weekends and on days when he had no tutors - provided he'd done his homework.

But after a while we both noticed he'd started losing weight. Over the next month or two he got thinner and thinner. Suddenly we weren't communicating any more. He began sitting in his room for hours on end, either strumming his guitar or listening to his iPod.

That summer, he passed his GCSEs, but shortly thereafter I discovered he'd been taking methcathinone (MCat) regularly for months. He was so painfully thin by now that we were advised by our GP to call in social services. They took one look at him and transferred him to a rehab clinic the same day. It was ghastly. How could it have come to this? I still don't know the answer.

Nearly three months later, Freddy came back home. His old school agreed to take him back on condition that he was prepared to undergo regular drug tests. He agreed, but four weeks into term he tested positive for opiates, and this time he was expelled.

We couldn't cope any more.

Freddy said he wanted to study music and songwriting at a college in London, so we let him. In fact, we welcomed it. At 17 he was old enough and we were so tired and exhausted from living a life where hope and despair traded places almost daily.

He found a room in west London and we agreed to pay his rent and gave him enough to live on. After three months he quit college, saying he wanted to start performing his own songs in clubs and bars to gain experience. Which was brave. Annie and I went to some of them. As a musician and writer myself, I could see he had real talent.

As ever, he was obsessed with Pete Doherty. He had been to one of Doherty's concerts, and even met him.

In June of last year, Freddy came home for the weekend. I took one look at him and said, "You've been taking something, haven't you." He replied, "I'm addicted to smoking heroin. I can't stop and I need help."

He'd never asked for help before. As a recovering alcoholic myself (I've been sober many, many years), I've learned that until an addict admits complete defeat, there's little that can be done. Now Freddy the adult was finally asking. I knew of a clinic in South Africa which reportedly had a high recovery rate, so we sent him there. Both Annie and I visited him.

When he returned, he was again fit and healthy. He'd written new songs and recorded some of them while he was abroad.

Back in London, he moved into a half-way house, a staging post for addicts in early recovery. Two months later he moved to a flat in south London. He was concentrating on his songwriting and playing gigs. He seemed much happier. He was regularly attending Narcotics Anonymous meetings and making friends. When he came home we saw a new maturity there, a gentleness and an amazing wit. It seemed as though he was becoming the Freddy he always wanted to be - content within himself. Over these past two years we had become closer than ever before and I think Annie had too. He and I had music in common and I spent many happy days and weeks recording his songs with him. He was the Freddy of old; so bright, so funny, yet with a wisdom beyond his years. I shall always treasure those moments.

His obsession with Doherty continued, but he'd broadened his horizons. He loved being part of what he saw as the glamorous music scene. Within the last few months, I do know he went to one large-scale Doherty concert as well as a smaller, more intimate one, where he again met his idol.

Three weeks before he died, Freddy came home and admitted that he'd relapsed and used heroin again. I was horrified that this time he'd been injecting it. His arm looked like a pin cushion and my heart ached for him. He stayed in bed for two days, detoxing, then he went to London for an appointment with his counsellor and I asked him to come back immediately afterwards. He agreed.

Ringing me that evening, however, he said he really wanted recovery now but that London was the best place because he was close to his NA meetings. I spoke to him once on each of the following three days.

Then we heard nothing for 48 hours

The fee for this article has been given to RAPt, the drug treatment charity.