Enabler

Marcus sat in the living room sipping his morning coffee. The voice of a newscaster droned on in the background, but Marcus just ignored it. His mind was on more pressing matters: his son, Ryan.

Ryan was addicted to heroin and Marcus was at a loss as to what to do to help him. He had talked to Ryan, tried to reason with him to show him how by using heroin, he was putting his life on hold. Ryan was a talented artist, but he had barely picked up a pencil in the last year-and-a-half. To see his son waste so much potential was painful, though not as painful as knowing that his son was under the control of a substance.

And that was the problem: Ryan had no control. He could get cleaned up and things would look good for a few days, then he would disappear into his room, only to emerge hours or sometimes days later in a complete mess. Marcus didn't understand it. How do you lose control of yourself like that? When Marcus saw problems in his own life, he would work hard to fix them. That worked most of the time and when it didn't he could usually justify why it didn't matter. But he couldn't justify his son's problem.

When looking for a solution, people would tell Marcus that he needed to stop supporting Ryan. He may not be buying the drugs, they'd say, but by giving him a place to stay, he was still supporting his son's addiction. Marcus didn't believe that, couldn't believe that he was the reason that Ryan was in his current state. He loved his son; how could he abandon him and make him move out?

Ryan's cousin, Pauly, had offered to help. He had a place of his own and could keep an eye on Ryan to help him kick the habit. Be a "sober companion," as he called it. The problem was, Pauly lived in Chicago, which might as well be a world away from Denver. It's not like Marcus could go visit on the weekend or anything. And with his roofing business struggling right now, if Ryan went to live with Pauly, there would be no safety net. For all intents and purposes, if Ryan moved, it would be for good. He cared for his son too much to send him out into the world without some kind of backup plan.

So, Marcus sat and sipped his coffee and tried not to think about how he was pretty sure that Ryan had gotten high again last night.