Poor Man's Coke

We had a good time together last night – Jordan and I.  We drove out to see my mom and grandmother and chatted with them for a couple of hours.  Four generations sat around a table discussing everything from my departed grandfather to high school to politics.  Before dropping Jordan off back at “home”, we stopped for some cheesy beef sandwiches and cheese fries dipped in ketchup – a MMBB and Auntie tradition. J

We talked some more during the ride home.  I tried not prying too much.  I want him to feel free to talk to me about anything, but I don’t want him to feel that there’s always going to be an inquisition every time we see each other so I try to take a long way around a subject to get to the real questions I have.

At one point I asked about his sister and what she thought about his rehab and stuff.  He said that he doesn’t think she knows about the rehab, but knew that he was doing Adderall.

“Huh?” I asked.

“Have you heard of Adderall?” he asked in response.

“Is it a drug?”

“Yeah, it’s used for ADHD,” he responded.  “Well when you break the capsules, you get a powder that you can snort and it’s like cocaine.”

I kept driving, not really knowing what to say.

“They call it ‘poor man’s coke',’” he continued.

“Was she using it?” I asked in response, referring to his sister.

“No, I was,” he answered.  “But she knew that I was using it and wasn’t too happy about it.”

I kept my eyes on the road and let him continue: “I’d take like 4 or 5 capsules and snort it like cocaine.”

He went on to tell me how it would make him stay up all night and all day long, that his eyes got deep dark circles under them, that he would talk super fast and nobody knew what he was saying.

“Mom would say, ‘what are you on?’”

I kept listening, taking in everything he said.

“Finally one day mom walked in on me snorting it,” he said.  

“What happened?” I asked.

“She scared the shit outta me and screamed ‘What the hell are you doing?’” he answered.  “I was really scared.”

“So what did she do?” I asked, thinking that was when she threw him into his supposed rehab.

“She yelled at me for like two hours.”

That’s fucking fantastic, I thought to myself.  You open the door to your 14-year-old’s room and see him snorting something up his nose and you scream at him for two hours.  That’s it.  Cuz screaming always got through to him before.  Fucking dumb whore.

“Wow, Jordan, that’s pretty heavy stuff,” I said, not really knowing what else to say that wouldn’t push him away from me.

And by then, I needed to turn onto the street he lives off and because it was the first time going from that direction I had to ask which street so we basically dropped the subject.  Before he exited the car, we agreed to do get together every Monday from now on.  I pray that by him wanting to see us, he’s really staying away from the drugs.  I pray that he can stay strong and keep away from it because it’s so evident how much freedom he still has to basically come and go as he wants.

This morning, I did some two-minute research on ‘the poor man’s coke’ because I couldn’t remember the name of it other than it starting with an “a” and it being for ADHD.  I hopped on google and found many results for Adderral being a ‘poor man’s coke’ to college students… not to 14-year-old boys.

This is what I came up with in my quick research:

Taken from this link:

When taken with a prescription under a doctor's supervision there are very few negative side effects of the drug, including sleep disturbance, dry mouth and increased heart rate. However, when taken in a non-prescribed setting without correct dosage under proper supervision, Adderall has had and can have drastically more severe side effects including paranoia, delusions and strokes. Users who inhale or consume the drug illegally tend to exhaust much larger quantities of the drug than those who are taking the drug with a prescription. This heightened effect creates more of a dependency, and also creates a stimulated state of risk accompanied by a harder crash.

When Adderall is snorted it carries its most serious consequences. While chemically different from snorted cocaine, both are stimulants that are not entirely divergent in their effects. Kilcarr said, "This [snorting] automatically moves the medication to drug status and the rush from snorting creates an intense reinforcement mechanism which demands further use." But snorting is not alone in its addicting mechanism. Adderall is habit forming in all of its forms, and many users soon become completely dependent on it, needing increased amounts of the substance to receive the same effects. Users are also known to move on to other drugs, creating further dependencies.

Adderall users usually do not deny that the drug has some negative effects but are often unaware of some of the more serious risks associated with Adderall abuse. Jack also experiences the increased heart rate characteristic of Adderall use and abuse. But the greater concern for Jack is the process of coming down off of an Adderall high than about the risks undertaken while actually taking the drug. He described how difficult, painful and upsetting to one's body the crash that follows Adderall use can be. He said, "[Adderall] throws you off schedule because you are alert and awake for more hours than you are suppose to be. But when the effects wear off, you crash, it's like hitting a brick wall and it's utterly exhausting. The nature of the drug is a high and a crash." However, Jack finds the amount of work he is able to complete worth the risks and energy crash.

Now I’m even more upset about his “mother’s” reaction to walking in on him snorting this shit.  It can fucking kill you if you do it too much… No, I’m sorry; it can give you a stroke.  You know damn well that this kid wasn’t just snorting a pill!  He told me “when you open 4 or 5 of the capsules and snort the inside of it, it’s like cocaine.”  That’s 4 or 5 in one sitting!  Hello!!

I know I’m not a biological mother and it’s easy for me to sit here and say that her reaction wasn’t a good one, but WTF?  Why was *my* first reaction to grab him by his ear and haul his ass off to the hospital for a drug test or stomach pumping and then off to some sort of program?  Why wasn’t that her reaction?  Why did he not get put into rehab until the courts ordered it?   And what the hell is she doing to at least fucking try to keep him out of going down that road again?  He can come and go as he pleases!  He doesn’t need to check with her before making plans.  I just don’t understand this.  I just don’t and it makes my head hurt a lot because frankly, I have no clue what else I can do to try to get him focused on the right path.

Teenagers will be teenagers, yes; but this is ridiculous.  This isn’t about a teenager, this is about an un-parented child who can do as he pleases.  He lives in anarchy.  And as long as he lives in anarchy at his age, I can’t see him staying clean.