THE BOY IN THE MIRROR...ONE DAY AT A TIME

His first guitar was a red Fender Stratocaster. Alone in his room, 13-year-old Cody Brunner[*] closed his eyes and fantasized he was Jimmy Hendrix, living a lifestyle with an abundance of sex and drugs—the life of a rock star. Turning up the amp to full volume, Cody's long hair fell into his face and over his eyes as he slapped the six strings. The whammy bar allowed him to vary the tension, changing the pitch to create a cacophony of vibrato and reverb.

Opening his eyes, he caught himself in the mirror.  Reflected back was a tall, chubby kid, with long, disheveled hair and horn-rimmed glasses.  I'm fat, ugly and I spend my life in my room, stoned off my ass.  I'll never be a rock star, Cody thought, dropping the guitar on the bed.

​

The first time he smoked pot was just after he started eighth grade.  Soon he was getting high two or three times a day.  He was stealing money from his parents and dealing to his friends to afford his habit.  His parents didn't seem to care; they were absorbed in their own lives and they had their own addiction of choice: alcohol. 

Cody thought that as long as he was discreet, he wouldn't get caught. At least until he was called to the assistant principal's office.  Another student had been caught with marijuana on campus, and due to the trickle-down confessions, Cody's name came up.  He was called out of class, but quickly put his bag of weed into his underwear.

​

The administration office door loomed ahead. He could hear the deep voice of the campus security guard. He wanted to turn and run home and hide under his bed, something that calmed his fears when he was young. "We're going to search you because we suspect you have illegal drugs on you," boomed the campus security guard and he patted Cody down. "Now, take off your shoes and belt and sit down." Just the presence of the man alone caused sweat to flow from every pore. It dripped down his forehead into his eyes and he could feel his armpits becoming drenched. He was terrified, and hoped that there was truth that they couldn't reach into his crotch without a search warrant.  A sour odor waffed into Cody's nostrils; he realized that his deodorant had stopped working.  The guard calmly leaned over, his face directly in front of Cody's.  "So, do you smoke pot?" asked the officer. "Well… only once…," stammered Cody.  Still in Cody's face, but now with a more relaxed body language, said, "OK, we are going to call your mom and recommend you attend a juvenile drug program."

Cody steamed.  He was pissed off and scared.  He didn't want his family to know he'd smoked weed even one time.  His parents would freak out.  What if his little sister found out?  She'd think he was a drug addict.  His mind racing, he thought, mom and dad drink all the time, so they'd just be hypocrites to make me that stupid JADE program. Like a juvenile drug program was going to teach me anything!

​

The decent into addiction began just after the school's winter break. It wasn't long before Cody discovered over-the-counter cough and cold medicine were an alternative to smoking weed. By spring, he discovered that it was simple to walk into Target every few days, grab a box of Coriciden HBP and then find a good CD; he'd remove the anti-theft device in the restroom, stuff both down his pants, and walk out with his music and his buzz-to-be. He also stole vodka from liquor stores and would combine the cold medicine and the alcohol for an even stronger buzz.

There was no grey area in Cody's life. He was either high and blissful or sober and insecure and depressed. Self-perception blared that nobody cared about him, and felt his parents only cared that he did well in school. Being sober only sharpened his narcissistic behavior; he enjoyed wallowing in his own pathetic self pity, because it was the best excuse to get stoned.

His parents were concerned about him, but not sure how to proceed.  Mistakenly, they agreed that Cody cut his long hair.  "You need to cut that hair.  It makes you look like a pothead," his father demanded. That was the last straw; Cody's hair made him feel good about himself.  He was cool, a hippie, or a metal head.  In protest, he smoked a bowl, and smashed his beloved Stratocaster in the garage, terrifying his family to see him so agitated and violent.

​

Not only did the pills get him high, they elevated his courage and he felt invincible. On a sunny warm day towards the end of May, he and his friends, Kenny and David, decided to walk to Guitar Center to sample some of the music equipment. En route, they stopped by the pharmacy to convince someone to buy them smokes.

"The guy in the movie, '40-year-old Virgin,' said it's fun to take three Tylenol PM and see if you can jerk off before you fall asleep. I'm going to boost some and see if it really works," bragged Cody.  Walking home, he tore the foil off the bottle, took out the cotton, and throwing back his head, emptied the entire bottle of 40 pills into his mouth.

​

"Man, what are you doing? You'll probably die!" said Kenny, freaking out. "Spit them out!"

​

"Relax, dude," replied Cody, spitting out 10 pills into his hand.  "Okay, 30 is 10 times what that old dude took in the movie, so I should be fine, and get a nice buzz as well… and I bet I can still beat off!"

​

The plan failed.  When Cody got home, he didn't feel well.  He was running a high fever and was dizzy and disoriented.  He thought a bath and some Beatles tunes would make him feel better.  Next thing he knew, he woke up in the emergency room, gagging on a tube in his throat as they sucked the toxic substance from his stomach. As the nurse pulled out the tube, she demanded, "Now, drink this," handing him a cup of thick blackish liquid.  In his altered state, he obeyed, grimacing at the nasty taste.  Once sober, it didn't faze him that his acetaminophen levels were 15 milligrams short of a lethal dose.

Two days later, he was admitted to Chapman Medical Center's Positive Action Center., an 18-bed inpatient rehab facility in Orange, Calif., for a week-long detoxification and intervention. He had turned 14 the day before, but there was no cake, no candles, and no presents. He went to the Narcotics Anonymous meetings hosted at the facility, but ignored those speaking, choosing instead to check out the hot girls.  Yet, underneath, he was still substantiating his actions by telling himself that he wasn't a drug addict because he'd only smoked pot and taken cold pills and he didn't belong there. He faulted everyone around him, avoiding the intrinsic knowledge that he was in denial.

After his release, he was still going back as an outpatient and actually stayed clean for several days until one evening while playing his new guitar, he had a craving to try a hallucinogenic drug to see if tripping would make him get more into the music, enabling him to play better. Not knowing where he could score some acid, he tried a slew of homeopathic methods he found online, including eating nutmeg and then orange peels dried in the sun.  He ended up puking his guts out and getting chapped lips from the citric acid; his only buzz was a wicked headache.  He still was craving his favorites though: pot, Triple C, and vodka.

​

He read on the Internet that certain types of pills and over-the-counter medications wouldn't show up in his routine drug tests. He opened the medicine cabinet and found an assortment of cough and cold medications and then he spied his mother's antidepressants. He opened the bottle and poured a few into his hand, downing them with some water. He liked the buzz, and knew that if he didn't take too many, he wouldn't end up overdosing again. Soon, he was stealing meds from his friends' houses as well as asking his classmates for their ADHD meds.  Kenny would occasionally give him Ritalin; but Kenny's parent's medicine cabinet was more tempting.  Opening the door, he found the usual OTC meds, but also Vicodin and Effexor. "Look man, I don't have a problem giving you a few of my Rits, but we'll get caught if you start helping yourself to my parents' stuff," warned Kenny.  "OK, then I'll just take a few of each pill and she won't notice and you won't get in trouble," said Cody, opening each bottle and taking three pills from each. Before long, this was a routine that he used on each of his friends, and over the next few months, he'd experimented with Effexor, Vicodin, Xanax and others.

His paranoia of getting caught continued to escalate. One night, he took nearly a whole bottle of Xanax, downing it with half a bottle of booze.  He blacked out.  He came to only to find his parents fuming.  "You continue to lie and deceive, and you're just not trying to stop!" Extremely high from the Xanax, Cody became so irate that he started throwing things and punching windows, screaming, "I hate you fuckers, I'm going to kill you and then myself!"  Overlooking that he was too young to have a driver's license, he took his father's keys and stole the car, thinking, "I'll just drive to the mountains and get away from all of this shit. They can't keep me from my drugs."  Wiping away hot, angry tears with his bloody knuckles, he didn't get far when his mother called on the cell phone and convinced him to find a safe place to park the car; she'd come get him.

She drove him back to Chapman as he was crashing down from his high, but this time he was out of control, screaming obscenities at the nurses and staff. "You cunts are a bunch of lying bitches! You don't want to help me, you just want to control me," he yelled. Security wrestled him to the ground, handcuffing him to the bed.  "You'd better chill, or we'll have to taser you," warned the guard.  He passed out from sheer exhaustion, waking up to witness defeat in his mother's eyes and he sobbed.

Cody was taken by ambulance, restrained on the gurney, to a psychiatric hospital in Cerritos, where he was handcuffed once again to the bedrail. This wasn't the pretty and aesthetically pleasing place like Chapman. His first night there, he couldn't sleep because the patient in the next room was kicking the walls and making whining noises. And when his roommate smashed a mirror on his head and used the broken glass to cut himself, Cody pleaded with the doctors to let him out.  Near hysterics, he begged to go back to Chapman, promising he'd never do it again.

After a final assessment, the doctor agreed that he was no longer a threat to himself or others. He went back to school to take his finals and to graduate from junior high, knowing that he was going to have to return to rehab and terrified of being sent back to the psychiatric hospital if he didn't stay clean.  One day sober, he found a bottle of booze at a friend's house. Getting trashed, he forgot promises to his family, his doctors, but more importantly, himself.  He didn't care; he just wanted to get high. After a shoving match with his mother, who ended up sitting on the floor, rocking back and forth in a stupor, Cody went to his room and gathered up all his paraphernalia, dumping it at her feet.  Seeing his listless mother emotionally broken, Cody's heart was broken. For the first time, he told her he would stop, truly believing his promise would stand.

​

He checked into the Center for Discovery in Long Beach for a 25-day inpatient rehabilitation. During the group counseling sessions, his self-esteem issues were brought to the surface, leaving him over sensitive and agitated.  He thought he would go crazy.  Everything bothered him—people slurping food especially—he fought and created havoc with his fellow patients. The 12-step meetings only made him want drugs; he even tried crushing and snorting the Benadryl the nurse gave to help him sleep.

​

The rehab proved worthless because Cody turned to opiates, even trying ketamine, a veterinary medicine anesthetic. His parents had both turned to the bottle as a crutch to help forget their trauma and guilt. Their household was in chaos, ready for an explosion. Not being able to deal with the pain he was causing, he went to his best friend's house, knowing the father had chronic pain from some type of injury and had a medicine cabinet filled with Vicodin and hydrocodone syrup.  He stole 20 Vicodin and washed it down with the narcotic syrup, walked home, and passed out sitting on the toilet. This time, the emergency room doctor told him that one more time would be his third strike and the law would require his return to the psychiatric facility.  It didn't matter; he was still getting high, back to buying weed and smoking alone so no one would know.

​

The outpatient facility this time was Breakaway; the counselors were savvy and frank in their conversations. They paid attention to the dark circles under Cody's sunken eyes, his waxen skin and dry thirst that no amount of water could quench. They knew he was still using. He eavesdropped on conversations, certain he was the topic of discussion. Cody was paranoid that he was headed back to the psycho ward; his drug use exacerbated his delusions that everyone was determined to make him fail.  He saw a counselor on the phone and moved in to hear.  "Don't believe his lies that he's clean, or his pleas that he wants to get sober.  He's working so hard to fool others; we need to turn his focus inward to convince himself that's what he truly desires." Cody was convinced it was his father on the other end of the line and that the two were conspiring to send him away again.

​

In an act of defiance, he once again overdosed, this time on his own Zoloft, given to him by the doctor at Breakaway to treat depression. He began to hallucinate, and all his fears became monsters trying to take over.  "If my own parents don't believe in me, why bother?" was the excuse he fed himself. He wrote, "FUCK YOU DAD" on the empty bottle. This time, while at the emergency room, in a delusion heard the doctor say, "You're just a junkie and should just die."

After spending four days in the psychiatric ward at the University of California, Irvine hospital, he went back to the sessions at Breakaway.  The only difference was this time he met Glen. The two young men began going to Alcoholics Anonymous meetings and working on the 12 steps together. Glen was 17, tall and well-built, with an infectious sense of humor and carefree demeanor. The first time they met, Cody recalled Glen's shirt was covered with white caulk from his construction job; Cody admired that he didn't give a crap.  Although he relapsed several times, facing sobriety didn't seem like it was a path down a dark tunnel with no light at the end. Cody asked Glen to be his sponsor.

​

Even though the two friends spoke on the phone daily, Cody was still having cravings, but this would be the last time he succumbed to them.  While standing in the drugstore, ready to steal a box of Coriciden, he thought, "I can't do this.  If I do, I'm going to die.  I'm going to end up a heroin addict living on the street."  He called Glen. "If you really want to stop, I promise to help you."  Cody had more faith in Glen than in himself.  They continued working through the 12 steps of AA, and Cody saw his life turning around. He no longer felt lonely or worthless.

                                                                                 *          *         *

"Hi, my name is Cody, and I'm a drug addict and alcoholic. I've been sober for one year, six months and three days."

"Hi Cody!" was the resounding response from the others in the room.

"I came to accept that my thoughts were so wrapped around me, and that I was so focused on hurting others to make myself feel better, not helping others," Cody announced as he stood at the podium during an AA meeting.

"Glen [my sponsor] is my rock. Here was a guy who had all the qualities that I wanted—good looks, a sense of humor, who could be funny and carefree without being stoned."

​

During the meeting's coffee break, a dark-haired young man approached Cody and asked him if he could bum a cigarette; the young man, Corey*[†], had come to meeting with Cody.  "Sure Corey, welcome to my current addictions:  coffee and cigarettes; better than pot and pills." Blowing smoke rings, Corey said, "Thanks for bringing me to this meeting. These people are amazing."  Cody knew that his friend was not truly ready for a sober life; he'd only had one emergency room, stomach-pumping experience after drinking too much booze. "You bet… anytime.  Do me a favor and remember these words:  'when the pain of staying the same is greater than the pain of change, then you'll change.' I can't remember who said it, but I remind myself often of their personal significance," Cody said.  "I just did it.  I trusted in Glen, but more so, I now trust in a God of my own understanding. He entered my life, not in a religious way, but in a spiritually lifting way. I also came to the realization that I had to accept that I'm a normal teenager with pride and ego issues and had to get over that.  I was a kid who spent more time wallowing in a cesspool of self pity, alone in my room.  Now, I'm a social butterfly… and on my way to being a rock God… a SOBER superstar!" he laughed.

Corey stubbed out the cigarette and together they returned to the meeting. After a moment of silence to pray for other alcoholics, they said the Serenity Prayer together.

​

God grant me the serenity

to accept the things I cannot change;

courage to change the things I can;

and wisdom to know the difference.

[*] Due to the sensitive nature of this story, the last name has been changed.

[†] name changed for privacy issues