April 27, 2023 • 37 mins
When Darryl first learned that his son Chase had a drug habit, he panicked. He didn't know how to respond to his son's behavioral changes, so he turned to an intervention team. Chase was admitted to a treatment facility, seemed to be doing better, but eventually relapsed.
Listen in as Darryl openly shares the parenting mistakes he made and the lessons he learned about the proper role of a parent with an addicted child.
https://www.darrylrodgers.com/
https://www.griefshare.org/
#addictedchild #parentinganaddict
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Episode Transcript
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Michelle (00:10):
Hey everybody, and welcome back to Qualified, the
place where incredible peopleshare their stories of
overcoming great adversity andloss, to inspire you and give
you hope. I'm Michelle Heaton.
As parents, we always want thebest for our kids. We teach them
what we know and learn the restas we go. We strive to pass
along the right values andethics, and we do our best to
(00:34):
provide them with the besteducation, the best
neighborhoods, and the bestfriends. And we want them to
have a seamless life, free frompoverty, pain, heartache, and
when things go wrong, we hurt.
And then we do our best toconsole and support and be
present in any way needed. Butwas there ever a time in your
(00:57):
life when you felt helpless toprovide a solution for your
child? When Try as you might,you simply didn't know what to
do? Have you ever said or donesomething that you couldn't
undo? Well, my guest today is afather who had the same
aspirations for his kids. And hedid everything in his power to
save his oldest son from a lifeof drugs and drug addicted
(01:20):
friends, only to lose the battlewhen he finally lost his son.
His name is Darryl Rogers, andhe's a bereaved father. But
today, he's also an author, aspeaker, and a family recovery
coach. Darrell had to learn thehard way the proper responses in
dealing with an addicted child.
And today he helps others learnthe lessons he wished he'd known
(01:43):
then. Welcome to QualifiedDarryl.
Darryl (01:48):
Thank you, Michelle. So good to be here.
Michelle (01:51):
Great. Well, Darryl, let's start by talking about
Chase. Tell us a little bitabout the young man he was and
then also about the changes yousaw that gave you a warning that
something wasn't right.
Darryl (02:04):
Okay. Chase was a great kid growing up, never gotten any
kind of trouble was quiet,easily going shy. He was
diagnosed ADHD fairly early on,in Leslie translated to a few
focus issues in the classroom.
But, you know, I've worked withkids a lot in through ministry
(02:25):
in church. And also I had anonprofit for a while that was a
camp for boys for about fiveyears, and summer camp. And, you
know, looked at the wholespectrum of add ADHD, and he was
very, very much on the lower endof that spectrum. But like I
(02:46):
said, a few focus issues, gave akid a funny, a really
interesting, different sense ofhumor. Had a lot of friends,
everybody liked Chase, he couldbe the life of the party at
time, so to speak. So great.
Edie wouldn't tell a lie if heknew it was going to get him in
(03:08):
trouble that matters. He wasalways very truthful with us, in
a very athletic. Some of thethings I think that went along
with his, with his ADHD was thathe was just his motor never
quit. When the other kidsplaying on the teams against him
would all get tired, he was justgetting started good. And very
(03:32):
good hand eye coordination, veryagile, very quick. was really in
about the middle of a 10th gradethat Chase began to, for the
first time he was failing aclass he was failing Spanish.
And his other grades wereslipping, he was beginning to
(03:53):
become a little bit rebelliousat home. And there were just all
sorts of warning signs like thatI was seeing and I was trying to
caught him in a few lies. Andlike I said earlier, I had never
had never lied before. And I wasstruggling with how to handle
that. tried talking to him andtried different approaches.
(04:14):
Nothing seemed to be working.
And that was probably really,that was the beginning of me
knowing that something wasright.
Michelle (04:24):
Well, that must have been so difficult for you and
your wife as well to see thechanges and chase. So what was
going through your mind at thattime about how this could be
happening and why?
Darryl (04:35):
Well, you know, I tell people a lot of times that you
know, we went through theterrible two's and all of that
and and then we hit this phasewhere I started thinking, I
think I got this parenting thingfigured out. And then the
teenage years came along, andthen chase began having these
struggles, and it was really alittle bit later for him because
(04:59):
it was really was already inhigh school, you know, before,
like I said, 10th grade before,there were any warning signs
that I recognized. And I wasreally grasping for straws and
thinking, Well, where did thiscome from? I feel like I'm
starting all over again, youknow, and really scared, didn't
(05:20):
know what I was going to do tosolve this problem and just
really digging deep trying toget some answers.
Michelle (05:28):
Yeah, I'll bet that is a scary feeling for a parent. So
you told me you learned that hewas actually running in a circle
of friends that weren't the bestinfluence on him. And that also
worried to what happened next.
Darryl (05:42):
He did go to a military school. And he was there from
the middle of his junior yearthrough graduation that brought
his grades up while he wasthere, and a really good year of
senior year of football there.
And then there was a school thatwas interested in the kind of
play football for them. And sounfortunately, it wasn't long
after he arrived there that hebegan to hang out with people
(06:05):
who are abusing drugs andalcohol. And pretty soon he was
he was doing the same thing. AndI was snooping around, you know,
spying on him a little bit. Anddefinitely, I knew something was
up, I already had my suspicions.
While he was at the militaryschool, I saw some other warning
(06:26):
signs there. He really onlylasted into early on the second
semester of his freshman year ofcollege, and then he dropped out
and came back home.
Michelle (06:37):
I'm very sorry to hear that. Certainly No parent wants
to learn that their child isusing drugs and hanging out with
others who do. So you said youlearned about this new lifestyle
by doing some snooping around.
And that's how you were able toconfirm it. Can you tell us just
a little about the so calledsnooping you dead?
Darryl (06:58):
Oh, my goodness, I went way overboard. Okay. And I
wouldn't recommend this snoopingto any parents, I think you will
discover things that you don'twant to discover. And it's
really an intrusion of theirprivacy, you know. So I sort of,
I'm really good at findingthings out that I want to find
(07:21):
out when it comes to theinternet. And when he was
getting ready to go, I boughtthe laptop that he was going to
use at college. And I said,Well, this is my laptop. So I
put Keylogger software on thelaptop, installed Keylogger
software on his on his cellphone.
Michelle (07:40):
Can you tell us how Keylogger software works?
Darryl (07:43):
Well, you can see every keystroke, every keystroke I
could, you know, you know, well,the software at the time,
wouldn't show you everything.
But you could put in certain keywords for it to look for, you
know, and it would it wouldalert you to those when those
came up. And then you can seeconversations, you could see a
lot of things and like I saidmore information than you really
(08:05):
wanted.
Michelle (08:07):
And you said he looked at his Facebook posts too. Is
that right?
Darryl (08:11):
Yeah, the social media too. Yeah. I don't think I was
logged into the back. I may havebeen because I've had the
keylogger I've had some of hispasswords, probably, uh, may
have actually logged into theback of some of his and seen
some of his conversations onsocial media. I know if I did
that. It wasn't everything. Itcertainly was. I'm sure he had
(08:34):
Snapchat and things like that,that I didn't see, you know, but
but Yeah, way too muchinformation.
Michelle (08:43):
And I think a lot of parents would be tempted to do
those things just to try to findout what was going on thinking
we might be able to put a stopto the behavior. Do you think
Chase was aware of the snoopingyou were doing?
Darryl (08:56):
He never, he never said anything to me about it. But
he's pretty. He was pretty techsavvy, too. And he he caught on
somehow he figured it out. Yeah.
Well, you know, it was sellingis ADHD medication to some of
the students there that didn'thave, you know, because they
(09:16):
felt like, oh, this will help mewith my focus. And I said, and I
confronted him on that he didn'tknow how I knew, at first, you
know, and I said, Look, this isillegal, what you're doing is
very illegal, you can get insome serious trouble for this.
And I think it wasn't too longafter that. And he basically
reset his phone, you know,pulled the SIM card or whatever,
(09:39):
he did something and reset hisphone and I lost access to, to
all of that.
Michelle (09:46):
Wow. Okay. So you said it got to the point where he was
in real trouble, and you knewyou needed to do something. What
was the first step that you tookin trying to help Chase overcome
his addiction?
Darryl (10:00):
Well, you know, I got involved a little bit while he
was still at college because hehad dropped out, but he was
staying on the campus still withfriends. And I reached out to
the dean and I wasn't gettingany action right off and had to
kind of put a little pressure onher like, okay, you know, this
is a serious problem in they dideventually take some action to
(10:24):
get him off campus. And he cameback home immediately gravitated
to a really rough crowd here athome that he was very short
period of time, and moved out abench late and I was keeping up
with him online. And just, youknow, not snooping anymore, just
watching his posts. And he, youknow, I could tell he was very
(10:47):
thin. I mean, he wasn't a realbig kid to begin with. And now
he's Railton pale, glassy eyed,I would see some pictures that
he would pose to it, like he anda lot of his friends were holed
up in a hotel room that likethey're all strung out on drugs.
And that was my perception. AndI'm pretty sure it was accurate.
And you know, so I was really,really, really scared at that
(11:10):
point, like, he's going to endup in prison, or did you know,
and I began to search theinternet for intervention
companies, didn't know anythingabout interventions had run
across the TV show a few timesnever really watched it, just
just enough to get the idea knewwhat it was. And an
(11:31):
interventionist came here to ourhouse and did an intervention
poor Chase. And that was areally, really scary thing, I'm
just gonna tell you, but we wereable to get him into treatment
through that intervention.
Michelle (11:45):
Good, good. What was the program like, and how long
was his stay there?
Darryl (11:51):
It was a 30 day program.
And, you know, this is the thingI would tell parents about that.
There are different ways you cango here, but I would really look
for longer term programs,because 30 days are really just
getting to the point where theirbrain is healing, and they're
getting kind of beginning to geta foundation, but they really
(12:12):
need a year long program, orlonger to unpack some of the
problems that are going onunderneath the surface, you
know, to try to try to geteverything straightened out to
give them a foothold and a goodchance to, to avoid a relapse.
Now, insurance companies, a lotof times will only pay for a 30
(12:33):
day program, there are someprograms that are less
expensive, that still think aregood programs, you know, if
you're doing a year longprogram, that's that's, you
know, not a ministry orsomething like that is probably
it's going to be expensive. Andin insurance, there's a good
chance they won't, they willonly, you know, pay for part of
(12:54):
it, or maybe none of it. So, butin the long run, if you're going
to pay for treatment, you needto really look that he came out
of that he came out of that 30Day Program. And what they have
is there's some stock, getthings that you can do and
insurance will sometimes pay forsome of that. And so what he
did, he went into a halfwayhouse. And he bounced around the
(13:18):
several different ones in SouthFlorida, where he was in over a
period of about nine months. Andmost of them were poorly
managed. The last one he was atwas really seemed like a pretty
good house. And he was there fora while, but he came back home.
And when he got back home, hewas doing a lot better. We felt
(13:40):
like we had the old Chase backin when I say we you know, he
was good friends, us otherfamily members, this food chase
that we knew. And he got a job.
He was going IOP intensiveoutpatient care two nights a
week. So things were lookinggood. But, you know, I knew
(14:05):
there were times when he wasbored, and especially being
ADHD, and I just felt thisweight on my shoulders to keep
trying to keep him entertained.
And I couldn't do it because Ihad things I had to do to you
know, as I couldn't entertainhim, you know, all the time. And
I was I was trying to look foryou know, like, Okay, what do
you want to do career wise? Youknow, I can help you get into,
(14:27):
you know, you could go themilitary route, and he wasn't
interested in that. And I said,Well, you know, there's there
are other options. I can helpyou get into the community
college here. You can learn atray. There's a lot of different
things you could do. But soeventually, it was probably
another eight or nine months heeventually he realized he
relapsed. I didn't know anythingabout addiction. At the time. I
(14:50):
didn't understand anything aboutrelapse. I didn't understand my
proper role in the recoveryprocess as a parent. And in
hindsight letting him move backin was not a good, not a good
plan. And anyway, he he came tome one day and said, Dad, you
know, I'm headed in a baddirection again. So I know I can
(15:11):
tell. I mean, I could just senseit, you know. And he said, I'm
hanging around a rough crowd.
Again, I don't know how to getaway from these people. But I
know I need to their badinfluence on me. And so I've
taken a job transfer to Floridaback to the area where I was in
treatment, and told me when hewas planning to leave, and, and
(15:34):
I told my wife, Kim, she madehim promise he would come by and
have a meal as
Michelle (15:38):
well, so hard, he was doing better. And then your gut
told you things were going inthe wrong direction again, and
now he wants to leave. I musthave been so hard on your family
and you knowing that everythingwas completely out of your
control. So that was the eveningof May 29 2014. Tell us what
(15:58):
happened at night.
Darryl (16:00):
Well, that's a day I'll never forget. You know, that's
that date is just burned into mymind. Because, you know, like I
said, Kim and my wife Kim hadmade his promise he would come
by and eat with us. And beforeleaving for Florida when he
didn't show up. It was gettinglate in the afternoon. Kim was
(16:22):
getting upset thinking thatChase had left for Florida
without even stopping by, saygoodbye. And we had all moved to
the living room. Kim and I andour younger son Justin, Justin
was in the eighth grade at thetime. Yeah, we're just kind of
hanging out chatting a littlebit. sharpen our phones, and I
had a phone call from one of myfriends. And I decided to go
(16:46):
outside to have my phoneconversations. I wouldn't
disturb them. And so I'mstanding out in the front lawn.
It was like it said May 29 2014Beautiful day. I'm standing out
there talking to my friend onthe phone when a police cruiser
pulled up to the curb in primaryhouse. The officer got out of
his car, I noticed he had aclipboard in his car and he
(17:08):
started up our driveway. And Itold my friend a better go
apparently chases him some kindof trouble he'd never been any
trouble with the law. But he washeaded in a dark direction and
so I went to meet that officerthere in our driveway and that's
where he told me um this Rogerhas been a bad wreck count on i
40 And your son Chase died atthe same so you know, right
(17:36):
there where we were standingmany many many times almost in
that exact same spot I hadthrown chase the football you
know, with throw it just out ofreach just to watch him use his
athleticism make diving catchesand you know we had right there
in the front yard kick the ballaround. And all that's kind of
coming back to you in themoment, you know, is kind of how
(17:57):
it was, for me at least and andthere was a little bit of
confusion in the beginning as towhich house he was at because
there were several people in thecar. And he thought I was one of
the other periods and then wegot all that straightened out.
But now. Now my mind is likeracing like once he told me
(18:17):
Chase was dead. Now I'm thinkingback to that confusion. And I'm
thinking he made a mistake. Youknow, I didn't hear him, right.
And so I asked him, Is he dead?
And he just kind of dropped? Hesaid, Yes, sir. He asked me if
there was any family inside thatI would like for him to notified
(18:37):
and I told him, I believe that'smy job. Let me do that. And, and
he asked me if he could go inwith me for support. And it
wasn't looking forward to it,obviously. But I just felt like
that responsibility fell on myshoulder. So we went in through
the front door and he followedme came in behind me and I told
Kim and Justin are younger son,of course we all cried for a
(19:01):
long time. And once we gotsettled down a little bit, we
began to ask the officerquestions about what had
happened. He get he didn't havea lot of details that day. As
the weeks went by, we began toget a little bit more
information.
Michelle (19:19):
I am so very very sorry for your loss, Darrell.
And I know you'll never forgetthat sad moment for the rest of
your life. You recount a lot ofdetails in your book. But one of
the things that stood out to meis that only a month later, it
was Father's Day. And you sadlyspent that afternoon at chases
grave. Something no parentshould ever have to do. Can you
(19:45):
tell us a little bit about yourgrief at that time and the
emotions you experiencedfollowing such a traumatic loss?
Darryl (19:52):
Oh, well, I'll tell you, you know, I can certainly look
back and see a lot of parentingmistakes I made both my boys,
but there's no doubt and youknow, both of them knew that I
loved them. And I spent a lot oftime with him growing up doing a
ton of things outdoor who areoutdoorsman, you know, and, and
(20:14):
both boys, Eagle Scout, so youknow, scouting, camping, you
know, fishing, hiking, all thatsort of thing. And so we were
close in, you know, just beinghere on father's day like that
is just there's a there's like ahole in my heart, you know, like
(20:34):
a part of me is missing and lifewill never be the same.
Michelle (20:38):
Yeah, I get that. And thank you for sharing that. When
you and I talked before I sharedthat Shawn pathway in April. And
so the next month, I had asimilar experience on Mother's
Day. And you and I alsoexperienced dreams after the
loss of our kids that weresomewhat comforting when we
really needed peace. Do youstill remember that early dream
(21:00):
about Chase?
Darryl (21:02):
Yeah, you know, not as vivid as it once was. But, you
know, it was it was more like, Iwould describe it as a wall of
water. But not what I couldpenetrate is very, very hard to
describe this, like a plasmatype material, you know, but
translucent, and I could seethrough there and I could see
(21:23):
him, you know, he's his faceright up there to that in. I
don't know, like we wereseparated by a foot or so. I
couldn't hear him. He couldn'thear me, you know, but we could
sort of communicate. Yeah. Andyou know, what was he trying to
do? I don't know. Exactly. And Ibelieve that he was trying to
let me know he was okay.
Michelle (21:43):
Yeah. Yeah. I love it.
And many people that I've talkedto have shared similar dreams
and those early days that servedas reassurance for them that
their kids were safe. And okay.
Well, let's talk about theaftermath of all this because we
know that loss of any kind hasan impact on more than just the
parents, siblings and friendssuffer deeply from the passing.
(22:07):
And you told me about the younggirl who was driving chases car,
the night of the accident, that,sadly, she ended up taking her
own life. Only seven monthsafter chases death. That story
was just so tragic. Can youshare your thoughts about what
(22:27):
you described as the falloutcaused by this type of loss?
Darryl (22:32):
You know, when we had the visitation purchase, so many
people, there were people Iheard that came to the funeral
home that came in the line wasso long, they you know,
especially people who areelderly couldn't stand for that
long line and turn around andlaugh. But so many people
(22:54):
impacted by his death, therewould be every so often
scattered throughout the line,you know, the line kind of
wrapped around, and I could seepeople a long time before they
would get to me. And there werethese teenagers, young adults in
their 20s. And I could see them,you know, in the line and just,
(23:14):
you know, faces beet red tearsstreaming down their cheeks. And
these were people I didn't evenknow, I had never met didn't
know that they were friends withChase. And one of them. Probably
less than a year ago, my wifeand I were out at the cemetery.
(23:35):
And there was a young girl outthere with with her little girl
and she was visiting chasesgray. And I approached her and
talked to her and she told mewho she was. And yeah, still,
after all these years, she'sgoing and visiting his grave and
(23:57):
his unusually was, but it's notsomeone that I got to know that
well, and is just is really hadthe impact, not just on the
family, but also a lot ofprayers and just a very wide
reaching type of impact.
Michelle (24:18):
Yeah, yeah. It's so sad and so traumatic for
everyone involved. So in yourbook, you also talk about the
feelings you had following theaccident and you share
specifically about how youstruggled with the reality that
no criminal charges would befiled against the driver of the
car. You said my anger wasgrowing and I just wanted to
(24:39):
take matters into my own hands.
I was growing more and moreimpatient with God, how could he
let this injustice stand? Soknowing what I know about you,
the son of a Baptist preacherhaving grown up in church and
raising your family in church,can you talk a little bit about
that lapse in your faith? Thatout moment and then contrast it
(24:59):
to where you are now in yourfaith walk.
Darryl (25:05):
Yeah, I will say this Never in all of this and
anything that's ever happened inmy life, I've never been mad at
God. In in, I wasn'tdisappointed in God. But I was
like, I don't know, I think ifyou read some of David's
writings, you know, there weretimes when he was saying, God,
where are you? You know, comeon, you know, when did you go
(25:26):
into hold these peopleaccountable for what they've
done, that I am at such adifferent place now. And I look
back on that, and I go, I wasnot thinking that way, you know,
because in hindsight, you know,Chase bore the lion's share of
the responsibility. It's notthat she didn't bear any
responsibility. And I'll say shethe driver, but he was his car,
(25:50):
he was the oldest one there. Youknow, he let her drive, he knew
they had all this smokemarijuana. So you know, I have a
different perspective. You know,when you're in that situation,
everybody grieves differently.
And in the very, very initialstages, I didn't have any anger.
But once it came on, it's notrational. And you just want to
(26:13):
take that loss out on someone.
And so the people that Chase hadsurrounded himself with, I felt
were a bad influence. You know,I didn't know anything about
addiction at the time, and drugaddiction in particular. So I
(26:35):
didn't have a lot of empathy forthem. And so that's where a lot
of my anger was focused in onher and she was 18 years old.
She didn't she didn't understandmuch about life at that point, a
very intelligent girl, but shedidn't have any life experience.
So I went through that phase, ittook me a while to get past
(26:56):
that. And then, you know, inhindsight, I look back and I go,
wow, I wish I wish I could havehandled things differently. I
don't know if it would have madea difference in how things
turned out. But yeah, it's thisa difficult part of grieving,
and everybody goes through theirown own grief journey.
Michelle (27:13):
Yeah, that's for sure.
And would you say that yourfaith played a role at all in
the healing process?
Darryl (27:19):
Oh, definitely. Yes, definitely. I don't know how
anyone gets through losing achild, not only how people get
through a lot of things they getthrough without, without a, or a
lot of things that come intotheir life without without a
relationship with God, throughJesus, because you know, it's
(27:44):
just, it's devastating when youhave this type of a loss, to be
able to come back in and keepgoing with your life that that's
that's a difficult thing to do,and to try to make something
positive out of it. And withoutGod, there's no way I could have
done it.
Michelle (28:03):
Right. Right. And you know, I think about people that
are listening now that may notbe in a place where they even
have a relationship with God ornever had, and they're grieving.
And I don't profess that arelationship with God is the
answer to all of this in thegrief process, but it's the
comfort in at all Wouldn't youagree?
Darryl (28:23):
Oh, yeah, definitely.
Yeah. Foundation for sure.
Michelle (28:27):
So Darrell, given everything you've been through,
watching Chase struggle, andthen ultimately losing him as a
result of the choices he made.
What lessons did you learn thatyou can share with listeners who
may be going through somethingsimilar with one of their
children right now?
Darryl (28:45):
Wow, so many mistakes. I made him an adult. You know, I'm
not I'm not reluctant to sharethose at all. In fact, I think
it helps people helps me to talkabout Okay, so the first thing I
would say is, I think like mostparents, I had a night most
parents, I had a knee jerkreaction. You know, when I found
(29:07):
out he was using drugs, and justalarmism and you know, just a
little over the top. And it'sunderstandable especially today
because things have changedsince I went through this. With
Chase. It's even more deadly.
Now. You know, with how muchfentanyl is out there. 108,000
people died of fentanyl overdoseor not fentanyl overdose but
(29:29):
died of overdoses last year. Butfentanyl probably accounted for,
I don't know close to 40% ofthat. And so and you know, they
can take something they think islegitimate pill that has
fentanyl in it that's been lacedwith fentanyl. And that may be
accidental, but there's a lot ofdifferent reasons for that, but
then they have a fatal overdose.
(29:52):
So So you know, understandparents having that knee jerk
reaction, but you have to dialit back. And because the first
thing they'll do is put up awall, you know, and put up their
defense mechanisms in, you can'thave a conversation, then it
gets more and more difficult toget that wall back down. So
(30:12):
that's probably the firstmistake. Even before that, I
would say, Chase when he had anissue with go to his mother. And
then she would come to mebecause I was more of the
disciplinarian. So going back,you know, if I could could do
that over would be to find a wayto make sure he felt more
comfortable in coming to me withthings and be more open with
(30:36):
things. Yeah, just a lot of alot of things that were really
just came down, you know, withan iron fist, like, you're going
to do this, and you're going todo that well, that it doesn't
work that way, you know, youhave to, you have to influence
you have no control, really, Ithink control over a teenager,
in particular, a teenager oryoung adult child is an
(30:58):
illusion, you don't really haveany control? Well, you have as
influence. And you have to usethat carefully.
Michelle (31:05):
Well, I said in the intro, that you are now a family
recovery coach, and you haveservices that you've studied and
learned about so that you canhelp other people. And I'm going
to put a link in the show notesso that people could look into
that and reach out to you ifneed be. But I want to talk
right now about two differenttypes of parents that may be
listening to this. The first oneis the parent who's struggling
(31:27):
with the addicted child, what'sthe most important thing you
could impart to that parent?
Darryl (31:35):
I would say, Don't overreact. But don't hesitate to
reach out and get help find someexpert help in when it really
comes down to having to makesome difficult decisions. You
(31:55):
need some guidance with that.
But you don't need to beindecisive need to go ahead and
make those decisions in moveforward. I see a lot of parents
get hung up early on in thedecision making process because
they're afraid that they willmake the wrong decision and they
won't be able to live with theconsequences. But the truth of
(32:17):
the matter is, no matter whatyou do, things may not turn out
the way you would hope. It's amatter of managing risks. And
you put the odds in your favor,when you do your homework to the
best of your ability within ashort period of time and then
take action. So a lot of timesthey, they their decision,
(32:41):
ultimately is to not take anyaction. And that's the worst
decision you can make.
Michelle (32:49):
And Darryl, what about the parent like you who
unfortunately lost a child dueto addiction, what's the most
important thing you can tellthem
Darryl (33:02):
see it as an opportunity for spiritual and personal
growth. And that's a hard thingto hear, especially in the early
stages. But as you get through,I would say in the early stages
in a very, very early going tojust let the emotions come it's
(33:23):
going to be an emotional rollercoaster, you're going to have
waves of emotion, and they'reuncontrollable. And it's okay.
Don't worry about that. Just letthose come and just and just,
you know, lean into it. And thatcould last days, weeks, probably
weeks or months, maybe even forthe first year on and off. And
(33:45):
you never know what's going totrigger that. You know, I do
public speaking I have done drugprevention, speaking and
impaired driving preventionspeaking for years, I got
started in it early on. And inthe beginning, it was very
difficult to get through aspeech and still today, every
now and then I look out atsomebody in the audience in just
(34:08):
a look they give me or somethingwill trigger me and boom, all
those emotions come back and Ihave to take a moment. So you
know those emotions are going tobe there, it's okay. But if you
can find a way to take your lossand use it to help other people,
not everybody will want to be aspeaker like me. That's not for
(34:32):
everyone. And not everyone willwant to write a book. But find
your thing. whatever your thingis, it may be there's a lot of
great organizations you couldvolunteer for in a lot of
different roles, volunteerroles, and I would I would
suggest when you're ready, dothat. One more tip early on is
(34:54):
to get into a program like griefshare. My wife went to grief
Share we had, we didn't grieve.
Our grief journeys went indifferent directions in the
beginning. And later, she wentwithout me to grief share twice
she went through, it's a 12 weekprogram. It's a lot of different
churches hosted around thecountry, just go to their
(35:16):
websites and find one in yourarea. And really good program is
important because you connectwith other people who are going
through are also grieving maynot be the loss of a child, but
they're grieving. And youconnect with those people, and
it helps with the healingprocess early on.
Michelle (35:38):
Yeah, that's really good advice. I'm familiar with
that program. And it is reallygood. Well, Darryl, like I said,
I'm gonna put a link to yourwebsite in the show notes to
make it easy to find forlisteners. And I just want to
say thank you so much for youropenness and willingness to
share about everything that youwent through and chases life.
Thank you so much for beinghere.
Darryl (35:58):
Thank you, Michelle.
Michelle (36:00):
So for those of you listening, if you're the parent
of a child who's struggling withaddiction, there are resources
available to you. Darryl foundedhis coaching program with the
belief that parents deserve tosee their child grow up and be
who they were created to be. Andthat every child who is
suffering from drug or alcoholaddiction, deserves to have
(36:22):
parents who are willing to workon a family solution to that
addiction. So if you findyourself in this difficult
situation, don't lose hope.
Reach out today. And if you're aparent who has lost their child
to addiction, my heart goes outto you. But please know that
there's also help for you, asDarrell mentioned, grief, share
(36:46):
a great program to providecomfort in grief. So reach out
for support, and know thatyou're not alone. And like
Darrell said, when we lose achild, it's an opportunity for
personal and spiritual growth,although it won't feel like that
right away. So don't run awayfrom God, but run to Him in your
(37:07):
pain. Psalm 34 Verse 18 says,He's near to the brokenhearted
and saves those who are crushedin spirit. I can attest to that.
So keep the faith my friend, andreach out to me if you want to
connect. I'm here for you too.
(37:28):
Thanks for listening.
Hey everybody, and welcome back to Qualified, the
place where incredible peopleshare their stories of
overcoming great adversity andloss, to inspire you and give
you hope. I'm Michelle Heaton.
As parents, we always want thebest for our kids. We teach them
what we know and learn the restas we go. We strive to pass
along the right values andethics, and we do our best to
(00:34):
provide them with the besteducation, the best
neighborhoods, and the bestfriends. And we want them to
have a seamless life, free frompoverty, pain, heartache, and
when things go wrong, we hurt.
And then we do our best toconsole and support and be
present in any way needed. Butwas there ever a time in your
(00:57):
life when you felt helpless toprovide a solution for your
child? When Try as you might,you simply didn't know what to
do? Have you ever said or donesomething that you couldn't
undo? Well, my guest today is afather who had the same
aspirations for his kids. And hedid everything in his power to
save his oldest son from a lifeof drugs and drug addicted
(01:20):
friends, only to lose the battlewhen he finally lost his son.
His name is Darryl Rogers, andhe's a bereaved father. But
today, he's also an author, aspeaker, and a family recovery
coach. Darrell had to learn thehard way the proper responses in
dealing with an addicted child.
And today he helps others learnthe lessons he wished he'd known
(01:43):
then. Welcome to QualifiedDarryl.
Darryl (01:48):
Thank you, Michelle. So good to be here.
Michelle (01:51):
Great. Well, Darryl, let's start by talking about
Chase. Tell us a little bitabout the young man he was and
then also about the changes yousaw that gave you a warning that
something wasn't right.
Darryl (02:04):
Okay. Chase was a great kid growing up, never gotten any
kind of trouble was quiet,easily going shy. He was
diagnosed ADHD fairly early on,in Leslie translated to a few
focus issues in the classroom.
But, you know, I've worked withkids a lot in through ministry
(02:25):
in church. And also I had anonprofit for a while that was a
camp for boys for about fiveyears, and summer camp. And, you
know, looked at the wholespectrum of add ADHD, and he was
very, very much on the lower endof that spectrum. But like I
(02:46):
said, a few focus issues, gave akid a funny, a really
interesting, different sense ofhumor. Had a lot of friends,
everybody liked Chase, he couldbe the life of the party at
time, so to speak. So great.
Edie wouldn't tell a lie if heknew it was going to get him in
(03:08):
trouble that matters. He wasalways very truthful with us, in
a very athletic. Some of thethings I think that went along
with his, with his ADHD was thathe was just his motor never
quit. When the other kidsplaying on the teams against him
would all get tired, he was justgetting started good. And very
(03:32):
good hand eye coordination, veryagile, very quick. was really in
about the middle of a 10th gradethat Chase began to, for the
first time he was failing aclass he was failing Spanish.
And his other grades wereslipping, he was beginning to
(03:53):
become a little bit rebelliousat home. And there were just all
sorts of warning signs like thatI was seeing and I was trying to
caught him in a few lies. Andlike I said earlier, I had never
had never lied before. And I wasstruggling with how to handle
that. tried talking to him andtried different approaches.
(04:14):
Nothing seemed to be working.
And that was probably really,that was the beginning of me
knowing that something wasright.
Michelle (04:24):
Well, that must have been so difficult for you and
your wife as well to see thechanges and chase. So what was
going through your mind at thattime about how this could be
happening and why?
Darryl (04:35):
Well, you know, I tell people a lot of times that you
know, we went through theterrible two's and all of that
and and then we hit this phasewhere I started thinking, I
think I got this parenting thingfigured out. And then the
teenage years came along, andthen chase began having these
struggles, and it was really alittle bit later for him because
(04:59):
it was really was already inhigh school, you know, before,
like I said, 10th grade before,there were any warning signs
that I recognized. And I wasreally grasping for straws and
thinking, Well, where did thiscome from? I feel like I'm
starting all over again, youknow, and really scared, didn't
(05:20):
know what I was going to do tosolve this problem and just
really digging deep trying toget some answers.
Michelle (05:28):
Yeah, I'll bet that is a scary feeling for a parent. So
you told me you learned that hewas actually running in a circle
of friends that weren't the bestinfluence on him. And that also
worried to what happened next.
Darryl (05:42):
He did go to a military school. And he was there from
the middle of his junior yearthrough graduation that brought
his grades up while he wasthere, and a really good year of
senior year of football there.
And then there was a school thatwas interested in the kind of
play football for them. And sounfortunately, it wasn't long
after he arrived there that hebegan to hang out with people
(06:05):
who are abusing drugs andalcohol. And pretty soon he was
he was doing the same thing. AndI was snooping around, you know,
spying on him a little bit. Anddefinitely, I knew something was
up, I already had my suspicions.
While he was at the militaryschool, I saw some other warning
(06:26):
signs there. He really onlylasted into early on the second
semester of his freshman year ofcollege, and then he dropped out
and came back home.
Michelle (06:37):
I'm very sorry to hear that. Certainly No parent wants
to learn that their child isusing drugs and hanging out with
others who do. So you said youlearned about this new lifestyle
by doing some snooping around.
And that's how you were able toconfirm it. Can you tell us just
a little about the so calledsnooping you dead?
Darryl (06:58):
Oh, my goodness, I went way overboard. Okay. And I
wouldn't recommend this snoopingto any parents, I think you will
discover things that you don'twant to discover. And it's
really an intrusion of theirprivacy, you know. So I sort of,
I'm really good at findingthings out that I want to find
(07:21):
out when it comes to theinternet. And when he was
getting ready to go, I boughtthe laptop that he was going to
use at college. And I said,Well, this is my laptop. So I
put Keylogger software on thelaptop, installed Keylogger
software on his on his cellphone.
Michelle (07:40):
Can you tell us how Keylogger software works?
Darryl (07:43):
Well, you can see every keystroke, every keystroke I
could, you know, you know, well,the software at the time,
wouldn't show you everything.
But you could put in certain keywords for it to look for, you
know, and it would it wouldalert you to those when those
came up. And then you can seeconversations, you could see a
lot of things and like I saidmore information than you really
(08:05):
wanted.
Michelle (08:07):
And you said he looked at his Facebook posts too. Is
that right?
Darryl (08:11):
Yeah, the social media too. Yeah. I don't think I was
logged into the back. I may havebeen because I've had the
keylogger I've had some of hispasswords, probably, uh, may
have actually logged into theback of some of his and seen
some of his conversations onsocial media. I know if I did
that. It wasn't everything. Itcertainly was. I'm sure he had
(08:34):
Snapchat and things like that,that I didn't see, you know, but
but Yeah, way too muchinformation.
Michelle (08:43):
And I think a lot of parents would be tempted to do
those things just to try to findout what was going on thinking
we might be able to put a stopto the behavior. Do you think
Chase was aware of the snoopingyou were doing?
Darryl (08:56):
He never, he never said anything to me about it. But
he's pretty. He was pretty techsavvy, too. And he he caught on
somehow he figured it out. Yeah.
Well, you know, it was sellingis ADHD medication to some of
the students there that didn'thave, you know, because they
(09:16):
felt like, oh, this will help mewith my focus. And I said, and I
confronted him on that he didn'tknow how I knew, at first, you
know, and I said, Look, this isillegal, what you're doing is
very illegal, you can get insome serious trouble for this.
And I think it wasn't too longafter that. And he basically
reset his phone, you know,pulled the SIM card or whatever,
(09:39):
he did something and reset hisphone and I lost access to, to
all of that.
Michelle (09:46):
Wow. Okay. So you said it got to the point where he was
in real trouble, and you knewyou needed to do something. What
was the first step that you tookin trying to help Chase overcome
his addiction?
Darryl (10:00):
Well, you know, I got involved a little bit while he
was still at college because hehad dropped out, but he was
staying on the campus still withfriends. And I reached out to
the dean and I wasn't gettingany action right off and had to
kind of put a little pressure onher like, okay, you know, this
is a serious problem in they dideventually take some action to
(10:24):
get him off campus. And he cameback home immediately gravitated
to a really rough crowd here athome that he was very short
period of time, and moved out abench late and I was keeping up
with him online. And just, youknow, not snooping anymore, just
watching his posts. And he, youknow, I could tell he was very
(10:47):
thin. I mean, he wasn't a realbig kid to begin with. And now
he's Railton pale, glassy eyed,I would see some pictures that
he would pose to it, like he anda lot of his friends were holed
up in a hotel room that likethey're all strung out on drugs.
And that was my perception. AndI'm pretty sure it was accurate.
And you know, so I was really,really, really scared at that
(11:10):
point, like, he's going to endup in prison, or did you know,
and I began to search theinternet for intervention
companies, didn't know anythingabout interventions had run
across the TV show a few timesnever really watched it, just
just enough to get the idea knewwhat it was. And an
(11:31):
interventionist came here to ourhouse and did an intervention
poor Chase. And that was areally, really scary thing, I'm
just gonna tell you, but we wereable to get him into treatment
through that intervention.
Michelle (11:45):
Good, good. What was the program like, and how long
was his stay there?
Darryl (11:51):
It was a 30 day program.
And, you know, this is the thingI would tell parents about that.
There are different ways you cango here, but I would really look
for longer term programs,because 30 days are really just
getting to the point where theirbrain is healing, and they're
getting kind of beginning to geta foundation, but they really
(12:12):
need a year long program, orlonger to unpack some of the
problems that are going onunderneath the surface, you
know, to try to try to geteverything straightened out to
give them a foothold and a goodchance to, to avoid a relapse.
Now, insurance companies, a lotof times will only pay for a 30
(12:33):
day program, there are someprograms that are less
expensive, that still think aregood programs, you know, if
you're doing a year longprogram, that's that's, you
know, not a ministry orsomething like that is probably
it's going to be expensive. Andin insurance, there's a good
chance they won't, they willonly, you know, pay for part of
(12:54):
it, or maybe none of it. So, butin the long run, if you're going
to pay for treatment, you needto really look that he came out
of that he came out of that 30Day Program. And what they have
is there's some stock, getthings that you can do and
insurance will sometimes pay forsome of that. And so what he
did, he went into a halfwayhouse. And he bounced around the
(13:18):
several different ones in SouthFlorida, where he was in over a
period of about nine months. Andmost of them were poorly
managed. The last one he was atwas really seemed like a pretty
good house. And he was there fora while, but he came back home.
And when he got back home, hewas doing a lot better. We felt
(13:40):
like we had the old Chase backin when I say we you know, he
was good friends, us otherfamily members, this food chase
that we knew. And he got a job.
He was going IOP intensiveoutpatient care two nights a
week. So things were lookinggood. But, you know, I knew
(14:05):
there were times when he wasbored, and especially being
ADHD, and I just felt thisweight on my shoulders to keep
trying to keep him entertained.
And I couldn't do it because Ihad things I had to do to you
know, as I couldn't entertainhim, you know, all the time. And
I was I was trying to look foryou know, like, Okay, what do
you want to do career wise? Youknow, I can help you get into,
(14:27):
you know, you could go themilitary route, and he wasn't
interested in that. And I said,Well, you know, there's there
are other options. I can helpyou get into the community
college here. You can learn atray. There's a lot of different
things you could do. But soeventually, it was probably
another eight or nine months heeventually he realized he
relapsed. I didn't know anythingabout addiction. At the time. I
(14:50):
didn't understand anything aboutrelapse. I didn't understand my
proper role in the recoveryprocess as a parent. And in
hindsight letting him move backin was not a good, not a good
plan. And anyway, he he came tome one day and said, Dad, you
know, I'm headed in a baddirection again. So I know I can
(15:11):
tell. I mean, I could just senseit, you know. And he said, I'm
hanging around a rough crowd.
Again, I don't know how to getaway from these people. But I
know I need to their badinfluence on me. And so I've
taken a job transfer to Floridaback to the area where I was in
treatment, and told me when hewas planning to leave, and, and
(15:34):
I told my wife, Kim, she madehim promise he would come by and
have a meal as
Michelle (15:38):
well, so hard, he was doing better. And then your gut
told you things were going inthe wrong direction again, and
now he wants to leave. I musthave been so hard on your family
and you knowing that everythingwas completely out of your
control. So that was the eveningof May 29 2014. Tell us what
(15:58):
happened at night.
Darryl (16:00):
Well, that's a day I'll never forget. You know, that's
that date is just burned into mymind. Because, you know, like I
said, Kim and my wife Kim hadmade his promise he would come
by and eat with us. And beforeleaving for Florida when he
didn't show up. It was gettinglate in the afternoon. Kim was
(16:22):
getting upset thinking thatChase had left for Florida
without even stopping by, saygoodbye. And we had all moved to
the living room. Kim and I andour younger son Justin, Justin
was in the eighth grade at thetime. Yeah, we're just kind of
hanging out chatting a littlebit. sharpen our phones, and I
had a phone call from one of myfriends. And I decided to go
(16:46):
outside to have my phoneconversations. I wouldn't
disturb them. And so I'mstanding out in the front lawn.
It was like it said May 29 2014Beautiful day. I'm standing out
there talking to my friend onthe phone when a police cruiser
pulled up to the curb in primaryhouse. The officer got out of
his car, I noticed he had aclipboard in his car and he
(17:08):
started up our driveway. And Itold my friend a better go
apparently chases him some kindof trouble he'd never been any
trouble with the law. But he washeaded in a dark direction and
so I went to meet that officerthere in our driveway and that's
where he told me um this Rogerhas been a bad wreck count on i
40 And your son Chase died atthe same so you know, right
(17:36):
there where we were standingmany many many times almost in
that exact same spot I hadthrown chase the football you
know, with throw it just out ofreach just to watch him use his
athleticism make diving catchesand you know we had right there
in the front yard kick the ballaround. And all that's kind of
coming back to you in themoment, you know, is kind of how
(17:57):
it was, for me at least and andthere was a little bit of
confusion in the beginning as towhich house he was at because
there were several people in thecar. And he thought I was one of
the other periods and then wegot all that straightened out.
But now. Now my mind is likeracing like once he told me
(18:17):
Chase was dead. Now I'm thinkingback to that confusion. And I'm
thinking he made a mistake. Youknow, I didn't hear him, right.
And so I asked him, Is he dead?
And he just kind of dropped? Hesaid, Yes, sir. He asked me if
there was any family inside thatI would like for him to notified
(18:37):
and I told him, I believe that'smy job. Let me do that. And, and
he asked me if he could go inwith me for support. And it
wasn't looking forward to it,obviously. But I just felt like
that responsibility fell on myshoulder. So we went in through
the front door and he followedme came in behind me and I told
Kim and Justin are younger son,of course we all cried for a
(19:01):
long time. And once we gotsettled down a little bit, we
began to ask the officerquestions about what had
happened. He get he didn't havea lot of details that day. As
the weeks went by, we began toget a little bit more
information.
Michelle (19:19):
I am so very very sorry for your loss, Darrell.
And I know you'll never forgetthat sad moment for the rest of
your life. You recount a lot ofdetails in your book. But one of
the things that stood out to meis that only a month later, it
was Father's Day. And you sadlyspent that afternoon at chases
grave. Something no parentshould ever have to do. Can you
(19:45):
tell us a little bit about yourgrief at that time and the
emotions you experiencedfollowing such a traumatic loss?
Darryl (19:52):
Oh, well, I'll tell you, you know, I can certainly look
back and see a lot of parentingmistakes I made both my boys,
but there's no doubt and youknow, both of them knew that I
loved them. And I spent a lot oftime with him growing up doing a
ton of things outdoor who areoutdoorsman, you know, and, and
(20:14):
both boys, Eagle Scout, so youknow, scouting, camping, you
know, fishing, hiking, all thatsort of thing. And so we were
close in, you know, just beinghere on father's day like that
is just there's a there's like ahole in my heart, you know, like
(20:34):
a part of me is missing and lifewill never be the same.
Michelle (20:38):
Yeah, I get that. And thank you for sharing that. When
you and I talked before I sharedthat Shawn pathway in April. And
so the next month, I had asimilar experience on Mother's
Day. And you and I alsoexperienced dreams after the
loss of our kids that weresomewhat comforting when we
really needed peace. Do youstill remember that early dream
(21:00):
about Chase?
Darryl (21:02):
Yeah, you know, not as vivid as it once was. But, you
know, it was it was more like, Iwould describe it as a wall of
water. But not what I couldpenetrate is very, very hard to
describe this, like a plasmatype material, you know, but
translucent, and I could seethrough there and I could see
(21:23):
him, you know, he's his faceright up there to that in. I
don't know, like we wereseparated by a foot or so. I
couldn't hear him. He couldn'thear me, you know, but we could
sort of communicate. Yeah. Andyou know, what was he trying to
do? I don't know. Exactly. And Ibelieve that he was trying to
let me know he was okay.
Michelle (21:43):
Yeah. Yeah. I love it.
And many people that I've talkedto have shared similar dreams
and those early days that servedas reassurance for them that
their kids were safe. And okay.
Well, let's talk about theaftermath of all this because we
know that loss of any kind hasan impact on more than just the
parents, siblings and friendssuffer deeply from the passing.
(22:07):
And you told me about the younggirl who was driving chases car,
the night of the accident, that,sadly, she ended up taking her
own life. Only seven monthsafter chases death. That story
was just so tragic. Can youshare your thoughts about what
(22:27):
you described as the falloutcaused by this type of loss?
Darryl (22:32):
You know, when we had the visitation purchase, so many
people, there were people Iheard that came to the funeral
home that came in the line wasso long, they you know,
especially people who areelderly couldn't stand for that
long line and turn around andlaugh. But so many people
(22:54):
impacted by his death, therewould be every so often
scattered throughout the line,you know, the line kind of
wrapped around, and I could seepeople a long time before they
would get to me. And there werethese teenagers, young adults in
their 20s. And I could see them,you know, in the line and just,
(23:14):
you know, faces beet red tearsstreaming down their cheeks. And
these were people I didn't evenknow, I had never met didn't
know that they were friends withChase. And one of them. Probably
less than a year ago, my wifeand I were out at the cemetery.
(23:35):
And there was a young girl outthere with with her little girl
and she was visiting chasesgray. And I approached her and
talked to her and she told mewho she was. And yeah, still,
after all these years, she'sgoing and visiting his grave and
(23:57):
his unusually was, but it's notsomeone that I got to know that
well, and is just is really hadthe impact, not just on the
family, but also a lot ofprayers and just a very wide
reaching type of impact.
Michelle (24:18):
Yeah, yeah. It's so sad and so traumatic for
everyone involved. So in yourbook, you also talk about the
feelings you had following theaccident and you share
specifically about how youstruggled with the reality that
no criminal charges would befiled against the driver of the
car. You said my anger wasgrowing and I just wanted to
(24:39):
take matters into my own hands.
I was growing more and moreimpatient with God, how could he
let this injustice stand? Soknowing what I know about you,
the son of a Baptist preacherhaving grown up in church and
raising your family in church,can you talk a little bit about
that lapse in your faith? Thatout moment and then contrast it
(24:59):
to where you are now in yourfaith walk.
Darryl (25:05):
Yeah, I will say this Never in all of this and
anything that's ever happened inmy life, I've never been mad at
God. In in, I wasn'tdisappointed in God. But I was
like, I don't know, I think ifyou read some of David's
writings, you know, there weretimes when he was saying, God,
where are you? You know, comeon, you know, when did you go
(25:26):
into hold these peopleaccountable for what they've
done, that I am at such adifferent place now. And I look
back on that, and I go, I wasnot thinking that way, you know,
because in hindsight, you know,Chase bore the lion's share of
the responsibility. It's notthat she didn't bear any
responsibility. And I'll say shethe driver, but he was his car,
(25:50):
he was the oldest one there. Youknow, he let her drive, he knew
they had all this smokemarijuana. So you know, I have a
different perspective. You know,when you're in that situation,
everybody grieves differently.
And in the very, very initialstages, I didn't have any anger.
But once it came on, it's notrational. And you just want to
(26:13):
take that loss out on someone.
And so the people that Chase hadsurrounded himself with, I felt
were a bad influence. You know,I didn't know anything about
addiction at the time, and drugaddiction in particular. So I
(26:35):
didn't have a lot of empathy forthem. And so that's where a lot
of my anger was focused in onher and she was 18 years old.
She didn't she didn't understandmuch about life at that point, a
very intelligent girl, but shedidn't have any life experience.
So I went through that phase, ittook me a while to get past
(26:56):
that. And then, you know, inhindsight, I look back and I go,
wow, I wish I wish I could havehandled things differently. I
don't know if it would have madea difference in how things
turned out. But yeah, it's thisa difficult part of grieving,
and everybody goes through theirown own grief journey.
Michelle (27:13):
Yeah, that's for sure.
And would you say that yourfaith played a role at all in
the healing process?
Darryl (27:19):
Oh, definitely. Yes, definitely. I don't know how
anyone gets through losing achild, not only how people get
through a lot of things they getthrough without, without a, or a
lot of things that come intotheir life without without a
relationship with God, throughJesus, because you know, it's
(27:44):
just, it's devastating when youhave this type of a loss, to be
able to come back in and keepgoing with your life that that's
that's a difficult thing to do,and to try to make something
positive out of it. And withoutGod, there's no way I could have
done it.
Michelle (28:03):
Right. Right. And you know, I think about people that
are listening now that may notbe in a place where they even
have a relationship with God ornever had, and they're grieving.
And I don't profess that arelationship with God is the
answer to all of this in thegrief process, but it's the
comfort in at all Wouldn't youagree?
Darryl (28:23):
Oh, yeah, definitely.
Yeah. Foundation for sure.
Michelle (28:27):
So Darrell, given everything you've been through,
watching Chase struggle, andthen ultimately losing him as a
result of the choices he made.
What lessons did you learn thatyou can share with listeners who
may be going through somethingsimilar with one of their
children right now?
Darryl (28:45):
Wow, so many mistakes. I made him an adult. You know, I'm
not I'm not reluctant to sharethose at all. In fact, I think
it helps people helps me to talkabout Okay, so the first thing I
would say is, I think like mostparents, I had a night most
parents, I had a knee jerkreaction. You know, when I found
(29:07):
out he was using drugs, and justalarmism and you know, just a
little over the top. And it'sunderstandable especially today
because things have changedsince I went through this. With
Chase. It's even more deadly.
Now. You know, with how muchfentanyl is out there. 108,000
people died of fentanyl overdoseor not fentanyl overdose but
(29:29):
died of overdoses last year. Butfentanyl probably accounted for,
I don't know close to 40% ofthat. And so and you know, they
can take something they think islegitimate pill that has
fentanyl in it that's been lacedwith fentanyl. And that may be
accidental, but there's a lot ofdifferent reasons for that, but
then they have a fatal overdose.
(29:52):
So So you know, understandparents having that knee jerk
reaction, but you have to dialit back. And because the first
thing they'll do is put up awall, you know, and put up their
defense mechanisms in, you can'thave a conversation, then it
gets more and more difficult toget that wall back down. So
(30:12):
that's probably the firstmistake. Even before that, I
would say, Chase when he had anissue with go to his mother. And
then she would come to mebecause I was more of the
disciplinarian. So going back,you know, if I could could do
that over would be to find a wayto make sure he felt more
comfortable in coming to me withthings and be more open with
(30:36):
things. Yeah, just a lot of alot of things that were really
just came down, you know, withan iron fist, like, you're going
to do this, and you're going todo that well, that it doesn't
work that way, you know, youhave to, you have to influence
you have no control, really, Ithink control over a teenager,
in particular, a teenager oryoung adult child is an
(30:58):
illusion, you don't really haveany control? Well, you have as
influence. And you have to usethat carefully.
Michelle (31:05):
Well, I said in the intro, that you are now a family
recovery coach, and you haveservices that you've studied and
learned about so that you canhelp other people. And I'm going
to put a link in the show notesso that people could look into
that and reach out to you ifneed be. But I want to talk
right now about two differenttypes of parents that may be
listening to this. The first oneis the parent who's struggling
(31:27):
with the addicted child, what'sthe most important thing you
could impart to that parent?
Darryl (31:35):
I would say, Don't overreact. But don't hesitate to
reach out and get help find someexpert help in when it really
comes down to having to makesome difficult decisions. You
(31:55):
need some guidance with that.
But you don't need to beindecisive need to go ahead and
make those decisions in moveforward. I see a lot of parents
get hung up early on in thedecision making process because
they're afraid that they willmake the wrong decision and they
won't be able to live with theconsequences. But the truth of
(32:17):
the matter is, no matter whatyou do, things may not turn out
the way you would hope. It's amatter of managing risks. And
you put the odds in your favor,when you do your homework to the
best of your ability within ashort period of time and then
take action. So a lot of timesthey, they their decision,
(32:41):
ultimately is to not take anyaction. And that's the worst
decision you can make.
Michelle (32:49):
And Darryl, what about the parent like you who
unfortunately lost a child dueto addiction, what's the most
important thing you can tellthem
Darryl (33:02):
see it as an opportunity for spiritual and personal
growth. And that's a hard thingto hear, especially in the early
stages. But as you get through,I would say in the early stages
in a very, very early going tojust let the emotions come it's
(33:23):
going to be an emotional rollercoaster, you're going to have
waves of emotion, and they'reuncontrollable. And it's okay.
Don't worry about that. Just letthose come and just and just,
you know, lean into it. And thatcould last days, weeks, probably
weeks or months, maybe even forthe first year on and off. And
(33:45):
you never know what's going totrigger that. You know, I do
public speaking I have done drugprevention, speaking and
impaired driving preventionspeaking for years, I got
started in it early on. And inthe beginning, it was very
difficult to get through aspeech and still today, every
now and then I look out atsomebody in the audience in just
(34:08):
a look they give me or somethingwill trigger me and boom, all
those emotions come back and Ihave to take a moment. So you
know those emotions are going tobe there, it's okay. But if you
can find a way to take your lossand use it to help other people,
not everybody will want to be aspeaker like me. That's not for
(34:32):
everyone. And not everyone willwant to write a book. But find
your thing. whatever your thingis, it may be there's a lot of
great organizations you couldvolunteer for in a lot of
different roles, volunteerroles, and I would I would
suggest when you're ready, dothat. One more tip early on is
(34:54):
to get into a program like griefshare. My wife went to grief
Share we had, we didn't grieve.
Our grief journeys went indifferent directions in the
beginning. And later, she wentwithout me to grief share twice
she went through, it's a 12 weekprogram. It's a lot of different
churches hosted around thecountry, just go to their
(35:16):
websites and find one in yourarea. And really good program is
important because you connectwith other people who are going
through are also grieving maynot be the loss of a child, but
they're grieving. And youconnect with those people, and
it helps with the healingprocess early on.
Michelle (35:38):
Yeah, that's really good advice. I'm familiar with
that program. And it is reallygood. Well, Darryl, like I said,
I'm gonna put a link to yourwebsite in the show notes to
make it easy to find forlisteners. And I just want to
say thank you so much for youropenness and willingness to
share about everything that youwent through and chases life.
Thank you so much for beinghere.
Darryl (35:58):
Thank you, Michelle.
Michelle (36:00):
So for those of you listening, if you're the parent
of a child who's struggling withaddiction, there are resources
available to you. Darryl foundedhis coaching program with the
belief that parents deserve tosee their child grow up and be
who they were created to be. Andthat every child who is
suffering from drug or alcoholaddiction, deserves to have
(36:22):
parents who are willing to workon a family solution to that
addiction. So if you findyourself in this difficult
situation, don't lose hope.
Reach out today. And if you're aparent who has lost their child
to addiction, my heart goes outto you. But please know that
there's also help for you, asDarrell mentioned, grief, share
(36:46):
a great program to providecomfort in grief. So reach out
for support, and know thatyou're not alone. And like
Darrell said, when we lose achild, it's an opportunity for
personal and spiritual growth,although it won't feel like that
right away. So don't run awayfrom God, but run to Him in your
(37:07):
pain. Psalm 34 Verse 18 says,He's near to the brokenhearted
and saves those who are crushedin spirit. I can attest to that.
So keep the faith my friend, andreach out to me if you want to
connect. I'm here for you too.
(37:28):
Thanks for listening.
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