How do you condense 31 years, 4 months, and 2 days of living into a paragraph or two? My son Scott only lived that long but he sure packed a lot of living into such a short life. He could have had so much more had he not suffered from the disease of addiction. Not only could he play most any instrument, he was a phenomenal guitar player, he composed his own music. He also surfed and even spent 3 weeks in Australia surfing, he tried sky-diving twice and bungee jumping. Anything that would give him a rush. For whatever reason he needed that.

Scott was a writer and avid reader and a consummate animal lover. He couldn't stand people who were mean to animals and was always bringing home strays.

Scott was a talented 16 year old kid who had his own band and gorgeous good looks, a smile that could charm the birds out of the trees and a superior intellect. He had the world by the tail...until his 17th birthday when a band mate gave him a line of cocaine as a "birthday present."

Scott was immediately addicted. He could not get enough of cocaine and eventually graduated to crack cocaine and then to heroin and not long before he died, he had added meth to his drugs of choice.

Scott struggled with addiction for 14 years, trying desperately to beat the Addiction Monster! He went to AA, NA, was in several rehabs and just couldn't beat it. The drug had too much of a pull on him. He told me that drugs made him feel like what he thought "normal" people felt like. For all of his attributes and talents, he lacked self-esteem. We will never know why. He was brought up in a loving home and he knew he was loved and appreciated.

The drugs controlled every aspect of his life, although he managed to become an EMT, graduating first in his class, then went on to become an extremely good paramedic and finally a caring and compassionate RN. He was what they call a functioning addict.

However, after coming home from each rehab he continued to get worse. After his last stint in rehab he was at the worst he'd ever been. He would wake up every morning, alone in his home, except for his beloved dog and 4 cats, and wish that he was dead. He hated what the drugs had done to him and how they had destroyed his life and all those who loved him.

He left behind his loving parents, his only brother, and his grandfather. He and his girlfriend were just getting back together again when the drugs took their final parting shot.

Our lives, as we knew them, ended on that terrible day. We now try to adjust to our new "normal" and console ourselves with all of the wonderful memories of a loving son. We will go on living, but we will mourn him forever, until our last dying breath. As long as we're alive, Scott is alive.

I chronicled his struggles along with 39 other parents' struggles with their addicted child in a book that was published in October, 2006, called I Am Your Disease (The Many Faces of Addiction). We told our stories in the hope of helping others and to help people understand the disease of addiction and also to keep our children's memory alive so that they will not be forgotten and so they didn't die in vain.

www.geocities.com/scottmcginnis31/index.html

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