I was four to five years old
when I started being sexually abused.
When I was young I just thought it was normal,
but obviously noting about that's normal.
The biggest problem I had
was trying to pretend it never happened.
I used drugs as a crutch
so I'm numb, so I don't feel the pain
I felt realizing what happened to me when I was little.
It just helps me not to feel anything.
Well for Mike it wasn't just a broken back
that led him down this erratic
and reckless lifestyle of drugs.
His mother, Laurie, says she never
could have imagined her son
growing up to be an addict.
Growing up my son Mike had it all.
I was the popular kid,
friends with everybody, great athlete,
good at everything.
Teachers loved me, parents loved me.
I never, ever, ever would have expected
my son Mike to become addicted to anything.
It literally controls every aspect of my life.
It sucks.
After Mike got out of the Marines
we were told by my youngest son
that Mike was now using a needle for his drugs.
I don't believe Ashley knew
about MIke's drug problem until after she got pregnant.
When we became pregnant with our daughter
the drug use didn't get worse,
but it became way more known
that I was using hard drugs.
The morning that she gave birth
to my granddaughter,
I was there, it was about 4:00 in the morning.
I went home and about 10:30 she was calling me hysterical.
He was using in the bathroom at the hospital.
I cannot believe that he's doing this to me right now.
I obviously could not walk
or get up so I called his mother.
I remember being in the main bathroom with him,
and he just broke down crying.
As a mother I would think that
having a child would be enough
for you not to do things like that.
But he's so stuck right now.
He has no way out.
He doesn't have it in him to do it.
It's like I told myself when we went and got it,
I wasn't gonna do a big shot,
but you see how that turned out.
Well Laurie you've been listening
to everything we've been talking about so far.
I cannot go on any longer.
If something doesn't change,
my granddaughter's gonna come live with me.
It has to, it has to stop.
He hides everything so well.
Your addiction is hindering me
from being a mom.
He hides it from you two apparently.
You two are the only one
that are apparently functionally blind.
As I've been reading through,
he doesn't even make much of an effort to hide it.
Did you know that when you were giving birth
to your daughter?
No.
I didn't know until I saw him in the bathroom
for a long period of time with the door closed,
and I assumed that's what he was doing.
What were you shooting up?
Dilaudid.
You say you don't believe in tough love.
When I was married to his father,
it was very hard for me to see them.
My husband would be, throw him out the door.
I mean they're my children, I love them.
You love them and so?
I don't wanna see them on the streets.
I don't wanna see them suffer.
You changed in the middle
of that sentence.
You were talking about your children,
then you started talking about you.
You were talking about your drug addict son,
and in the middle of the sentence
you started talking about what you wanted.
So you're basically saying that you've been enabling him
because it makes you feel better.
You don't want to see him on the street.
You don't want the anxiety
of him having to deal with the reality
of what he's doing to himself
so you give him a roof,
you give him a place to fall.
I don't give him a roof.
You do whatever you have to do to feel better.
I don't do any of that.
That's in the past.
I can't have that under my roof.
I can't live that life anymore.
Ashley can't live this life anymore.
You've kicked him out three or four times,
but yet you let him right back in.
After being clean and sober for periods of time.
But you know he's clean 'cause he tells you.
Yes, you're right.
