Token of Gratitude

For his 17th birthday, I gave my eldest son, Henry, a gift certificate to fill up the truck with gasoline a couple of times. He drives an old Chevy Tahoe, so the card won't take him very far. But with some cash he got from his grandparents and his job mowing a neighbor's lawn, he's got a reserve to keep him rolling along for a couple of months.

What I hope he'll get more mileage out of is my other small present to him, a metal token with the Roman numeral XVII stamped on one side and the serenity prayer on the other. It's the kind of medallion that typically is given to alcoholics and addicts to mark their journeys in recovery, and the tokens include numbers as short as 24 hours and as long as multiple decades.

Henry isn't an alcoholic. In fact, he says he never has taken a drink or used a drug, and I believe him. But a few days before his birthday, I realized that by my 17th birthday, in 1976, I had started to experiment with marijuana and beer, sparking a chain reaction to full-blown addiction, which I did not overcome until I was 35 years old. I've been clean and sober since 1994. Henry's been the same since 1992, when he was born.

So I gave him the medallion to recognize my appreciation that he has stayed away, at least so far, from those substances. The medallion was in a hand-carved wooden box with this note to him:

"Dear Henry: When I was your age, I already had started the slow slide into trouble caused by my decision to experiment with alcohol and other drugs. On your 17th birthday, this medallion honors the admirable choice you have made to live these years up to now without them.  I hope and pray you'll add more tokens to this special keepsake box in the years ahead. I am so proud of you. Love, Dad."

On the Sunday after his birthday, Henry, his brother, Thomas (who, at 15, also has been clean as long as I have), and I watched the Minnesota Vikings battle the Pittsburgh Steelers on television. During those three hours of football, there were about a dozen commercials pitching various brands of beer. Those ads were mostly funny, cleverly done and engaging, even to the three of us. So I am no fool. From Madison Avenue advertising to Web sites for online pharmacies selling Viagra and Vicodin, access is easy and temptation is ubiquitous, especially for teenagers, mine included.

All I can do is lead by example. I stay sober in front of my kids by sharing with them what it was like for me at their age, what happened and why I must continue to take care of myself all these years later. I encourage them to learn from their father and remind them that if they choose to use mood- and mind-altering substances, they may not be able to choose the outcome. But I also emphasize that if they develop a problem, it is OK to ask me for help.

In the meantime, I'll keep giving them medallions. Whether just for today or for longer, they need to know that I value their efforts to make the right choices in their journeys through these tricky teenage years and beyond.

October 31, 2009

Copyright Creators Syndicate, Inc. For the benefit of alcoholics, addicts and those who care about them, please encourage your local paper to run "Beyond Addiction" by William C. Moyers. Available through Creators Syndicate.