ADDISON'S OVERDOSE

December 25, 2011

My parents, my husband, Addison, my mom's best friend and I all pile in our surburban in the middle of the night to drive from Knoxville to the Atlanta airport. We have found over the years that traveling ON Christmas Day is so easy as far as airports are concerned, and started doing that several years ago. We listened to the CD that I have of Caribbean music and were all excited as usual to get there and hear it in person.
That week was wonderful. My mom and her friend had a room, my husband and I had a room, and Addison stayed in a room with my dad. They were all right next to each other, and when we were there and getting ready to do something we would just leave our doors propped open and come and go into each others rooms freely. 
We ate, we played in the casino, we played games, we went to the Junkanoo parade, we laid in the sun, Addison and my husband frequented all the water slides on the Atlantis property, and every night Addison was in our room playing Xbox with Sam until about 1 or 2 in the morning. We've made friends with the Bahamian people over the years and we visited an AIDS camp that is there with our friend Larry, who is in charge of all the jet ski's and water sports on the beach. His church looks after the people at that camp, and we took them two huge bags worth of supplies. That was to be our Christmas, bc when we go to the beach we don't exchange gifts among ourselves. The beach IS our present, and the time we get to spend together, except of course for the Madden 2012 Xbox game that Addison convinced me to buy for him before we left.
I never want to leave Nassau, it is our favorite place to be. New Years Day we returned home. Sam and I had a fight the day we left and the whole ride home from Atlanta back to Knoxville I spent sulking in the back. I never spoke a word that three hour ride home. That is my ONLY regret about Addison. I WASTED my LAST three hours with him on this earth. Allowing myself to harbor anger that had nothing to do with him, I stayed silent and just listened to everyone else talk. That will probably haunt me forever - I had three hours with him, in a car, where all we had was time, to be together and to talk, and I WASTED it.
We parted ways in my driveway around 8pm. I hugged Addison goodbye and told him I loved him, but I was still angry, and it wasn't a hug like I would normally have given. It was too quick, too rushed, I didn't squeeze him and hold him for a minute like I ALWAYS do.
That night Addison sat on the end of my parents bed and talked with them. He had gone to Sonic to get something to eat, and while eating his grilled cheese sandwich he talked about school, and how he was looking forward to going back. He told my dad he was going to go back with him to Bible Study Fellowship the very next Monday. My parents said that was the best hour they've spent with him in a long time. I'm jealous of that hour they got, knowing what I did with my last hours. He went to bed happy and said "wake me up the morning mom so we can go get Sadie!" He was so excited to go pick up his dog that he got in rehab, who had been at the vet while we were at the beach.
For whatever reason, my mom went to check on him in his room around 10:30pm. She normally would not do this, but in thinking back she thought she heard the back door open and close. He was in his recliner watching Sports Center when she went up, and he smiled and seemed happy. They said goodnight and mom returned back downstairs to go to sleep.

January 2, 2012

Mom said she went bounding up the stairs that morning to wake Addison to go get his dog. She saw him in his recliner and called to him to get up, but there was no response. She wasn't worried, as it was normal for it to take a lot to wake Addison. She went to him and shook him a little, and still no response. Then she placed her hand on the side of his face, and it was COLD. She knew. God I don't know how she must have felt, but she knew, Addison was gone.
She screamed for my dad who came running. He pulled Addison out of the recliner and attempted CPR while my mom called 911. She called my grandfather and her best friend, both of which live just 2 miles away.
The paramedics came and carried Addison down the stairs wrapped up in a sheet. One of them lost their grip and dropped the top half of Addison's body on the marble floor in the kitchen right in front of my mom. They intebated him and hooked him up to a heart monitor. Mom said she saw three little blips on the screen and thought maybe there was some hope, but after that it was just a flatline. They wouldn't allow my mom to ride in the ambulance with him. 

About 10:00am my husband's cell phone rang. I was unpacking in the bathroom, still sad about having to leave Nassau behind. I heard him calmly say, "okay, I understand, okay, we'll be there soon." I thought, Who in the world was that??? Then he came and said "we have to go to the hospital right now, it's Addison." Of course the old panic mode I used to always have about him kicked in as I tried to get dressed as fast as I could but it was hard because I was shaking so bad. I kept saying "what happened!!" over and over. I even said "did he overdose?" But my mind left that thought because I reminded myself, "no way! he's been clean for 6 months!" Even after all we had been through over the last 4 years I still couldn't imagine what had happened, and I spent the whole car ride saying "what if he dies? what if he dies????"

Running into the ER I saw my whole family in a room. My mom in a wheelchair and as I entered the door she looked at me with the saddest eyes I've ever seen and just simply said "he's dead"
The scream I let out was animalistic. It wasn't human sounding and it was probably heard throughout the whole hospital. My legs collapsed underneath me and my body staring flailing out of control. My grandfather and Sam had to hold me down. It felt like if I had any more adrenaline in my body I would literally explode. Everyone was sobbing, but I had broken free from my restrainers and was pacing the room like a caged Tiger screaming "how did this happen!!!!" repeatedly, until that changed to "this is NOT happening!" over and over again. It was THE WORST feeling I have ever experienced. It makes every other feeling of panic and fear that I've ever had in my entire life seem like NOTHING. NOTHING compares to that feeling.

They let us go back to ROOM ONE where his body was for a little while before they came to take him to UT for the autopsy. We cried over him. I kissed his face a thousand times and held his cold hands. We gave permission to donate his beautiful brown eyes, bc that was the only thing left that was viable to donate. Once the transport came, we had to leave. We had to let him go, and we all looked at each other like "now what?" It was so horrible when they just looked at us and said "now, you go home." 
We've spent everyday since then trying to cope with not only that day, but trying to live ourselves without Addison.

Many of you are new to the page, and even those that aren't maybe weren't here early enough to hear exactly what happened to Addison. Most just know that he died, but there is so much more to the story than that, so here it is. Addison had been clean for 6 months. For the first time in a long time, had had some money, left over from our vacation. He had plans for his future and was excited about it, but that money was burning a hole in his pocket, and the addiction called to him so strongly he couldn't say no. I KNOW that even though it probably wouldn't have turned out this way, in his mind he thought "I'll just do this ONE more time, and then be done with it."
It was just one more time, it was the LAST time, and he died of respiratory depression from an overdose of OPANA. He went to sleep, and just never woke up....