Max

I know I'm going to be explaining this a thousand times in the next few days, and honestly, I'm just so over it and just don't want to talk about it anymore.

We went to court today and Max was sentenced to an "indeterminate term" in the state juvenile justice system. What that means, according to his PO, is that next Monday he will be picked up and go to the state juvenile facility in Bon Air (just across the river from here, maybe 20 minutes away). He will remain there for 30 days (with no visitation) for every kind of evaluation known to man. At the end of that time, they will decide both where he should serve his time and how long he should serve. They group kids together with similar problems and offenses, so he will be with all the druggies, not the rapists and robbers. He will receive treatment and counseling, etc. He would go to school except that he already earned his GED while in detention last year, so hopefully there will be an opportunity for some kind of post-secondary education while he's there. The system is so overcrowded that he will likely get out early, especially if he does what he's supposed to (which he most likely will, once he moves past being angry).

He said he's done with drugs, is ready to quit, is tired of hurting his family and losing so much because of his addiction, but like the little boy who cried wolf, we've heard this all before. The judge told him - and this made me cry then and is making me cry now - that he's one of the most intelligent kids she's seen in her courtroom and he's throwing his life away for drugs. It is just so true. I believe that he believes he's ready to move forward; I don't know whether he has the skills he needs to do that yet. But it doesn't matter, because he's not coming home anyway.

His PO called me later to tell me that Max wants to file an appeal. If he does that, he will sit in Henrico detention waiting for his date in Circuit Court - a month or more that in the end won't count towards serving his sentence - and then he goes before a different judge who I believe would be crazy to overturn what the Juvenile judge sentenced him to. I think he's speaking out of desperation and anger, and I understand that. His dad will visit him on Wednesday and try to help him see reason, that this just doesn't make sense. I will visit him on Sunday and tell him the same thing.

So, in a nutshell, he will probably get something between 3 and 18 months. They can keep him past his 18th birthday if they choose to (it is in less than 6 months). If this is indeed - as his PO says - a PROGRAM that will work on his addiction issues, then I'm all for it. I am still LIVID that this system is so effed up that a kid without a license who borrows mommy's car, goes joy riding, and KILLS PEOPLE gets to walk free because he "shows remorse" while my kid gets tied up with all this legal BS because he has a DISEASE. And I tell you this - addiction is a disease, just like diabetes or asthma, and until you have lived it, you cannot begin to understand it. We do not get to choose which crappy genes we pass onto our children, and no amount of good parenting can make up for crappy genes. My parenting skills can no more save my kid from addiction than they can from diabetes. Yes, I am defensive about it, because even though I say that I couldn't save him, I keep wondering what else I could have done? And the answer is NOTHING, and if you think otherwise, well, then more power to you when you have to face the truth. And count your blessings each and every day that you DON'T have to live with an addict.

And the thing about this legal "system" (BTW, I KNOW what a "system" is, and this thing resembles a clusterf*** more than it resembles a "system") is such that you go from one date to the next to the next, always waiting and wondering. We've been counting down the days to this day, and now we have another countdown, and another and another. When will Max come home? Who knows? I will see him on Sunday and after that, when? Who knows? Pick a number and get in line and wait. This "system" has caused me so many headaches that it's a miracle I'm not addicted to painkillers. Oh, wait, maybe I am....

So on to the next countdown, shoulder surgery on April 10, 17 days from now. I can't wait; I plan to stay overmedicated as long as I can manage it.