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| Jake's story, Part 2: 'I'm not an addict' |
By: By SUZANNE ROOK, Senior Reporter
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Posted: Friday, July 4, 2008 5:12 pm
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Devastated and contrite, Jake Malecha stood before his parents and swore he wasn’t a junkie.
It was a one-time thing, he said as his parents, in disbelief, showed him the syringes and pills they found under his mattress.
“We’re not going to have drugs in this house,” Judi Malecha recalls telling Jake, then 21, as she begged him to consider treatment.
But treatment, he said, wasn’t available in town; local doctors, who didn’t have the necessary training, couldn’t prescribe the pills his parents had found. “Bupes,” Jake called them, a nickname for buprenorphine, a medication used to stave off heroin withdrawal. To get them, he’d have to travel to the Cities several times a week. Doctors there would monitor his treatment. And he couldn’t do that and hold down a full-time job.
There’s no way he was an addict, he said. Addicts can’t do what he was doing: work, go to school and get good grades, he told them.
Jake was right, said Judi, “for us to feel like he was doing heroin on a consistent basis, it just wasn’t there.”
But what about support, treatment, they asked him. Jake assured them their discovery wasn’t a big deal, that he was fine, and that if he felt like using again, he’d call his parents.
But that wasn’t enough for the Malechas. If they were going to keep paying for his education, he’d have to agree that his room was open to inspection and submit to regular drug tests and having his arms checked for needle marks.
For the next year, Jake passed each test, though he sometimes lashed out, wondering when they’d trust him again.
Again, Judi thought, Jake was right. When, she wondered, could they trust his word? And how would she know when the time was right?
Back at school, North Dakota State College of Science, Jake picked up where he left off. He was focused, his grades were good. His classes, he said, were interesting. He was taking apart large motors and putting them back together with ease, he told his parents.
This spring, Jake came back home, on a months-long break from classes. As part of the training, Jake would work at the John Deere dealership, getting hands-on experience as an enhancement to his lessons, before heading back to school in June.
Jake looked good, said his parents. At 22, he was maturing, becoming an adult.
The sibling rivalry with his sister, Abby, 17, had melted away. He’d become her protector, said Judi, helped her with her math homework, often answering her questions via text message.
Friends were still important to him, Judi said, but he saw them less frequently than ever before. It wasn’t unusual for him to spend the evening at home, or hang out with a girl he’d been seeing.
Around 1 a.m. on April 13, Jake called his dad. He was in town, had gone out with friends, but hadn’t taken his truck and needed a ride home.
So off Ken went, happy to oblige his son, preferring to have him home rather than someplace where he didn’t know what Jake was doing.
Jake, Ken said, seemed fine. All the way home, they talked about the next day’s plans, which hinged on whether the family would go to early or late Mass. Judi would sing with the choir and afterward, father and son would take a look at a new tractor.
With one last goodnight, Jake headed downstairs. “I love you,” they told each other.
Ken turned toward his bedroom, never imagining it was their final goodbye.
Coming Wednesday: The Malechas turn tragedy into a motivating force.
— Suzanne Rook can be reached at srook@northfieldnews.com or 645-1113. |
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