Local Video
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| Branden's story: Finding a way out |
By: By SUZANNE ROOK, Senior Reporter
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Posted: Friday, July 4, 2008 5:37 pm
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For Branden Smith, 22, drugs were a way out.
An escape, he said, from family problems — a mother who slapped him around, turned him in to police and refused to let him back into her home after he’d been in trouble. The day she stood on one side of a locked screen door and told the officer to take him back to the halfway house, he was 14.
By that point, he’d already developed a full-blown drug problem: cocaine, pot, heroin, whatever he could get his hands on.
Anything to numb the pain.
How it began
His first drink, at 11, was a bottle of rum shared with a cousin. Soon after, he smoked his first joint with an adult neighbor. Using, he said, made him popular, taking him from a geeky kid who made honor roll to someone who people suddenly wanted to spend time with.
“When I was away from my house,” he said, “all the problems with my family didn’t exist.”
By the time he, his mother and two sisters moved to Northfield two years later, he had already had a brush with the law, for stealing and selling Pokemon cards.
His mother’s verbal attacks and aggressiveness, directed toward Branden intensified. The more she lashed out, the more he withdrew. To retaliate, he stepped up his drug use and stayed away from home for long periods of time, hoping that his absence would hurt his mom as she had hurt him.
But instead of the payback he sought, his actions only fanned the flames of his mother’s ire and she kicked the 13-year-old out for forgetting to take off his shoes before coming inside.
For a while he stayed with a friend, later moving in with two 20-somethings he met after they asked him for directions. During his six months at their Northfield apartment, he was constantly high on pot, hallucinogens, methamphetamine or speed.
“I wish it didn’t have to be that way, I wish I could have a family like other people,” he said.
After his buddies were evicted, he tried to go back home, but his relationship with his mom was worse than ever. After one fight, she called his probation officer, who sent the police to arrest him and take him to a halfway house for juveniles.
His time there, he said, was a nightmare. Each day of his two-month stay was scheduled to the minute, full of chores and therapy. This time, there was no escape, not physical, not chemical. And while he hated the halfway house, home was no better.
His mother’s rejection stuck in his gut. Drugs were the only thing that could deaden that pain.
For the last three years, said Mary Nelson, Branden’s foster mother, Branden has worked to stay sober, understanding the need to be a better parent to his son than his mother was to him.
Branden, who didn’t graduate from high school, has earned his GED and hopes to soon go to college. But working to support himself and his 3-year-old son while going to college will be a challenge he hasn’t yet figured out how to manage.
Editor’s Note : After our initial interview with Branden early this spring, we were unable to get back in touch with him, but learned through Nelson that he still lives and works in Rice County.
— Suzanne Rook can be reached at srook@northfieldnews.com or 645-1113.
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As a former drug and alcohol addict I can feel his pain. My parents abandon me when I was six so I know how he feels.
Here are the facts (and I hope Brandon reads this) You can blame every thing that happened to you on your mom, or your friends, or society or whomever.
Truth is, that unless you want to get better only you can do it.
Very few if any people can help you unless you decide for yourself that you have a problem and that you serious about quitting.
There is a way out, but you have to do it yourself.
If not you die sooner or later.
Branden, most colleges have some daycare available. If you need more help, contact the paper and they can get in touch with me and I will help. Anyone who wants to do the right thing should get all the help possible. And Peter, your mom must have been very troubled or she wouldn't have left you. I would be proud to have a son who is as strong and courageous as you.
We need a network of adults who will step in and help teens and young adults who are on their own. We wouldn't offer full-time foster care, just Sunday dinners and a place to spend holidays and someone to cheer over a good grade or a new job or offer advice when things are tough. If you have lousy parents, there should be a way for you to get a second chance. I think the state may have something like this, and it would be great if it were an option in Northfield.