One Pill

I feel that at this time it is appropriate to tell you all of some feelings I have about what took Cameron. For whatever reason, physiological, psychological, or social, Cam was drawn toward artificial joy and temporary highs. Over the last year he took pills of many kinds, he smoked marijuana, he tried cocaine and mushrooms. We talked many times about the reasons he did it. It was to forget hard times, it was to escape reality, and it was to feel good. But, we also talked about the dangers associated with drug use. Cameron did not want to hurt himself or take his own life. He started talking about how hard it was going to be this spring because the price of pills and such would go down. Why? We're not sure, but he was really worried that he could afford to buy some of the things he craved. Well, that being said, we felt he had truly reached a milestone with sobriety. He asked if he could stay the night with a friend. It was a friend that we trusted because he did not use with this friend and his parents were home with them. Cameron, being who he was, somehow found a way to get his hands on some Marijuana, Alchohol, and Pills.

I think it was his loyalty to friends (good and evil) and the desire to please that kept him from resisting those temptations. It seemed to be that he succombed to the urge to smoke marijuana first. Once Cameron has given into one temptation, he lets it snowball from there. We tried to teach him that even though you make one mistake doesn't mean you have to keep making them. Just because you sip rotton milk doesn't mean your whole day is spoiled.

I picked Cam up from his friend's house. He had lied about coming home and I was furious that he had not been answering his phone and not been responsible enough to check in (he had Saturday jobs to do). When he got into the car, I just felt that I had to calm down before sentencing. Well, we went to my store to finish up some work. I snagged his phone before he could erase his text history. Instead of starting in on Cam, I reviewed his texts. He had been up to no good, but after seeing the horror on his face I suddenly felt that he was already regretting his actions.

I will never tell myself I should have done something different or really lit into the kid. But, at that time I just told him that we had taught him make good choices and that he would have consequences, good or bad. Kristie came into the store on the way home from work, we spent a few minutes all together and they left for home. No hard feelings, no argument.

At home, Cameron spent a little time doing jobs he was supposed to have done earlier. He was in a decent mood and we all headed to bed at about 11:00. I checked on him at about 11:30 because I heard voices from his room. For some reason, Courtney was just shooting the breeze with Cam (Courtney told us later that she didn't know why but felt that she needed to talk to Cam). I sent her back to bed and told cam good night. We found him about 8:30 Sunday morning and you know the rest.

Here is what everyone should understand: From talking with everyone we could about the previous day, we deducted that Cameron had taken One Pill! We think it was an 80mg dose of Oxycontin. He had texted a friend about 1:50am that he was high on Oxycontin and couldn't see straight or hear right. Cam did not know what he had. 80mg of Oxycontin taken by someone that has no tolerance for the drug is going to be fatal.

Friends of Cam, Teenagers, Students, and everyone else............ONE PILL TOOK MY BOY!

Please let this be a wake up call to anyone messing around with any drug. The reality is that Cameron knew that the highs were temporary. You can deal with anything if you let those who care about you in.

Cameron's DAD