Stay Close
A Mother's Story of Her Son's Addiction
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4.2 • 41 Ratings
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- $11.99
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
During his early teens, Jeff Bratton started using drugs. At first, alcohol and pot, but quickly he spiraled into using cocaine, ketamine, crystal meth and eventually heroin.
How could this wonderful son, loving brother, and star athlete lose himself to drugs? How could his parents be so clueless? How could his mother, the long-term head of a private school, be so blind?
"Stagli vicino", an Italian recovering addict told the author. "Stay close—never leave him, even when he is most unlovable." This is not a book about saving a child. It is a book about what it means to stay close to a loved one gripped by addiction. It is about one son who came home and one mother who never gave up hope.
Stay Close is one mother's tough, honest, and intimate tale that chronicles her son's severe drug addiction, as it corroded all relationships from the inside out. It is a story of deep trauma and deep despair, but also of deep hope—and healing.
Here is Libby Cataldi's story about dealing with addiction without withdrawing love, learning to trust again while remaining attuned to lies, and the cautious triumph of staying clean one day at a time.
He told her, "Mom, never quit believing." And she didn't.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
For every drug addict there are at least four people affected, a depressing assertion by some experts that is clearly borne out in this soft-spoken, utterly honest account by educator Cataldi. The mother of two sons, Jeff and Jeremy, Cataldi became head of the Calverton School in Maryland in 1987, where the boys attended; she recounts chronologically how her oldest, Jeff, a bright, capable student, embarked from adolescence onward into an ever deepening and perilous spiral of drug abuse. From getting caught smoking at school in fifth grade, attending drug-sodden raves in high school, being arrested for possession of cocaine and ketamine, and selling drugs on campus, Jeff was continually rescued by his take-charge but admittedly na ve mother, now divorced from their father. Entering Boston University seemed to give Jeff a fresh start, yet he was soon enmeshed in the party scene; in debilitating health, he dropped out and bounced around among halfway houses and rehab centers. Jeff had become a master manipulator to get his fix, even when later jailed for heroin possession, and Cataldi learned to stop enabling her "chameleon son" by joining Al-Anon. Taking an Italian expression to heart, stagli vicino, she learned to stay close and let Jeff find his way, and while her love proved steadfast, a safe outcome was never assured.
Customer Reviews
Stay close
Awesome book