For parents in recovery, each step forward a milestone

May 23--SHARON -- Taylor Greene says she's a lucky woman.

She routinely used heroin and alcohol during the first three years of her son's life, but only once did the state Department of Children and Families question whether she was fit to be a parent.

Now her little boy, Aidan, is 5 years old. She has a stable relationship, a new baby, a new house, and two years of sobriety.

Greene, 28, says she would not have had this success without her parents. Her father is retired Bourne Fire Chief Martin Greene. She describes both her dad and mother, Cheryl Davis, as "saints."

They never gave up on her. They cared for Aidan when she went to rehab twice. For years, they jumped with every phone call.

"I got a phone call that her dryer broke the other day," Martin Greene said. "I'll take that problem over many others."

He has his daughter back, he said. And yet, early recovery and young motherhood are two daunting challenges.

Despite his charm and obvious intelligence, Aidan has behavioral problems. For the last 10 months, he has seen an at-home therapist twice a week. He has made a lot of progress, Greene said.

The therapists have taught Greene to use consistent discipline, such as timeouts, and to choose her battles.

During a two-hour interview last year, Aidan drank his mom's iced coffee despite being told otherwise. He punched and hit her when she gently joked that he had a girlfriend. To protest coming inside the house after playing on his trampoline, he jumped into his mother's car and turned on the ignition.

As long as he has someone's attention, he's joyous.

"He is a love bug, he has a really big heart," Greene said.

But day-to-day, it's "the same battles, the same fights, every day it's the same thing," Greene said.

"He can be noncompliant and defiant," she said. "He wants to run the show."

He has never been diagnosed by a neurologist. And Greene's insurance company recently denied preauthorization for a test, she said.

Greene has been honest about her past with Aidan's teachers, who have been kind. She still feels judged at times.

"This could be my insecurity," she said. "I'm hard on myself."

She worries that her drug use during the first years of his life caused him problems.

"It's hard not to feel guilty," she said. "He obviously didn't get enough attention. But thinking about that doesn't help me now."

FEAR OF TREATMENT

Feelings of guilt and frustrations over parenting heighten the pressure of early recovery.

"Early recovery is a bitch, man," said Deborah Heavilin, co-founder of the Mothers & Infants Recovery Network in Falmouth. "It's really hard. When I was using, the drugs covered up the depression I had. They kept me from my feelings and then when I stopped using, they came back, and yet you don't have the coping mechanisms. Throw a baby into the mix and it's a hugely difficult task."

The best residential programs for mothers support their recovery while allowing children to live with them, so the mothers safely learn sobriety and parenting simultaneously, said Maria Mossaides, state director of the Office of the Child Advocate.

Yet such places are rare. Out of 2,394 recovery homes in Massachusetts, only 110 are designated family units, according to the state Bureau of Substance Abuse Services.

Mothers with addiction are the most stigmatized in the drug-addicted population. And this has a huge impact on their tendency to seek help.

The No. 1 difference between mothers and fathers who are drug addicted is that mothers are much more reluctant to get treatment, because they face intense moral outrage, said Mary Anne Roy, chief clinical officer at Crossroads, a treatment center for women in Portland, Maine.

Every time a story appears about a child killed or neglected in the care of a drug-addicted mother, everyone "gets out the pitchforks," said Shannon Trainor, a licensed clinical social worker and chief executive officer of Crossroads.

The immediate reaction is that the mother has chosen the drug over her child. But experts say the reality is women are terrified of losing their children, so afraid that they hide their addiction and forgo treatment.

'TOXIC RELATIONSHIP'

Certainly, Greene's fear of losing Aidan was both a motivator to get help and a barrier to asking for it.

At Falmouth High School, Greene was a cheerleader, gymnast and softball player. After graduation, she enrolled at Cape Cod Community College to study criminal justice and become a correctional officer.

But when the discipline of sports ended, smoking marijuana with a new group of friends became habitual. One day, someone gave her a pain pill.

Within a few years, Greene was shooting heroin. During her unexpected pregnancy with Aidan, she cut down her drug use by buying the withdrawal medication Suboxone off the streets.

When Aidan was born in October 2011, he showed no sign of neonatal abstinence syndrome -- no trembling, digestive problems or muscle pain associated with babies born addicted to opioids.

Physically, Aidan was a healthy boy.

Greene's addiction, however, only got worse.

She lived with Aidan and a boyfriend in a "toxic relationship," she said.

"When you get really deep into it, it's heartbreaking," Greene said. "I remember many times knowing damn well that my son needed diapers. But I needed something to stop myself from getting sick. And I'd choose buying drugs over my son. And now, I cannot imagine doing that."

She cannot remember much about Aidan as a baby.

It's not because she was in a blackout all the time. Her focus was just elsewhere, she said.

A wake-up call came when Aidan was about 18 months old. Greene and her boyfriend got into a loud fight. They were throwing household objects at each other and the police showed up. A police officer asked her who could look after her son. Greene said she could do it. The police officer said, no, you're arrested for assault and battery.

For a once-aspiring correctional officer, "being on the other side of the handcuffs" cut like a knife, Greene said. But it was nothing compared with the reality that the state Department of Children and Families planned to open an investigation. She knew she could lose custody of Aidan.

"DCF is the scariest three letters to any parent," she said.

AFTER REHAB, A NEW LIFE

Greene and Aidan moved into her mother's house and DCF backed off, she said.

Greene's drug use continued until Aidan was 3, when she was living at her father's house and he caught her using his gift card to buy alcohol. "I knew the jig was up," she said.

Greene fled with Aidan to a playground in Falmouth. She sat on a bench, crying and "throwing back nips" while Aidan played.

Aidan's father drove by and saw her disheveled state. He called her parents.

They got her to the Falmouth Hospital emergency room and then into Gosnold on Cape Cod's detox unit in Falmouth, followed by long-term treatment at Gosnold'sEmerson House.

Greene completed her program at Emerson House in June 2015 and returned to "being a mother again," she said.

She attended 12-step meetings "religiously."

She met her boyfriend, Jimmy MacDougall, at the detox unit. She and MacDougall moved into his house in Sharon together. They had Ryleigh on May 5, 2016.

Ryleigh is a happy bundle of calmness in contrast to Aidan's temperament, which has been so challenging that Greene often breaks down the one-day-at-a-time 12-step mantra to one-hour-at-a-time, she said.

"It's definitely not sunshine and rainbows all the time," she said. "But the best feeling is, at the end of the day, when I finally get to go to bed, whenever that may be, I lie down and say, 'That's another day on the books without having to pick up or use.'"

-- Follow K.C. Myers on Twitter: @KcmyersCCT.

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Where to go for help

Commission on the Status of Grandparents Raising Grandchildren: resources, advocacy and more: massgrg.com

Cape Cod Neighborhood Support Coalition: support groups for grandparents and kinship caregivers on Cape Cod, as well as local information on help and resources: capecoalition.com/grandparents

GAP (Grandparents Advocacy Project)

Contacts: Kerry Bickford or Kathleen Snow

grandparents@capecoalition.com

The Coalition for Children/Coordinated Family & Community Engagement: thecoalitionforchildren.org

Lawyer of the Day Program, specifically for grandparents, from 8:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. on third Thursday of each month at Barnstable Probate Court. Grandparents may call Madeline Delorie for more information: 508-362-2121.

Justice Resource Institute Community Service Agency on Cape Cod: for youths with serious emotional disturbances who need or already use multiple agencies

29 Bassett Lane, Hyannis, MA 02601; 508-771-3156, ext. 220; jri.org

Alateen: 12-step support group for ages 11-19 affected by alcohol and drug addiction in their family. Federated Church of Hyannis, 320 Main St., Hyannis, MA 02601; al-anon.alateen.org/for-alateen

The Cape Cod Family Resource Center: parenting classes, referrals, information, help navigating the system; 29 Bassett Lane, Hyannis; 508-815-5100; capecodfamilyresourcecenter.org

The Moms Do Care: a Cape Cod Healthcare project helping pregnant women get Medication-Assisted Treatment, such as methadone and buprenorphine, and other substance use treatment and health care services. Program supports women in their recovery after they give birth with case management, counseling and efforts to keep their babies with them. Call 508-280-6597.

Mothers & Infants Recovery Network Inc.: peer-support group run for and by mothers with histories of substance abuse in pregnancy and postpartum

Tuesdays/Falmouth, 6:30 to 8 p.m., John Wesley Methodist Church, 270 Gifford St.

Mondays/Hyannis, 5:30 to 7 p.m., Early Intervention Building, 80 Pearl St. (left of drive)

Free child care provided and transportation can be arranged.

For more information: 508-274-1187

mairni.org

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