Joey Dailidas (birth – death years)
There once was a little boy named Joey who laughed and played and loved his two big sisters. At age 14 he began to smoke pot, and by age 22 he was diagnosed with major depression and bipolar disorder. By age 24, he couldn’t live with the demons that whirled inside his beautiful mind anymore. He was only 24 when he died by suicide.
People ask me what came first, depression and bipolar or his drug use? I don’t know the answer, but I do know he was a normal child growing up. In his early teens he began recreationally smoking pot and much later experimenting with other substances. His drug of choice was always marijuana.
He was an extreme pot abuser, and as his use escalated, so did his behaviors. My sweet boy was changing before my very eyes into someone I did not know. We tried tough love. I watched the snow falling on his face one winter night as he slept in our back yard. We tried unconditional love, allowing him to live in the basement. We tried every love imaginable. Nothing worked. He was addicted to the weed he loved so much.
It wasn’t until he got sober that he realized the marijuana he thought was calming him was actually causing the anxiety and paranoia he was trying to calm. He was unknowingly fueling the demons. Despite this admission, he went right back to smoking pot within a week to 10 days after his return from multiple rehabs. The first several rehabs were strictly because of his insatiable pot use. He tested clean for everything else.
He was in junior baseball league and high school football. He went one year to university to get a BA degree in criminal justice. He aspired to be a police officer. However, all of that changed as he changed and became someone I hardly recognized. He was busted for possession on campus and told he could stay, with the agreement that if he got into trouble again, he would be kicked out, and all our tuition and housing money would be forfeited. He chose not to return the next year because he knew he couldn’t sustain sobriety.
This was a pivotal time for him that would lead us down five more years of pure hell. As he slipped deeper into his depression, his drug use escalated. He was no longer recreationally using pot, he was self-medicating the demons. He was becoming more and more reckless. And while he wanted to be normal, I firmly believe it was his marijuana use that altered his brain chemistry. It is heartbreaking to watch your child implode.
On September 19, 2016, I got the call. I was hoping he was in jail. Or in a car accident. Or accidentally overdosed and on his way to the hospital. Instead this is what I heard: He is gone. “Gone where? Gone to Colorado?” I replied. He was found dead. I am sorry Mama D, but Joey is dead. As his life became more and more unmanageable, his depression worsened. When he felt he had no way out of the black hole of depression, hopelessness ended his life.
I hope my grandchildren don’t grow up in a world where marijuana is legal. Millionaires become billionaires on the backs and lives of our children’s children. Decriminalize it? Perhaps. My son died as a felon on possession charges. What he deserved was mandated long-term rehab, with mental health treatment. Not jail.
While I do not have the toxicology reports (their cost is prohibitive), his friend who was with him hours before he took his life did not mention he was smoking pot. I believe this to be true, because Joey was concerned about random drug testing.
Studies are showing that suicide is becoming more prevalent about 10 months after weed cessation. The timing of my son’s death with when he stopped smoking pot does line up. If this is true, how sad is that? I know some say marijuana is not a gateway drug, but I don’t know of many heroin addicts who started with heroin. The point is, marijuana tends to precede the use of other drugs, and that makes marijuana a gateway drug. Legalizing pot will be the downfall of the next generation. Once it is legalized, there will be no turning it back. My son deserved a chance, but we didn’t know then the devastating effects early onset of recreational marijuana would have on adolescent brains.
Today we know better, and our child and your children deserve better. I summarize this with a story of a mother standing on a riverbank watching her son struggle to stay above two feet of water. The mother cries out and begs the child to take her hand so she can pull him to safety. However, the son cannot reach out. He tries but he is tired. He is so tired of the fight. His can’t reach his mother’s hand. Despite her desperate cries, his pain is all he hears. As the mother stands screaming on the riverbank, with her hand still reaching out to her flailing son, he goes under and drowns in a mere two feet of water. And the grieving mother is forever changed.
Rest in peace, my beloved son. You are forever missed, and I am forever changed.