Chase Rodgers (1993-2014)

My first son, Chase, was a good kid.  He was quiet, easygoing, funny, and an Eagle Scout.  Chase was small but excelled at sports, pursuing football because of his great hand-eye coordination, speed, agility, endurance, and most of all, his desire to win.

Chase was an above-average student until 10th grade.  Chase’s grades started slipping, he developed an attitude, and sometimes was disrespectful to my wife and I.  He transferred to a military school his junior year, where his grades improved.  He excelled in football and received a college football scholarship. 

At college, Chase abused alcohol and marijuana and experimented with the synthetic drug, Molly.  He dropped out of college and moved back home.  He then started to associate with a rough crowd and would be gone for days at a time without telling us his plans.  We finally locked him out.  Through Chase’s Facebook posts, we saw he was pale and losing weight rapidly, so we had an intervention for him and were able to get him into treatment.

After treatment in Florida and months in a halfway house, Chase returned home.  He got a job and attended outpatient therapy sessions.  Over time, though, Chase was relapsing.  He decided to move back to Florida to get away from his peers.  The day he was supposed to leave, he hadn’t said goodbye and was nowhere to be found. 

On May 29th, 2014, I was outside in our front lawn when a police cruiser pulled up to the curb.  I met the officer in our driveway where he told me Chase had died in a wreck. He was a passenger in the front seat of his own car.  Police found marijuana in the purse of the young lady who had been driving the car as well as a THC metabolite in her bloodstream.  Before the time of her court appearance, however, she poured gasoline all over the floor of her apartment and ignited it, leaving a suicide note.  She died in the hospital the next day. 

Chase experimented with other drugs, but one of his “friends” told me, “Chase wanted you and his mother to know that it was just marijuana he mostly used.”  He went on to tell me about Chase’s obsession with marijuana.  Chase’s lack of ambition and attitude change came with his marijuana use.

On the day he died, he had smoked marijuana in a park with “friends” moments before getting into his car and allowing an 18-year-old to get behind the wheel.  My son’s choice to use marijuana was the main culprit that eventually led to his demise.  

Please do not be deceived by the people associated with the marijuana industry, who only care about profits.  Your child could be the next statistic. By Darryl Rodgers, who wrote a book about Chase, A Life Half Lived.  Darryl is an interventionist, family recovery coach, and prevention speaker.  

QUOTE: “I met the officer in our driveway where he told me Chase had died in a wreck.  One of his ‘friends’ told me, ‘Chase wanted you and his mother to know that it was just marijuana he mostly used.’”