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A guide for when addiction hits home
By GUY D’ASTOLFO
Robert Hobbs had always been an achiever.
The McDonald native was an executive for an Internet services company in Atlanta just a few years ago.
A marathon runner, he had a track record of overcoming obstacles.
Then heroin found its way into his life and tore his world apart.
On the morning of Feb. 25, 2014, Hobbs’ 22-year-old son overdosed in the bathroom of their home in an upper-middle class suburb. Hobbs held his lifeless body in his arms as he waited for help, overwhelmed with emotion.
The young man was revived by the first-responders, but the ensuing months and years brought a whirlwind of rehab stints, therapy and the crushing weight of stress that would prove to be more than he could bear.
There were feelings of inadequacy for not knowing how to help his son, and shame for his perceived failures as a parent. Eventually, the feelings of helplessness and constant dread would submerge him, as he blamed himself for his son’s woes and struggled to help him. The loss of his job, his own brother’s untimely death and subsequent marital problems came next.
Humbled and struggling to get through each day, he turned to drinking and a diet of mood-altering prescriptions.
Eventually, he suffered a nervous breakdown.
“It was a slow erosion,” he recalled. “One day I woke up and realized how messed up my life was.”
When the smoke cleared, Hobbs was humbled and changed. He also had a crystal-clear picture of the heroin scourge that was gripping the nation, and more importantly, how it can devastate lives.
So he decided to share his knowledge, and the solutions, to other families who find themselves in the same boat.
He tells his own story – in unflinchingly honest fashion – and also offers priceless advice in his book “Heroin: Living and Dying with an Addict You Love” (Paduka Press) published earlier this year.
In alternating chapters, he vividly and bravely details his and his family’s struggle with their son’s heroin addiction, describing every wrenching emotion.
The book also serves as a guide for other families who, like himself, would not know where to turn or what to do in a time of extreme duress.
“When you find out your son is a heroin addict, what can you do?,” he said, explaining why he wrote the book. “You cannot knock on your neighbor’s door and say, ‘Hey, what did you do when your son overdosed?’”
The book offers checklists of whom to call when searching for a rehab center, signs of relapse, and scores of other details that he learned the hard way. It also includes statistics about the heroin epidemic that shows no signs of abating.
Forced to reinvent himself, Hobbs put his knowledge to use and started Sandalwood Wellness, a life coaching and intervention service.
He is currently splitting his time between Youngston and Atlanta, where two of his daughters attend the University of Georgia, another is in high school, and his son has been in a cycle of relapse and rehab.
Helping others who recover from heroin addiction remains his most passionate project. Hobbs is working on a plan to raise money that would be used to provide free or low-cost rehabilitation services for heroin addicts.