I kicked my son out during the peak of his drug addiction. He recovered, and I'm grateful for the years I didn't think I'd get with him.

• My son started smoking marijuana in high school and things quickly escalated to heroin.
• For 10 years his life took a detour, until he met a woman who got him out of it.

For Bryant, opioid use flowed seamlessly into heroin. The 10-year detour his life took after high school spanned all things concerning whether he would make it out of this alive.

Standing at the kitchen sink one summer morning in 2010, the warm prickle of hives took shape down my legs. Intense worry about my beautiful son and juggling his two little sisters was draining. The memory of our first "talk" about drugs at age 9 taunted me.

I was busy being the mom I wish I'd been. Overcompensating for every shortcoming of my first disastrous 18-year-old go at motherhood.

He moved with his dad to Florida

When my ex moved his family from California to Florida, Bryant going wasn't a question. As a single secretary, deep in my own reverse adolescence with a million mistakes ahead, I knew it was best.

When I first learned Bryant was smoking marijuana, I thought, "he's in high school." Kids experiment. He was a good kid.

Equal parts band nerd and cool, school came easily to Bryant. Bad knees and asthma sidelined him from sports beyond his two great loves, surfing and skateboarding.

He had a Bright Futures Scholarship to the University of North Florida, where he'd study electrical engineering. Engineers run in the family. We were excited for his next chapter.

He started doing other drugs

In 2003, graduation looming, Bryant, a self-taught bass player, mentioned taking a gap year to tour with his band.

As his friends graduated from college, Bryant slipped deeper into addiction. I wanted to know why. Had someone hurt him? Should we do therapy together? Was there something he was afraid to tell us?

My bright, sunny-dispositioned son was always working hard. Drugs, however, have a way of fucking things up; work ethic be damned. Cash from lucrative server and valet jobs went quickly when the pills ran out.

I searched, like the bloodhound I am, for the doctor he mentioned prescribed him opiates for a mysterious shoulder injury and called. I felt surprise mixed with adrenaline when he answered. I told him to remember my name and threatened to call DEA friends if he ever wrote my son another prescription. In 2011, Cesar Deleon was indicted on 55 counts of illegal distribution of OxyCodone at his Lake Worth clinic.

I thought he would never stick a needle in his arm

I've learned never to say, "My kid would never…" because any kid might.

I watched helplessly as Bryant's world disintegrated. Weeks turned into months that we wouldn't hear from him. Relief at finally hearing his voice turned quickly to despair when it came from jail. There was talk of rehab, which I argued passionately would be a waste of money. He wasn't ready.

His move north to live with me to get clean started well. High on hope, we went directly from the airport to a Narcotics Anonymous meeting. The rule was daily meetings. When he got high with people he met there — a cruel but common irony, it was devastating.

I also had a one-strike rule. There is a specific kind of pain attached to the act of kicking Bryant out of my home at one of his lowest moments. The following handful of years were his darkest.

And then he met a girl.

She helped him through

She was the spark, but Bryant did the hardest part. She housed and supported him in every way. In Bryant's eyes, she was there when his family abandoned him. I get it.

As a family, we had to make him choose between us and drugs. There was zero pleasure in that.

In 2018, there was a wedding. A year later, I watched Bryant graduate magna cum laude with a degree in electrical engineering from FAU. He was also inducted into Tau Beta Pi, the most prestigious engineering honor society in the US.

In 2020, Bryant became a father and, after years of perseverance, landed his dream job in 2022.

He encouraged this essay and said, "I did work hard, but I never would have survived if it were not for about a thousand acts of kindness by others, both in active addiction and recovery."

Bryant is an incredible, big-hearted human with so much empathy for the world around him. His journey through the hell of addiction has created a vast scope of gratitude for what is and what will be.