"Tim, please," I beg, placing my hand on the door after one particularly loud crash that sounds an awful lot like his computer hitting the floor.

"Go away, bitch. I don't need anything from you!" he shouts with a thud that sounds like his fist hitting the wall.

"Why are you torturing yourself?" David asks as he comes up the stairs. "You know he'll never let you help. He has to do everything on his own."

"He's my son, David. It's my job to be here for him," I have my ear pressed to the door. It's gone quiet.

"I know he's your son, Irene," David sighs as he rubs my back. "He's my son too. But you have to be realistic, here. He doesn't even like us. What makes you think he'll let you help?"

"I have to keep trying," I whisper.

"No you don't!" Tim yells from the other side of the door, making me jump back in surprise. He was quiet because he was listening to us. "You've never been there for me before, why would you want to be there for me now?"

"Adam getting hurt wasn't your fault, baby," I try to tell him for what feels like the millionth time since the accident six weeks ago. "It was an accident. It could have happened to anyone."

"But it happened to me and Adam," he replies with a broken sob before screaming and throwing something against the wall.

"Tim, please. Let me help you," I whisper as I place my forehead wearily against the wood panel door.

"No!" his voice is shrill, frenetic, the sheer kinetic energy that has ravaged his already gangly body in the last weeks crackling through his vocal chords. His pain is utterly horrific. And I have yet to find a way to help him.

And then it hits me. I've seen this kind of behavior before. One of my cases is a young mother addicted to Meth and when she's strung out she acts just like this.

The shock of that realization flows through me like the same high-voltage current that has amped my son through the past six weeks. The only reason it's taken me so long to figure it out is that Tim has always been a bundle of nervous energy, and since becoming a teenager, has been known to throw things in a fit of temper.

"Oh, my God," I whisper as I step back from the door one hand pressed to my mouth in horror.

"What?" David asks, a frown on his face.

"I think I know what the problem is," I turn to face my husband. "He's a tweaker."

"What?"

"A tweaker. Someone who's addicted to Meth," I answer. "That's why he hasn't been sleeping and is so easy to rile up."

"Oh, come on, Irene. This is Tim we're talking about here. He's the original homebody. He never goes out, only has one friend," David scoffs as he leans up against the wall opposite Tim's door, arms crossed over his chest.

"Think about it, David," I tell him as I start to pace the hallway. "He's always been the kind of person who's never still, but nothing like the past six weeks. He can't sleep, he won't eat. And he's always on edge," I stop in front of Tim's door, tears in my eyes. "I can see the signs, but I don't know how to help him." The enormity of it overwhelms me. I can only thank god that Josh is at his friend Zeke's house for the day. He shouldn't have to bear witness to this. "My own baby and I can't help him," I whimper as I chew on the nail of my right thumb.

"So where'd he get the Meth? He never leaves the house," David's voice is stubborn. Mulish.

Denial. It's something I deal with every day in my job. I never expected to have it turn around and bite me in the butt in my own family! Anger fills me. I turn on him coldly. The reality of life in troubled families has been my life's work. And somehow, I have completely missed that my own family is as troubled as any I have dealt with in my job. "Except for school. There is always someone in each group of friends who knows someone who can get their hands on something," I point out. The anger has evaporated as fast as it arrived and left in its place is despair.

"So what are you going to do?" David walks up behind me and places his hand on my shoulder, squeezing it gently.

"I don't know," I tell him as I step up to the door again. Me? What am I going to do? When did he stop taking any responsibility for our first born's happiness? When did we BOTH stop caring? "I have to find some way through this door," I state firmly as I place my hand on the offending obstacle, knowing deep down that it's not the literal door that I need to get through. There is a huge hurdle between me and my oldest son. One that I had a hand in building and will have to start tearing down on my own.

"Well, I could always break it down for you," David, sweet David. Always so very practical.

"It's not this door that's in my way," I inform him as I slip to my knees. "It's a symbol of all that stands between Tim and us," I continue as I lay down on the floor on my side so I can see under the door.

I can just barely make out Tim's prone form on the other side. His face is barely recognizable to me as the sweet baby I gave birth to almost eighteen years ago. He is facing the door with one hand stretched out towards it.

"Mama. Make it stop," he whispers as tears fall from his eyes. "Mama, please," he begs over and over. So quietly I doubt his father can hear the plea, or the pain.

I can't reach my son. And it's killing me. He needs me. He's reaching out for me and I can't get to him. All I can do is lie there on the floor, with David spooned up behind me; the fingers of one hand pushed as far as I can get them under the door, and watch my son begin his slow decent into darkness. A darkness that I can't protect him from.