This transcript of chapter 6 of “The Mayor of Maple Avenue” is provided for those who need assistance following along with the episode. We encourage you to listen to the episode. It can be found on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or your favorite podcast app. Please refer to the corresponding audio before quoting it in a story.
By the summer of 2018, after another failed attempt at rehab, Shawn voluntarily exited the Alpha house. He wandering the streets of Pittsburgh alone. And at this point, he was nine years into his battle with drugs.
Shawn’s probation and parole officer, Dave Morante could have easily thrown him back in jail for walking out of the Alpha House. But he was extra patient knowing that even though Shawn was making bad decisions, he also wasn’t getting the help he really needed.
By send him back, what he means is transfer his case from Pittsburgh to Blair County where the probation originated.
Marianne knew she was working on borrowed time, thanks to Dave Morante. But calls from Shawn were few and far between, and when he did call…
In one conversation, Shawn even apologized for the way that he reacted to the news about his brother’s wedding.
What Shawn was doing to the rest of the family was pulling them into his chaos.
It might have been obvious to anyone who encountered Shawn during this time that he was struggling, but let’s not forget that Marianne was 9 years deep into Shawn’s battle with drugs as well. 9 years of worry, sleepless nights, arguments and negotiations. Chasing Shawn all over Pennsylvania had truly changed her personality and her way of life. And it was only going to get worse. There was one particularly stressful night where Shawn told his parents he slept on a park bench.
Dave, his probation officer, is also trying to help because he’s not sure how much longer he can stall.
Shawn did call, and Marianne was able to convince him to meet them.
That weekend, Marianne had begun to arrange for Shawn to check into a rehab facility called “Conewago.” It’s in Indiana, Pennsylvania. She had everything set to have Shawn picked up the next morning. It wasn’t close enough to anyone else’s home for Shawn to stay the night, but the facility agreed to get him at a nearby hotel. So, Marianne needed to get him a room, and food, to get him through the night. And while those things may seem like simple tasks, she explained to me how everything is more complex when you’re dealing with someone with an addiction.
As a kid, Shawn had been diagnosed with myoclonic jerks — it’s a seizure disorder and, for Shawn, it was something that was easily managed by medication, and often triggered by his abusive drugs.
But against all hope, there was more disappointment. Two hours before Shawn was to be picked up to go to the Conewago facility, they called to say they couldn’t accept his insurance. It was some mix-up that had to do with his move from the Pittsburgh area to Blair County. It only took a few phone calls to transfer him to a new place, and in a vacuum, this may not seem to be big of a deal, but it’s indicative of a larger theme. Marianne felt like everyone was working against her, and she knew Shawn must be feeling that way, too.
Shawn did end up at a rehab facility that month. He completed the program and was back to the dilemma of needing a supportive place to live.
His attempts at a fresh start in Pittsburgh hadn’t worked out. His attempts at halfway houses in Altoona hadn’t worked out, either. And so instead, he thought he’d try a different kind of sober house.
Shawn’s uncle was seven years clean from alcoholism. He was family, and so he cares for Shawn, and he understands sobriety. And so, in July of 2018, Shawn moves in with his uncle Bob. Shawn’s uncle told me that he’s let a lot of people stay with him as they navigate recovery. But this time, it didn’t work out as the family had hoped.
The audio quality of that interview is not great, but his uncle told me that he didn’t feel Shawn was really wanting to recover, and he said that’s because Shawn wanted to be able to drink alcohol, as long as he stayed away from drugs, but his uncle didn’t agree with that.
Marianne saw red flags pretty quickly.
She knew that if she made him go fail a test, he’d go to jail. So instead, she drove him to a drug and alcohol counseling center and asked for a crisis session.
A few days later, her brother found Shawn’s few belongings hidden at a relative’s house.
Text messages from Shawn’s phone during that time period show that Mike and Marianne were trying to get him to come home. Shawn was silent for several days, until finally giving in.
But it didn’t last long. Marianne and Mike were laying in bed and realized,
They could hear a woman; someone they’d never met before in Shawn’s room.
This chaos continues for a few days. Marianne suspected that Shawn began staying with an old neighbor—a guy who Shawn remained friends with. A guy with a family, who was sympathetic and took him in.
Meanwhile Mike and Marianne are trying so hard to maintain some normalcy. If not for themselves then for their other son. They went to a festival with Josh and Katelyn. It was supposed to be a nice weekend getaway, but Marianne could never really escape.
Downward spiral because the next morning Marianne is awakened to a hysterical and bizarre phone call from Shawn.
Later that day the woman who they’d found in their house—the one they kicked out—she contacted them and asked to come over to talk.
Mike brought him to the back of the house to the garden in their backyard where the fence gives them privacy.
Marianne’s sister Deb who had always been close to Shawn walked over.
She had tried in the last couple of months to get through to him.
But today, she took a different approach.
The closest detox program is a Pyramid facility. You may remember we talked about Pyramid earlier. They’re a very large organization of rehabs across several states.
Part of the reason he was fighting the ER visit so much, is that he believed they could report his drug use to his probation officer, which would likely have landed him back in jail. In reality, Pennsylvania, and most other states, now have a law on the books, it’s called the good Samaritan law, which gives immunity to drug users when they seek medical attention—but Shawn didn’t know that.
And even without that hurdle in their way, the hospital staff is ill-equipped to deal with the situation. According to Marianne, they told the family the best they could do was make him an appointment for outpatient drug counseling and then they began the discharge process.
Marianne explained that she had at least hoped for something called a comfort pack—something that emergency rooms often have or hand out—they are pre-made packs of comfort drugs, and they are designed to ease the painful process of detoxing at least until someone can get help.
They ended up taking Shawn home, hoping to get him through the night and into a facility the next day, but he was belligerent, dope sick, and still hallucinating.
He ended up leaving with somebody, somebody Marianne knew was probably going to help him get high, but that guy even ended up being weirded out by Shawn’s strange behavior
The woman who was there earlier who started out by getting kicked out of the house then helping the family corral him in the backyard—she ended up saving Shawn that night, picking him up and bringing him back home.
In the morning, after some negotiating with Pyramid rehab facility, Marianne gets someone to come pick Shawn up and take him for a proper detox. But he’s so sick from withdrawal at this point, she can’t get him out of the bathroom.
He went, but the roller coaster did not stop.After four days, he self-removed, angry that they were tapering his Suboxone.
Marianne found out that he walked when she called one night.
The next morning, Marianne texted Shawn asking, ‘are you still with us?’
The text messages between Shawn and his mom that day, they show how the family was stuck, stuck in an impossible position where they didn’t want to enable his Shawn’s addiction, but they also couldn’t stomach writing him off, either.
Shawn tells Marianne he’s driving to West Virginia with a friend to pick up a car.
The next morning when Marianne checked in on him, he said that he was working to get into a rehab facility in Pittsburgh that he’d been to before. Marianne replies with a long, heartfelt text illuminates her deep, prolonged struggle to help him, without enabling or minimizing the severity of the situation.
And then she makes a prediction.
Five hours later, Shawn replies.
Despite his multiple relapses, Shawn was actually always ‘trying to get in somewhere.’ In fact, part of the reason he had so few belongings, why he lived out of a suitcase, is that he was constantly checking into places. He was only ‘out’ so-to-speak for about a quarter of his time that summer. Shawn seemed to want to get better, but he didn’t seem to be able to conquer his demons long enough to do it.
Still, there was forward motion. This time, he wanted to go to a facility called Turning Point. It’s in rural Pennsylvania, about an hour north of Pittsburgh. The facility sent someone to come pick him up.
Remember Steve? Who told us about rampant drug abuse at the state-run halfway house. Yeah, Steve was clean now, and working for Turning Point as a technician and driver.
Before Steve and I met at the diner, I drove by Turning Point to see what it looked like. It’s perched up on a hill, on a two-lane road in a rural, hilly area. I parked in a car lot across the street to get a better look. I could see an outdoor pavilion where men were hanging out, mostly in sweats, mingling. Then a police car pulled in. The officer went inside and a few minutes later emerged as an ambulance pulled up. I watched as they filled out paperwork. Someone overdosed. Two months after I visited the facility closed. Online it doesn’t state a reason, but Marianne said a representative told her they had issues with water quality. The company that owned it declined to comment for this podcast. Regardless, three days into Shawn’s time at Turning Point, a staffer there told her that Shawn was at the wrong place. He needed trauma counseling, and they didn’t have it.
So, they were filling out paperwork to transfer him back to a Pyramid facility that did have trauma counseling. But this transfer commenced during his detox.His detox was not yet complete. He’d only been there three days. Detox is usually at least a week. And when he arrived at the new place.
Pyramid didn’t respond to my request for comment, but the paperwork between the two facilities confirms that Shawn had three days left to detox and didn’t get it. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has guidance about this. They say that there are significant risks associated with the withdrawal of opioids. Specifically, they say that opioids should not be tapered quickly because they are likely to lead to psychological distress, pain, and thoughts of suicide. But once again, money determines care. And so, Shawn doesn’t get a proper detox.
In one text-message, he writes,
Shawn goes back to Cove Forge—the place where he last completed a 20-day treatment. But when Marianne called to check on him.
In a statement, Cove Forge said services are voluntary, and patients can leave at any time. The director who emailed with me called Marianne’s story about drugs inside the facility ‘unsubstantiated allegations’ and said any reports of drug use inside the facility are dealt with immediately. She said they have a very strong track record of successful treatment.
In fact, his next text to his mom is,
Even the texts he sent to a buddy—another guy who was struggling with addiction—back up this story.
In the meantime, Shawn calls Steve Pearlstein again.
Shawn’s actual text message was:
You might be wondering where was his probation officer in all of this? He is on probation. And shouldn’t be wandering the streets aimlessly. Well, according to his family, Shawn’s new probation officer—the one assigned after he moved back to Altoona—never actually met with him. So, there was no real accounting for him. According to the text messages on his phone, he’s crashing with some people in a motel room somewhere while he looks for a ride to get back to Turning Point. But even if he does go back. Marianne knows that he’s stuck in this recurring cycle. He’s high when he checks into a facility and so he’d get dope sick real quick. The detox timeline was a few days, maybe a week max, which means he’ll get violently ill, leaving him desperate and angry and more apt to leave early. I have never been dope sick, but I have been sick—violently sick—and I’m sure you have too. Those times when you are praying to the toilet seat, begging god, please, let it stop. As it’s been described to me, imagine the worst possible sick you’ve ever been and amplify it with hallucinations, tremors, headaches.
Knowing that Shawn won’t get a proper detox and will probably walk from any place he checks into. Marianne feels she has no choice but to try some tough love, and just make Shawn figure it out. That night, Shawn texts her:
Instead, he’s in a motel, somewhere, in his own words ‘the middle of nowhere, dope sick and stressed the fuck out.’
He reaches out to his aunt Deb.
Marianne decides that her sister should see exactly what state of mind Shawn is in.
Early the next morning, they drive to the motel that aunt Deb bought for Shawn, a mini intervention of sorts to try to get him back into a facility.
There were two beds in the motel room, and it was clear that someone else’s things were over on the other side.
There was a random ID card on the bed, a crack pipe in the bathroom, needles in the drawers. Marianne tells Shawn to get up and get in the car.
In the past, Shawn had been very careful to hide the gory details of his addiction from his family. But today is different. He does something he’s never, ever done before. Something that shows how desperately bad his situation had become.
Realizing that Shawn is unlikely to go with them willingly, Marianne shifts to her back-up plan.
That wasn’t true, there was no sheriff waiting, but Shawn believed it. And it worked. He finally got up. They emptied the room and locked it up. And as they are walking out, Marianne looks at her son and says.
Shawn didn’t miss a beat.
They finally got on the road.
They pull up to Turning Point. And of course, once again, there’s a hang-up with his state medical insurance. And of course, once again, it’s related to his detox. They aren’t going to pay for it. Shawn loses it—creating a scene in the parking lot. Steve Pearlstein came out to try to help.
Pulling the Sandusky card was something that Marianne had done from time to time. She did it many years prior, when asking the judge and district attorney to let him into drug court. She did it during his first stay at rehab, and many subsequent ones afterward. She told probation officers, cops, the insurance company, lawyers. And it wasn’t about getting favors for her son. Marianne told people so that they would treat her son the way she felt all addicts should be treated inside these places. Whether it be the hospital, rehab, court or jail. She wanted them to see him the way she felt he should be seen. Which was as a human.A man who was struggling with the trauma of being abused as a child. But many attempts and nine years later, here we are in a parking lot in absolute crisis. Life or death, and she’s still begging for help.
And thanks to that begging, Shawn gets into detox at Turning Point. But from recent history, Marianne knows she only has a few days to figure out her next move. She knows what she wants to do. She calls a psychologist named Alycia Chambers. For the last few weeks, Marianne has been quietly working with Chambers to craft a letter to Penn State, asking them to revisit their original plan for Shawn. Before that last-minute switch, sending him to The Ranch in 2017 where he got a toothache and everything fell apart.
Chambers writes that Penn State should reconsider their original plan for Shawn and send him to a facility called The Meadows, in Wickenburg, Arizona.
Chambers writes that Shawn’s treatment so far has been unhelpful, at best. And that The Meadows is much better equipped to handle cases like Shawn.
And she doesn’t hold back about what might happen if Shawn doesn’t get the help he needs.
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