Saving Myles by Carl Vonderau is an important book about a story that is happening too frequently. The first part of the book is about 16 year-old Myles Bosworth’s incorrigible behavior, including his significant use of alcohol and other illegal substances. Wade and Fiona Bosworth, Myles’ parents, had already spent a lot of money in an attempt to hook him into a rehabilitation program, and he had resisted all attempts at providing him with such care. After finding his stash of OxyContin, the Bosworth’s made the heartbreaking decision to send their son to a wilderness-type camp in Utah, and he was then kidnapped in the middle of the night by two employees from Hidden Road Academy.
I should interject that in real life as a psychiatrist/psychoanalyst, I’ve been involved in and provided treatment for people at various stages in their efforts to deal with substance abuse. Regarding substance abusers who are still under the influence of their substances of choice, its nearly impossible to form a favorable therapeutic relationship. Teenagers are often even more difficult. Also, there are few teenage one-substance addictions. Rather, its normal to see people with polysubstance addictions. Whether it has been my own patients or the children of my friends or the children of my patients, this is a dangerous scenario and one that often has a bad outcome. On one hand, I’ve known too many people who have died from their disease, but on the other hand, I’ve have known some people as young as 15 years old, who have found their way to long-term clean and sober lives and very successful lives. However, I’ve also seen more of heartbreaking treatment resistance. There are some legitimate and helpful programs in the United States, but there are also scam operations who are expert at draining people of their savings. Furthermore, considering the emotional dynamics of the sobriety process, it’s often very difficult to tell the good programs from the bad ones. Considering that I live in Northern San Diego County, the substance troubles sometimes do include unwise trips into Mexico where things can get even more out of control.
Myles lasted in the program for some seven to nine months before he was sent back home, and so begins the second part of this drama. He had learned how to say all the right things to his parents, but his statements were not sincere. Within days of his release from the Hidden Road Academy, he was back in Tijuana where he was drinking alcohol and buying and using drugs. He also met and fell in love with the daughter of big figure in a crime cartel. The cartel is quite sophisticated, kidnapped him, and then used Myles addiction problems as a way to entrap his parents into various cartel activities. U.S. Federal forces become engaged in this story. A central theme has to do whether it’s reasonable for the parents, who are desperate to save their son who has repeatedly lied to them about his substance abuse, to believe anything that he says to them.
So the story is about a well-meaning U.S. family trying to understand how to deal with the Mexican mobsters. Who can they trust? Danger and death are in the air. This feels like real life stuff, and the book gets my strong recommendation.
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