Backstreet Mom: A Mother's Tale of Backstreet Boy AJ McLean's Rise to Fame, Struggle With Addiction, and Ultimate Triumph (47 page)

I was not prepared for any of it. Alex had always been a relatively
easy child to raise. He was always focused and knew what he wanted.
Now he was fixated on his addiction and trying to control it, but without the proper tools that was not going to be possible. I prayed that
Vicki would be able to give him the tools that he needed.

The last time I had been this worried about Alex was when he was
only a few months old. He had been diagnosed with a double hernia and had to spend one night in the hospital for surgery. Well, you would have
thought they had told me that he was on his deathbed. I went nuts. Up
until that point, he had been a happy and healthy baby.

It turned out to be very minor and I brought him home the very next
day. While I was a bit afraid to touch him at first, the nurse explained
that the teensy-tiny butterfly bandage was all that remained from the
surgery. This time around was very different and infinitely scarier for
me. There was no doctor who could make it go away with a simple
operation or a one-night stay in the hospital. This was a major, life threatening physical and mental issue that had to be dealt with by professionals. My task was to make Alex understand that.

Less than a week after I returned to Orlando, I was getting ready to
go visit my dad, when the telephone rang. It was midday on Sunday. A
chill went through me, as I instinctively knew it was Alex before I even
picked up the receiver.

"Mom," Alex said.

In that one word, I heard everything. He was scared, terribly scared,
more so than I had ever heard him before in his life. He began the conversation by frantically begging me to allow him to come home. After getting
my emotions under control, I willed myself to be strong for my son. I
tried to speak as calmly as I could when I asked him what had happened.
He said he had been sleeping in his room when Kevin came to his door to
get him for some activity the boys had planned for the day.

When he told Kevin that he didn't want to go, Kevin went nuts. The
two of them had a huge fight. Kevin laid it all out in front of him, once
and for all. He gave Alex an ultimatum. All of the boys knew what was
going on. It was up to Alex to fix the problem or they would throw him
out of the group.

That was Alex's bottom. Reality had finally struck. He was scared to
death that if he did not do something immediately he would not live
through the tour. He actually feared for his life!

At that point, I wondered if there was more to the story than he was
telling me. Had he been arrested? Was he someplace other than his hotel room and afraid to return? In an instant, all sorts of horrible scenarios played out in my head. It seemed too simple. Could a fight with
Kevin really have shone the light on Alex's tunnel of darkness? I just
could not believe him anymore.

I told him that I thought coming home was not the answer unless I
could find a place that would take him in for treatment right away. After
making that statement, it dawned on me that I had absolutely no clue
where to start to even find a place like that. I told him to hang up and I would ask Vicki and Marcus to come to his room. I would call him back
as soon as a plan could be put into place. Alex agreed.

Vicki was not in her room when I called, so I tracked down Marcus,
who was able to locate her. Together, they put a plan into motion. Vicki
was much more emotionally and mentally equipped to deal with finding a treatment facility than I was, so she immediately suggested a few
places that she felt would get the job done and protect Alex's privacy as
a celebrity.

Countless telephone calls later, we reached a decision about where to
put Alex for treatment. That meant that it would be necessary to postpone the next leg of the tour. That task was put on The Firm's shoulders. We all had to focus on getting Alex the help he needed.
Arrangements were made for Alex and Marcus to fly out that night to
the treatment center in Arizona.

Once I knew my son was headed for the safety and treatment he
needed with Marcus by his side, I realized that there was one more telephone call I had to make. I knew Kevin well enough to know that he
was probably feeling pretty rotten about himself. I needed to set the
record straight. I found Kevin in his room. We had a very good heart-toheart about the day's events. I thanked him for the intervention that
saved my son's life. He was very emotional on the telephone and kept
repeating that the boys were behind Alex one hundred percent. They
would make certain that he got everything he needed to get better. They
would postpone the tour and wait for him to heal. He needed to just get
better and not worry about anything else. Later that week, the boys
went on MTV and announced that Alex had gone into rehab for treatment involving depression and excessive use of alcohol.

I spoke to Alex the next day. He had settled into the treatment center
and he sounded really calm. He told me he felt safe, that he would get
what he needed there and work at getting better. It was a short, tearful
conversation, but at least it left me with the hope that my son was back
on the right path and now had a future. I cried a lot that day. I probably
ran the entire gamut of emotions. I went from anger to frustration to
helplessness to relief to final tears of joy that my son was on the road to
recovery.

The following twenty-eight days were monumental. We learned a lot
about each other and ourselves. The therapy sessions were rough on
Alex. When he started to talk about his childhood, things came up that
even he had not realized were buried deep in his heart and soul. He had
underlying issues with my divorce from his father and feelings of abandonment that had never been addressed.

Then came the issues that involved his grandmother and, of course,
her death. Those were things that we would discuss later during the
family sessions. There were issues that he had within himself, like his
personality flaws, his inability to handle confrontation and his constant
need to always please others. Alex was always so concerned with what
everyone thought about him that he never did things for the simple
pleasure of doing them. Also discussed in therapy was his exorbitant
spending.

They tested Alex for all sorts of things during the first week. He came
up negative for most. He did test positive for post-traumatic stress syndrome, as well as a mild attention deficit disorder (ADD). The stress
issue I understood. The business he was in constantly put him in the
position that demanded that he deal with things he was not equipped to
handle. But the ADD was a bit bewildering to me, until they explained
how common that was with addicts. That did better explain his frenetic
behavior. It was a behavior that had definitely increased over the last
couple of years. Perhaps it could be attributed to the erratic lifestyle he
had lived for so long.

The real kicker was the last issue that surfaced. It floored us all. My
son had not really felt like he was Alex since he was eight years old. The
persona of AJ and all that it stood for had grown up to envelop the little
boy he had left behind. He really felt that he had had no childhood. AJ
had taken it away from him.

In my mind, that was the root of the problem. He had developed a
split personality of sorts. It was as though good and evil lived in the
same body. The good one hung around with family and friends at home
and showed up during the holidays. But as the bad one, the AJ persona,
grew and became the popular one, Alex disappeared. The stage persona
won the battle and took over my son.

I went with the now those first few days. I bided my time until I
could get there and talk to some of the therapists myself. After all, most
of what I was hearing came from Alex and I was still reluctant to believe
everything he had to say. As the week wore on, I became more anxious
to see him. He sounded better each time we spoke on the telephone and
he said he felt stronger everyday.

Finally, I was told that I could visit him for a brief time at the end of
the first week. Sundays were family and friends visiting day. I was eager
to hold my child in my arms again and give him the hugs and kisses he
deserved for being so brave. I had actually been able to regain some of
the faith I had lost in him. The road ahead was going to be a difficult
one, but at least it would be a healthier one.

Over the course of the days leading up to the trip, I faxed letters to
Alex every morning. I tried to be as supportive and as upbeat as I could.
At night we would speak. I would ask about his day and kiss him goodnight over the telephone. The new world he had brought me into had
me scared to death. What was I going to learn about my son and myself
during the coming weeks? I was unsure if I was fully prepared to hear
the things that he was going to say or what the doctors would uncover
about him.

Again the protective nature of being a parent came into the picture.
In some ways, I was just as eager to please people as Alex was at times.
While I needed approval, I never felt that I went to the extreme. There
came a point when I just knew there were people I would not get along
with no matter what. In those instances, I would resign myself to that
and move on. Alex had never been able to cope with the moving-on
part. People hung onto him like leeches. He never knew how or when
to pull them off.

All of that, plus the fake friends who had ingratiated themselves with
him, had gotten him to the place where he now found himself. Therein
lay the next big fear. How was he going to cope with the real world after
having been sequestered in such a safe place? Would they be able to
help him become stronger and face his fears or would he sink back into
the same hole? My anxieties grew day after day.

So many questions went through my head that it began to swim in
fog. I slept that night wrapped in the warmth of the lovely thought of
seeing Alex the next day and holding him close. At that moment, it was
enough.

MY BROTHER AND I flew out that Friday and rented a truck at the airport.
The facility was miles from the city in the middle of the desert. Sarah
and Marcus drove from Los Angeles to meet us on Sunday morning
before we all set out to see Alex. We registered at a motel and went to
our rooms, filled with anticipation over the next day's meeting. My brother and I had dinner together that night and spoke of the events that had
led us there.

I was glad that my brother was with me since I really needed his
strength to help me through the coming day. He was as apprehensive as
I about seeing Alex. Neither of us knew what to expect, or for that matter, what to say to him. I had spoken a few times to Vicki about Alex's
progress. She thought he was doing very well. She had the inside scoop
on him from the doctors at the center and told me everything Alex was doing. I just wanted to make sure he was getting the proper care and
progressing with his treatment.

The next morning, I awoke early and made coffee in my room. As I
looked outside my window and sipped my wake-up juice, I marveled at
the serenity that surrounded my motel. I had always liked that part of
the country, with its beautiful desert vastness shadowed by majestic
mountain ranges.

I had visited Arizona a couple of times before, once with the boys when
they were on tour, and again with a friend for a five-day spa vacation.
Both times I was impressed by the waves of positive energy I felt as we
walked the hiking trails or sat high on a horse plodding through the rocky
terrain. The boys and I had experienced a genuine cowboy campfire barbeque and hayride during our visit. We had had a wonderful time.

Who could have known during those happy times that I would someday be standing on a balcony, looking at the same beautiful scenery and
breathing in the wonderful smells of nature, but with a looming dark
cloud in the background? I understood why they would build a substance abuse treatment center out in the middle of nowhere; it was also
in the middle of ultimate tranquility.

At breakfast, my brother sensed my nervousness and tried to console
me. He told me it would all be okay. I should just focus on reuniting
with my son. If Alex felt comfortable sharing his experiences, then so be
it. If not, that could wait for another day. I agreed, but deep inside I had
questions about everything. I focused on the happiness I knew I would
feel when I saw my son again.

As we drove into the parking lot, I was struck by how quiet and peaceful the surroundings were. The entrance to the facility had a lovely circular fountain and everything was terra-cotta. Lots of cactus and desert plants
filled the pathways. It reminded me of a park until we entered the lobby.

We were greeted by several people who made us sign in for our visitors' badges. Our bags were also examined. They had to know what we
were bringing onto the premises. Certain things, we later found out,
were permitted. Other items they kept for the patients until after their
visitors left.