Karamo describes finding his 23-year-old son Jason unconscious from an overdose in his apartment during the pandemic. Jason had been isolating and missing calls despite Karamo's attempts to intervene, including sending him to Texas and setting deadlines. Karamo recounts the shock of discovering his son on the floor and the grief of realizing Jason's hidden addiction.
Chapters
It was a very, very hard day for me. My son, this is at the beginning of the pandemic. My son was basically a great kid, grew up sweet. I have two sons and one of my sons I've had challenges with, but Jason was always the one that I was like, oh, everything's fine. He's great. He's good in school. He's sweet. He's awesome. And during the pandemic, I noticed that there was a little bit of isolation. I knew that he was kind of, but I was like, this is what we're all doing. We're all kind of in our own minds. We're all trying to figure out. And even though I'm reaching out, I still figured, you know what, everything's all right. And then I started noticing some dramatic things happening, like he wasn't picking up my calls, which is very rare because Jason and I are super close. And so then he stopped paying some bills and I was like, uh-uh, we're not doing this in this black household, okay? You're not paying no bills, what's going on? I started getting calls, you know, and so I was just kind of figuring like, maybe it's just the pandemic. Maybe it's just the fact that he's young. He was 23 at the time. Maybe this is a moment where he's trying to grow and figure out himself. But then it started to get worse and worse. And so his mama lives in Texas, y'all. And I was like, listen, you going to your mama house because I can't deal with this. I'm done. You 23. I don't have any time for this. And I'm a strict dad. I'm gonna be real with y'all. But I kept buying him flights. And Jason kept missing the flights. So I gave him the final straw of like, you have to be on this flight tomorrow morning, 7:00 AM. Go spend some time with your mother, be with her, get yourself together, and then we'll come back and figure this out. And I've had custody of my son since he was 10. So it's always just been he and I. It's not as if he's always gone back with his mom. It's just been he and I. That morning at 6:30, the car service is calling me, calling my best friend Trey. Saying, "There's no one out here. No one's here." 7 o'clock comes, we're calling, no one's here. And so I'm gonna be real with y'all. I call my best friend and I'm sitting on the couch and I'm putting on my shoes and I'm like, "Girl, I'm about to go over there and whoop this boy." I'm like, "Nuh-uh, you done did it again. Like, you done wasted my money." I'm talking about I was upset, y'all. And got in the car ready to go over there to have a confrontation with my son. And when I got to the apartment, I went up the stairs and the door was ajar. And I thought something was going on. I thought maybe he had gotten robbed, we had gotten robbed, or something was happening. I opened the door and it was a complete mess. The house was, the house was dirty. And I saw my son laying on the floor in cat litter, foam coming out of his mouth. And I sprung into, I'm sorry, y'all. This is, I don't know if you've ever experienced addiction in your own lives or with family members, but when you find out what's going on, when you realize it's been happening and you didn't realize it, when you realize that you might lose someone, it just kills you inside. And I was terrified.
