Manda's Beast: A True Life Addiction Story to Help Parents Protect Their Sons and Daughters From Self-Abuse with Drugs

By Mann Spitler

Two parents lost their only child to drug addiction—their story could save yours from the same fate.

 

As parents, the thought of our children falling into the abyss of drug addiction is a nightmare we all desperately wish to avoid. To be successful, it will take consistent preventive measures that parents never thought would be necessary. Raising your son or daughter to be free of alcohol and other drugs requires parents to shed the optimistic mindset that "my child would never do drugs," and replace it with the more protective mindset of "it could be my child, so I must be vigilant about their activities."

 

Wanting to prevent others from enduring the excruciating agony of watching their son or daughter succumb to drug or alcohol abuse, Mann Spitler wrote Manda's Beast. In a heart-wrenching memoir, he shares Manda's haunting journey into the "beast" of heroin addiction, culminating in her tragic death at age 20 from a self-administered lethal dose. This guide was lovingly crafted with your kids and teens in mind, with the preventive measures he and his wife Phyllis wish they had taken.

Protect your child from the abyss of addiction as you discover:

 

• The pervasiveness of drug addiction as you read anonymous notes from parents, adolescents, and young adults.
• The cunning ways our kids funnel money to drug dealers, as revealed through Manda's bank statements.
• The progression of drug addiction, seen through hospital intake notes. These include nicotine, alcohol, hallucinogens, methamphetamine, and prescription drugs like depressants and narcotics.
• Behavior associated with street drugs: meaninglessness, secrecy, lying, low self-worth, chaos, purposelessness.
• How to develop a strong drug prevention plan and follow through with its strategies.

The culture of drugs doesn't discriminate by social background, geography, or education. Read Manda's Beast today and find the courage and motivation to deter the influence of drugs and its culture on your son or daughter and help them escape the catastrophic consequences of self-abuse with consciousness altering drugs.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Mann Spitler
• Release date: Mar 5, 2024
• ISBN: 9798988404712

Book preview

Chapter One

The Beast

WHAT DOES THIS horrific metaphorical Beast represent in the accompanying poem, written by my daughter, Manda, two years before she would die from a self-administered injection of heroin? Why does she feel relentlessly tortured and entangled in chains by it? What is the door that flies open and the gates that give way? Why is she incapable of getting away from it?

There are two possible interpretations of the word Beast. The first and most likely is the drug culture slang for heroin. The other falls within the broader context of drug addiction: The Beast of Drug Addiction. I feel certain Manda’s use of the Beast was a specific reference to heroin. The door flies open the gates give way represents a collapse of her resistance to the overwhelming and euphoric effects of her drug of choice. Manda could not get away from the Beast because doing so would have inflicted an agonizing punishment: withdrawal, a set of symptoms akin to a severe case of the seasonal flu, sometimes described by those addicted to heroin as being a thousand times worse than the flu, with nausea, vomiting, cold sweats, muscle and bone pain, runny nose, fever, diarrhea, arm and leg cramps, an intense craving for heroin, and insomnia that would leave Manda exhausted and depressed.

As for feeling tortured, she wrote in her computer journal: "I find it so hard to be just me and when I look in the mirror, I see a face that is tired of fighting [the Beast], a face that just wants to be me." The Beast was already destroying Manda’s sense of self-identity. Later, it would destroy her completely.

If this Beast of Drug Addiction could express how it barges into someone’s life, here is what it would say: "I am ancient, as old as humankind. I am invisible, silent, intangible, indestructible, and deadly. Beguilingly, I first present myself as a soothing angel promising to alleviate mental anguish and heal excruciating emotional wounds. Well disguised, I stalk the young, the old, and those in the prime of life, destroying lives by enslaving minds and convincing my prey to most willingly subject themselves to terrifying risks with potentially fatal consequences. I am The Beast of Drug Addiction."

What the Beast does not disclose is that most often its initial strategy to seize control of its victim’s mind begins with small bites that don’t seem all that bad or all that dangerous. From a child’s or adolescent’s perspective, how harmful can a few drags on a cigarette be? With vaping so common, it can’t be much of a threat, can it? And so what if I sneak a few sips of alcohol at home or at a party? If the pills my grandma uses to help her sleep don’t hurt her, then it must be safe enough for me to sneak a few home so I can use them to relax. Right?

Excerpt from a high school student who heard my narration of Manda’s Story:

Your daughter’s death just saved my life. I have been in the wrong crowd and doing wrong things lately but after listening to your daughter’s story and hearing how much you suffered as a parent, I plan on straightening my life out so I can have a better life. I am not sure if you are into the whole spiritual thing and if you talk to your daughter once in a while, but in your prayers when you speak to her tell her thank you for letting me live my life.

With thanks, anonymous student

A story such as Manda’s can and does change an adolescent’s thinking. As the above note from a boy who heard me tell Manda’s Story indicates, that change in thinking can also change their behavior from traveling downward along a path of danger to traveling upward along a path of safety.

Sharing this book with your child and then discussing it with them is a powerful way to enlighten them about the drug culture with its intrinsic risks and perils. Even better, if I am in your area narrating Manda’s Story, please attend and bring your adolescent child with you. All it will cost you is your time—consider it an invaluable investment in your child’s long-term well-being.

Chapter Two

Wonderful Childhood, Troubled Adolescence

AT ABOUT 3 p.m. on August 13, 1981, Manda’s mother, Phyllis, returned home from shopping at a bookstore, eager with anticipation.

My water broke, she announced. It’s time to go to the hospital. Our baby is about ready to be born.

Hurriedly, I put a suitcase in the car that Phyllis had already packed for this momentous day, and we arrived at the hospital minutes later. Phyllis was admitted, monitored, and at the appropriate time of labor, transferred to the delivery room.

Her physician, Dr. Green, arrived, delivered Manda without difficulty, then treated a complication following the delivery. Most babies begin to breathe spontaneously almost immediately after birth. Manda, however, was not breathing. She was already facing a struggle to stay alive.

In anticipation of the first burst of raspy crying from our baby girl and hearing no sound from her, Phyllis, a strong tone of stress and anxiety in her voice, started asking questions. What’s going on? Is everything all right? Why is everything so quiet? What is Dr. Green doing?

Fortunately, Dr. Green’s depth of experience (he had delivered over 4,000 babies in his career) equipped him with a measured, calm demeanor to deal with complications such as this. He sent one of the nurses to get him a suction device—a blue, palm-sized, bulb-shaped rubber syringe. He squeezed the bulb to create negative pressure in it and then gently suctioned fluid from Manda’s mouth, nose, and throat.

Finally, Manda inhaled her first breath of air and filled the room with her cries of arrival. After she had been bathed and examined, a nurse placed a now quiet Manda in her mother’s arms for her to hold for the first time.