Teacher shares son’s story in hopes of helping others

Riley Scruggs did not look like a heroin addict. A talented artist, musician and athlete, he was nicknamed “Smiley Riley” for the way his smile lit up a room.

“Most people think of an addict as lying under a bridge,” said Jan Scruggs, Riley’s mom. “Mine was on a full scholarship, a top football player and an accomplished artist who was liked by everyone.”

After her son’s death, Scruggs, from a Briarwood Christian School teacher and Meadowbrook resident, searched for books by other parents who had experienced a similar loss. She could not find one about losing a child to a drug overdose, so she decided to write her own.

She titled her book, “Today, Tonight, Tomorrow: Adoption, Addiction, Redemption: A Story of a Beautiful Life, a Tragic Death and My Recovery,” after a poem Riley had written and gave to a friend before he passed away. She said the poem was about life on earth and how we walk through it being distracted when we are just trying to get home.

“People want to label addiction as a sin, not a disease,” she said. “I was looking for a way to be able to share my side of Riley’s story. It’s not a pretty thing to talk about.”

Scruggs and her husband Dale adopted Riley as a newborn. “He was born to an addict; thus he was born an addict,” she wrote in the beginning pages of her book. He was actually a fourth-generation addict. After spending his first month of life in the hospital, the Scruggs took him home to continue to detox.

She believes Riley’s addiction may have been triggered after having his first beer in eighth grade and intensified after he broke his leg playing football and had to have screws put in. When it was time for them to be removed two years later, one of them proved difficult, resulting in an extremely painful surgery. The doctor told Scruggs her son would suffer.

“I left the medicine beside his bed, and he took the entire bottle in a day,” Scruggs said. “That led to buying Lortab on the street, which is basically heroin in a bottle.”

Having sustained multiple concussions playing football was another factor making Riley susceptible to a drug overdose.

He graduated from Briarwood High School when he was 17 and received a full scholarship to UAB. He moved on campus and Scruggs said her son immediately got into marijuana and alcohol on the college scene. Although he had A’s in his classes, he dropped out.

“He attempted suicide when we brought him home that night,” Scruggs said. “It was a feeble attempt at suicide to say, ‘Help me.’”

Riley reapplied for and received a scholarship at Auburn, a four-year full ride to major in chemical engineering and then become an endodontist. Two weeks before he left, he drove home drunk from a party and received a DUI.

At Auburn, he flunked out and lost his second full scholarship. He also stopped going in for drug and alcohol testing, which was a failure to comply with his probation guidelines for the DUI. That began an eight-year run of ups and downs.

Scruggs, who is in her 18th year teaching eighth grade at Briarwood, said she is thankful for the last six months of Riley’s life, when he was drug-free and excelling at his job at a print design company before he died on Feb. 9, 2016. He was 27.

Scruggs wishes she had seen the signs sooner and known what to watch for.

“When you have a child and things seem to be going well, you don’t think to look for underlying issues when you don’t see anything on the surface that looks wrong,” she said. “If I could go back, I would watch for changes in behavior, do random drug testing and get help as early as possible. By the time we found out Riley had a problem, he was legally out from under us. When a child is still under your roof, you can insist upon them going to long term rehab program. Research shows it takes 16 months to kick an opioid addiction, and quick fixes won’t work.”

Scruggs also suggests looking for signs of depression or emotional instability.

“I still cry every day three years later,” Scruggs said.

“Today, Tonight, Tomorrow” was published in May and is available on Amazon.

“This opportunity I have to speak out is my platform and will be to the day I die,” she added. “If I can save one life, I will have made Riley’s life and death worthwhile. Riley was a Christian and wanted everyone in heaven with him.”