Two Authors Joined by Pain of Addiction

In their own words, she’s a mother trying to save her son from drugs. He was a son who couldn’t save his mother from alcohol.

From those disparate backgrounds, two people who’d barely met decided to write a book together.

She’s a respected author from Santa Ana Heights. He’s the sheriff of Orange County.

Maralys Wills and Sheriff Mike Carona are putting the finishing touches on a manuscript they’ve already sold called “Save My Son: A Mother and a Sheriff Tackle Addiction.”

Wills has suffered in ways most of us can barely fathom. But if you’re a writer, she says, you write what you know. Three prison terms for an alcoholic and drug-addicted son compelled her to turn to an exploration of those addictions. So she’s crossed the country the past two years in search of good drug treatment programs to share with readers.

About the same time, a mutual friend, halfway house operator Nancy Clark, introduced Wills to Carona. Hearing his own drug treatment ideas led Wills to seek his help in a joint book project. Wills discovered that the sheriff’s passion for helping drug addicts and alcoholics may well have been borne of his own story.

Death by Drink

Few people know. It’s not the kind of dour anecdote that comes up in a heated election. But Sheriff Carona, 33 years ago, was the one who found his mother in her bed, dead of alcoholism. A fifth of Scotch and a six-pack of beer had been her last meal.

He was 11 years old, an only child.

“No son should ever find his mother this way,” Carona writes in their manuscript. “I’d known that day would come and somehow, in my own way, I’d even prepared for it.”

She’d been an alcoholic his entire childhood. Writing about it for a short chapter in the book, Carona said, took him three full days, reliving it was so draining.

“I never really thought my interest in drug and alcohol treatment stemmed from my own childhood memories,” he said. “But after writing that chapter, I’m wondering if it wasn’t there in my subconscious all along.”

Since taking office in January, Carona has seen his share of critics. Some have opposed his loosening of restrictions on private gun permits. Others aren’t happy about some of his ideas about a new jail site.

But Carona is about to become the darling of those who believe the nation’s jailers need to do more with drug addicts than just house and feed them.

Carona and his staff, with help from county health officials, are hard at work creating a 64-bed, lock-down, therapeutic treatment program for drug and alcohol inmates. The facility will be part of an older section of the Theo Lacy Branch Jail in Orange, made available by the opening of a new wing at that site.

Some state prisons have put together such ambitious plans, but this will be a first for a county jail in California. It’s scheduled to open in late January.

“If we don’t do something like this, these people will just keep coming back time and again to fill up our jails,” Carona said.

The Youngest Son

Carona writes several parts of the book but credits the idea for the project to Wills, whom he’s grown to admire enormously. For her part, Wills writes extensively about treatment programs that work, based on her research. But her most poignant chapter, no doubt, will be the book’s first, about her son.

Wills and her husband Bob, a medical malpractice attorney, live in a lavish home whose most prominent feature is the dozens of family pictures. She is the author of numerous books as varied as a technothriller to romance novels and even a book on giving parties.

With good reason, they are proud of family accomplishments. Son Kenneth is an attorney in Virginia, son Chris is an orthopedic surgeon here in Orange County. Their daughter, Tracy Wills Worley, is the mayor of Tustin.

But the Wills’ raised three other sons.

Eric was killed in a hang gliding accident in 1974. Bobbie, a former U.S. Hang Gliding champion, was killed at the same sport three years later. Facing those tragedies became the subject of “Higher Than Eagles,” a book Wills wrote with her son Chris, also a national hang gliding champion.

But then there was a fifth son--the youngest son, I’ll call him here.

Sadly, Wills has no idea yet how her part of the book with Sheriff Carona will end; the trauma she endures with the youngest son changes day to day.

He may have been the most gifted athlete in the family. But while the others excelled at sports at nearby Foothill High School, the youngest son somehow turned to the drug culture for his friends.

Jails and prisons and halfway houses became a major part of the youngest son’s life, and his troubles became his parent’s troubles.

In June, the youngest son, now 39, completed his latest prison term with a new tour at a halfway house. But records show he walked away in the middle of the night after less than two weeks and remained mostly on the streets for months. Somehow, family members say, their son’s lawyer persuaded a judge to give him another chance at Phoenix House in Santa Ana.

That ruling came last Friday. The judge told the youngest son to show up at Phoenix House in 72 hours. Unfortunately, the Wills say, that meant a final weekend drinking binge and 72 hours of hell for the whole family. On Monday, the family convinced the reluctant youngest son to turn himself in to Phoenix House and began a required year of treatment.

It was in the midst of that trauma that I called Wills and asked whether she’d chat with me about her book with the sheriff.

What happens after Phoenix House, the Wills say, is a huge question mark. But for now, at least, Maralys Wills can concentrate on completing the book.

“Ideally,” she says, “the final chapter would be our son emerging from all this to help others. But then it may never happen. One of our strongest themes in the book is that there are good programs for those seeking help early in their addiction. But there is almost nothing in the jail system for the many others who are longtime addicts.”

Those like her youngest son.

She writes in her son’s chapter:

“Just as Mike Carona was never able to save his mother, I may never be able to save my son. But it’s our fervent hope that eventually words of ours will help save other sons.”

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Jerry Hicks’ column appears Monday and Thursday. Readers may reach Hicks by calling (714) 564-1049 or e-mail tojerry.hicks@latimes.com.