Also, see the comment.. nebach.
This one: Thank you for sharing this. You are not alone.
I'm a recovering wife of an active addict. Never touched a drug in my life. Not even weed. I drink once in seven years. I'm still a ball of fun and can outdance all the stoners and alcoholics at any wedding. My biggest vice is some TV in the evenings.
I barely have 24 hours clean. Clean from the last time I meddled in my addicts life.
I've been working an Al-Anon program for 1.5 years now, but lately I've been slipping more and more. Last night was awful. We're a nice Jewish family. Struggling. Married with two kids. I thought I was well-adjusted way before I got married. Didn't need a man to complete me. Happy, in love, loving, not too clingy. So Tell me why my husband is an active addict? No idea. Tell me why his GP of 30 yrs prescribed Oxys to a father of two who had a drug problem twenty years ago? Only Gd knows. Why is my husband snorting in the bathroom? Where's the big-papa teddy bear that didn't know how to lie to save his life and now manipulates every sentence to cover a web of lies? Why are his eyes glossed over? Why is he dying and slipping away between my finger tips? Why do I wake up every night to the sound of pill boxes?
Did I enable him? Hell no. Not as soon as I realized he has an 'addictive personality'. Jews aren't addicts I thought. Not my husband anyway. Everyone drinks on the weekend, I thought.
"I'm too young for this shit and I'm too old for this shit."
That's my motto sometimes.
I'm too young to be a widow at 30, I'm too old to deal with a 35yr old regressing to his 17 yr old adolescent authority-hating self.
Do I fight the good fight to keep this family together, to keep him alive? Of course I do. I am Omnipotent, I can do anything, I am his Higher Power. Clearly a part of me still hasn't internalized that I'm not in control, that I can't cure him. And yet somehow I keep contributing. I keep trying to get him clean. To raise his bottom, to be his spiritual awakening. How do you think I'm doing, personally? Honest to god truth, any addict already knows what i look like, a broken sobbing mess, as I write this, because it reminds me to feel sorry for myself. Other days I'm a strong lionness, challenging my husband to step up to the plate, to be "a man". I'm just as insane as he is.
And I've reached my Zen zones. I know how to meditate, how to call my sponsor. I have seven Al-Anon associated literatures next to my bed. And I still don't understand the addict. I still am freaked the f out that he will overdose and die, leaving us behind. Our kids worship the ground he walks on. They're 5 & 3. They need their dad.
If there are addicts reading this, I know you like nothing less than a spouse's sob story. I hate weakness as well. I'm not usually a mess, I'm strong and I will hold on to this house like four archangels only can until he can get better, and to not let his disease and mine affect us. I asked him to leave today.
What's my point? That this man, last night, as I begged him to give me the pills before he goes for a bath, as petite little me fought him to keep the bathroom door open and trying to grab at his pill bag, I saw the look in his eyes. I mean, I know I look like a crazy person: the crying and yelling and sniffling. I know what I look like. But his look. It's so different now. He is so far gone. I remind him who he is at these moments, I call him by his full name. "You are Akiva Hillel son of Tzvi Aryeh. You are not defined by your addiction". But this time it just didn't reach him. He will do everything to protect his Higher Power - his pills. And I feel like it's a lost battle. But then I go to AA and NA forums and I see these ppl with their badass counting apps: 3 days clean, 5 months, 30 yrs, telling their story, and I tell myself to just do what I gotta do and get out of the way so Gd and my addict can dance their dance. It gives me compassion to hear other addicts, it reminds me he is owed respect and dignity to make his own mistakes. It reminds me I'm not at fault but I'm also not responsible to make him or keep him clean.
There is hope for those living with or who know of active addicts. Look up Al-Anon or Nar-Anon groups. Find ways to save yourself and the rest of the family while Gd handles the addict. He's the only One who can.
"We admitted we were powerless over the addict, that our lives had become unmanageable." - Step 1 of the 12 Steps.