Why didn't anyone tell me?

(Shared with permission by Margaret Clapp)

Why didn't anyone tell me this was a no-win situation? Why didn't anyone tell me how "supporting my husband's recovery" would destroy my kids? I think they should post some stats of actual long term opiate recovery outcomes at meetings. This is lifetime of descending levels of hell for the families.

Over the past six years, I sold my soul, compromised my identity and values, wasted my savings, irreparably destroyed my self esteem and most horrific of all, damaged my precious daughters. For what? To keep "my marriage together", so my kids wouldn’t grow-up without a "dad". They have a "dad" alright. A "dad" who taught them, by constant example, how to lie and avoid responsibility. This is not life I imaged for myself or my lovely children.

I was never stupid or weak. Just the opposite. I am well educated. I was fit and cute and funny. I worked hard and success came easy for me. I had a supportive family and strong network of friends in a lovely upper middle class neighborhood. Notice the past tense.

In 2005, I discovered my husband had a “problem". He was coming home from work falling down high, pissing in the hallway, sleeping/watching for days, then he went off the wall, screaming, agitated, violent. You all know the drill. I was scared. I wanted to help him. I loved him. He loved me. We had two kids. I would stand by him and he would get through this. After all, we were married for better or worse.

Over the next four years I thought I was insulating my daughters form the chaos of their dad's addiction. He never drove them in car. The kids were busy at school, sports, homework, social events, spent allot of time with grandma. I took on the roll of mom and dad. put on a happy face and took care of business. All the while, demonstrating, through my daily example, how to be a doormat, how not stand-up for your rights, that a wife is not entitled to love, affection or respect, that a wife was a target for blame, that wife should never expect the truth, that lies are tolerated in marriage, that marriage is not a partnership. I allowed this to happen.

Worst of all, they knew. My sweet young daughters knew I was compromising my integrity and self respect for the sake of a drug addict. My kids, by extension, also comprised a significant portion of their childhood for a drug addict. They had no choice. They grew-up in home without trust, without respect.

At some point, I realized that he (my Opiate-addicted husband) was not married to me. The love of his life came in a pill (Oxy, Vicodine, etc). Weren't fathers supposed to put forth effort and make sacrifices for the family? His efforts and sacrifices are for drugs. He wasn't my partner in building a future our daughters. His partner is opiates. His future is getting high.

If you're still trying to be the best wife and mother possible, please stop believing everything will be OK. Every lie you ignore, every dollar missing, every late night wondering when he’ll arrive home is one more chip away from your soul. Your kids are bearing witness to your slow decay.

GRAB the kids and RUN. Why? So you don’t end-up a soulless disaster. Run. NOW. Today. Run for your life. Don’t stop until you are free from the lies and pain of someone else’s addition . Run fast. Run while you still have love in your heart, before hate overtakes your soul. Run.

Children and Drugs

I talked to an old friend at a business lunch today about finding cocaine in my home and my father-in-law's response. His partner responded with a story about his cousin, who became a meth addict. She overdosed in her home while alone with her 2-year-old daughter. It was 2 days before someone finally realized something was wrong. They found her in pretty bad condition, with her dead mother on the bathroom floor.

The partner told me that he was really glad I had called the police and that he believed I had made the right decision. He was also the father of a 3 and 6-year-old and he said he would do the same thing, even if it were his wife.

Here is the poem I wrote for my father-in-law. He responded by telling me I was stupid.


If my daughter-in-law called me to tell me my son was using cocaine
I would listen to her
Embrace her
Ask how I could help
Empathize
Be there
Immediately
Fly out on the next flight if I had to
(Even in the middle of the night.)
I would hug my son until he started sobbing-
He would know that I love him-
He would know it, damn it.
I would just hold him-
Until he felt it-
Until he told the truth.
Even if it took all night
Even if it took all week
Even if it took the rest of my life
To make up for what I hadn't done.

If my daughter-in-law called me, sobbing, shaking, desperate;
I wouldn't make her feel like a nobody.
I would tell her
I'm sorry
I'm sorry
I am sorry.

Half The Sky

I'm reading Half the Sky. It is a brilliant and important book that I think everyone should read.

I am on an early chapter about keeping girls enslaved as prostitutes by drugging them with meth.

It struck me that my husbands family used this same approach to keep him compliant. I think giving minors drugs or alcohol is the most despicable act I can think of. When money is involved, it is a hard life to get away from.

"Neth and Momm underscore that Many prostitutes are neither acting freely nor enslaved, but living in a world etched by ambiguities somewhere between those two extremes. After her return, Momm was Bound to the brothel by drugs and debts, but the owner let her leave freely with customers, and Momm could have easily escaped if she had wanted to do so." 39

"...so the girls would have to go into debt to the trafficer. That's a classic means of gaining leverage over girls: The debts mount with exorbitant interest rates, and when the girls can't repay the loans, the trafficer sells them to a brothel." p 41

The situations these girls are in are terrible and unimaginable. In any case, reading this book has been empowering to me. I am surprised at how hopeful I feel when I put it down. There are a lot of horrible stories, but overall I feel like this is something we can all tackle.

The big thing that has been coming to my mind is that addiction keeps you centered on yourself. Even if you are the co-dependent, you are centered on the addict and the harm caused to yourself by having them in your life.

The thought that I have is, why aren't we helping people who want to be helped?

I mean really, there are millions of young girls being trapped into slavery around the world. Why not try to help those women who want out of that life?

Adult addicts can step out of their hell anytime they are ready to. But millions of young people do not have such choices.

Instead of spending money on alcohol or things that might enable an addict, why not sponsor a young woman abroad? Many people around the world live for under $2 a day.

So, I am hoping that more of us take back our power by helping those who are truly powerless. I recommend this book to everyone I know. I would highly recommend it to people who have addicts in their lives. Our world is bigger than the small, hellish one we create for ourselves.

www.halftheskymovement.org

Alcoholism is like Glue

This past weekend I reconnected with two old friends. One I have known for about 15 years and keep in touch on at least a yearly basis. The other I've known for about 10 but have not talked to in about 6.

The thing that stood out in my mind is that although my friends have moved on and been successful in their lives, I have stayed in the same stuck spot, and even slide back at times.

At first I justified it by saying I have two small children, but then I realized both of them have children.

In fact, one was in prison the last time we spoke. And I was helping care for her 6-year-old daughter.

I was pregnant at the time with my son and the demands on me became too much, which I regret now very much. My former husband's nephew had married a woman with a young daughter who I became very fond of. I would often babysit her, but it never felt much like babysitting - I adored the girl, and I loved to spend time with her.

The problem began when my nephew called me from jail and said that they had been arrested for selling (and later I found out manufacturing) Meth. I had no idea. This was another time in my life when I was completely naive about drugs. I knew he often had a lot of cash, but he told me he was selling cars, and I believed him. Many of the Lebanese I knew often had a lot of cash because they generally don't use credit cards. And no one in my former husband's family used drugs, or really even drank alcohol, so this was not something I would ever expect from him.

So, I was in for the shock of my life - and began visiting him in jail, and later in prison. Those are interesting stories in and of themselves. I never thought I'd find myself visiting jail or prison, especially pregnant. I was very pregnant the last time I visited him with my ex-husband. Then he was deported.

In any case, the girls grandmother and I were appointed to help raise the girl while her mother served her time. The grandmother being the primary guardian and me more as backup. However, "Grandma" wasn't really what this woman wanted to be. She was still partying. She viewed the girl as more of a burden than a granddaughter. It was horrifying.

Looking back, I wish I would have taken the girl in completely on my own. It is a huge regret I have in my life. I was overwhelmed with my own pregnancy and dealing with an alcoholic, which was also something new to me. I finally snapped when her mother called me from prison and told me Grandma needed more time to go out and party. I was asked to give up my plans at the last minute, again, to watch the girl. Looking back, my plans seem insignificant. But at the time, I was pissed and I told her mother no.

I never heard back from them again. I tried calling her at her Grandmother's home, but my calls were never returned.

Over the years, I have thought about the girl often and wondered what became of her. On Saturday, I mentioned her to my husband again. He had spent time with her as well and also had fond memories of her. He told me that God always watches out for children. I told him, that's not true. So many children are molested, raped, killed, abused...

In any case, yesterday, I found her mother on Facebook. She is thriving. She is completing her MBA and JD to become an Attorney. She has travelled all over the world. She looks great. And most important, her daughter looks like she has grown up to be a beautiful girl. She's a cheerleader. She looks happy.

I still haven't filled in all the blanks yet, but I am happy to have found them again. I never would have thought her mother could have gone from where she came from to where she is now, but it was a true lesson in grace and in not judging people based on their past.

But at the same time, it also made me feel like crap.

Once again I gave up something important to me. It reminded me that I have not travelled the world in these 8 years. I have not gone anywhere.

I finished my MBA before I had my son, but I never did a damn thing with it. Aside from raising my children, I have largely stopped living and stopped dreaming.

I am raising children in an environment that places no value on my hard work and the sacrifices I have made. So, while intellectually I believe in the value of raising my children, I don't feel that my time has been valued.

I am stuck like glue to this life that I have created with my husband. And I resent it.

Reading the Bible

This morning I had a total meltdown. Last night, the dog barfed all over the place, my daughter continually is pooping and peeing her pants and nothing else seemed to be going right. But I managed. We went to bed and I slept.

It's funny how some days you can take it all and other days you just can't.

But I woke up this morning to the same stuff, and then my daughter said to me, "Does your dad do crack?"

I looked at her and was like, "WHAT??!!"

She smiled and said, "Crack. Drugs."

I asked her where she heard that and she said her dad told her.

I told her my dad does not do drugs. I left it at that.

When I repeated the story to my husband, first he thought it was funny and then he gave me a lecture. And then I lost it.

Who is he to give me a lecture about anything? Where has he been? I was supposed to be on my Vegas Vacation this week, that he bought me for my birthday. But I didn't go. I can't leave my kids now. They are a mess. And there is barely money to pay our bills so it seems insane to me to go anywhere. But that didn't stop him from going to San Francisco for the weekend with his buddies. And I told him, "If anyone should be going on vacation right now, its me." I am beyond exhausted from dealing with all this crap.

But I'm just gonna have to suck it up.

In the midst of all that, my son let the dog out, who desperately needed to be groomed, and we had to look for him for 15 minutes that we didn't have and I just started crying.

So it seems that sucking it up isn't working, but I'm trying.

I got on my husband's case about spying on me and he acted like he didn't know what I was talking about. He said he just happened to be driving by when I got home on Sunday, which is probably the most insulting lie he has ever told me.

Then he said that he doesn't read the blog anymore and I told him he did last week. At this point, I don't care.

He sent me this ridiculous Bible verse today: "A friend loves at all times. Proverbs 17:17" A few texts after he told me to "Get off my fucking back!!!!"

Why is he sending that to me? Look at yourself! And since when does he read the Bible? Seems to me he's too busy reading my blog!

Felony Conviction

The stress of trying to rebuild our lives has been overwhelming. My husband was sentenced to a Felony for the cocaine possession.

He’s still so angry at me for turning him in, and wants me to apologize. I’m still angry at him for not getting it.

He has to do 24 hours of community service in 3 day stints. Digging ditches or something in our community. He’s pissed about that too. And being a felon. Having his DNA tested. All the stigma. Not being able to travel. Having to report to his parole officer.

I just keep thinking that he’s lucky.

He could have gone to prison for 5 years. Our daughter could be dead. I could have left him. He could still be an alcoholic and drug addict – or I guess he is, and will be forever, but he could be active in his addiction.

He sees the bad, and I see the good. And some days I feel like we will never be able to reconnect. It seems like we only see the bad in each other anymore. Some days I hate him. Sometimes I wonder how I got here and how I can live this way for the rest of my life.

But it seems that what’s good for me is bad for the kids, and vice versa. They need their dad. And I need him too in some ways.

Our finances are a mess. And I blame him as much as I rely on him to fix it. I can not dig us out of this hole. It seems it is his responsibility, but still my problem that I have to endure every day. I don’t sleep. I am stressed. I am having headaches nearly every day. I had a hot flash this morning. I think about all the stress of these last 7 years and I hope I just don’t keel over and die someday.

Some days it seems impossible that we will ever get out of this mess, especially in this economy. But I think about all the money his dad is sitting on and it literally makes me sick. The kids suffer while he sits there like a stingy SOB. His wife plays golf and tennis all day and talks about my husband’s lack of work ethic, while she has never worked.

It makes me sick.

But it is his money and he can do what ever he wants. I shouldn’t expect him to care. He has helped in some ways. Someone told my sister that he probably won’t ever help a lot because he’s worried I will divorce my husband and he wants to make sure I don’t get anything.

It makes me mad that my husband and his family seem to think I have no other options. That they think that I should take the brunt of all of this again and again.