Remembering Family Week

For some reason, I thought back to "Family Week" at Betty Ford (which I usually refer to as "Fuck Family Week") today and an image has been stuck in my head.

There was a beautiful and kind woman there with me, and I grew to love her almost instantly. We still keep in touch, and she is very dear to my heart.

At one point during the week, we were supposed to confront the addict in our lives and express the pain they had caused us. Her husband was not there, so she addressed someone else, or maybe it was a chair - my memory fails me. Her face was so mesmerizing in that moment that I did not really notice anything else.

I do not remember most of the things she said, but I do remember how real and raw her pain felt. I remember thinking, here is this beautiful, amazing, compassionate woman - and she did not deserve any of this.

I do not remember my moment or what was said to my husband. At that point, I think I skipped over a lot of things because I don't like being under pressure or in the spotlight. In some ways, I think it would have been better if he had not been there because I think I tried to spare a lot of his feelings and humiliation instead of getting rid of everything in my heart.


“I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”

- Maya Angelou

My Letter to The Betty Ford Center

Dear Betty Ford Center,

My husband attended your center last summer for 90 days. I came down for both Family Week and the marriage retreat. I left with high hopes and great respect for your center. But all of that has been shattered in the last few days.

My husband left his BF workbook out and I made the mistake of leafing through it. He notated that he had UNPROTECTED SEX with 3 women while married to me. I had specifically asked him for his medical records while he was there, and he would not give them to me. Now I know why. I am very certain that your Center was aware of this and you must be fully aware of how dangerous unprotected sex is for people who are cocaine-addicts.

I am the mother of two young children. At your Center, you encouraged me to look at my part, and I have done that. But now I am outraged. I wasted more of my life on this addict, who also relapsed after leaving your center no-less. Had I known of his infidelities, I would have left him. Instead, your Center engaged in a cover-up which could have cost me my life.

I am thinking back to the culmination of the week, when the addicts are supposed to "come clean" and tell their partner everything. His assigned counselor actually sat in, along with 2 other counselors to make sure he said EVERYTHING. She said was satisfied with his answers. The other two counselors and the rest of the room looked over at her for her sign of approval. Afterwards, she even shook my hand. I spent the week with your counselors - a week of my life that now makes me sick. Because I feel not only betrayed by my husband, but also by your Center. And I thought you were "the good guys".

There was nothing said about the UNPROTECTED SEX he dictated in this book.

I am aware you are a center for addicts, but I ask you to consider what would happen to my children if something happened to me? Is their addict father going to take care of them? Who do you think takes care of these children? Certainly not him.

I wish your counselors would have told me the truth, even if my husband didn't have the balls to - because I could have moved on with my life at that point instead of wasting more time.

I also believe you can not reach or maintain sobriety without rigorous honesty. So in many ways, by allowing him to hide behind his lies, you also contributed to his relapse.

Make no mistake; my husband is still 100% responsible for his actions. But I think you need to strongly consider your approach at "Family Week" and look at YOUR PART in all of this.

Fuck Family Week

I am unable to sleep. I am angry at my husband and worried about what I am going to do with my life.

If it were just me, that would be one thing. But I have two young children and I need to minimize their pain as much as possible.

This isn't the life I had planned for either one of them.

In thinking about it, I have to also say that I am very disappointed in the Betty Ford Center.

My husband blamed not telling me on the 9th Step, which says something about not telling someone if it would do more harm than good to tell them.

But I told him he was manipulating that into his own BS to make it work for him.

I specifically asked him for his full medical records from there for months to check for this very thing. He evaded me, and gave excuses and everything else and this is why. That was on there.

Everything was written in a Betty Ford workbook that they went over with him. His counselor and the other counselors had to have known. I spent a week with them there.

Unprotected sex with 3 women who were also likely coke-addicts put my life at risk. And they should have told me if he didn't.

I'm thinking back to the culmination of the week, when the addicts are supposed to "come clean" and tell everything to their partner. Their assigned counselor actually sat in, along with 2 other counselors to make sure they say EVERYTHING.

There was nothing said about the UNPROTECTED SEX he dictated in this book.

And there I sat with him and all his buddies in group and at various dinners and no one said ANYTHING to me.

I seriously hate addicts and their little cover-up clubs. I suppose since they are all in the same boat, they have no problem with covering up anything for anyone else. Can't be worse than anything else they did themselves.

So there I was at the Betty Ford Center, wasting a full week on "Family week", which should really be called "FUCK-Family week" and flew down for another marriage counseling workshop. And they all just encouraged me to "look at my part". Which is great, but I have already done that. Maybe addicts should look at THEIR part for once and say "I Fucked up." Maybe they should look at their lives and say, yeah, my parents screwed me over big time, but I don't have to screw everyone else over. Maybe Rehab clinics should protect some of these family members instead of the ADDICTS WHO PAY THEM - so that we all don't end up dying from HIV or HepC, or in cars our addicts are driving when we don't know they are completely out of their minds....

I left there was such gratitude for that center, but now I hate it. I wish they would have told me the truth, even if my husband didn't have the balls to - because I could have moved on with my life at that point instead of wasting more time.