need advice
After reading some of the issues that others have here, mine don't seem so bad, but they are mine & they are consuming my life. Here's my story...
My husband's crack addiction started several years ago after his best friend passed away. Back then he was my boyfriend. We had been together for several years, were living together & had a child.
It started gradually & took some time before I realized that he was becoming an addict. The problems started with him not answering his phone when I called & then not coming home at night. Eventually, it got to the point where he was shirking off his responsibilities. I would get phone calls from our daycare, after hours, asking if anyone was coming to pick up our daughter. I would apologize profusely & scramble to go pick her up. They would scowl & I would apologize more, assuring them that it wouldn't happen again. This happened more than a few times. Eventually, I just started picking her up myself all the time.
I couldn't rely on him for anything anymore. If he told me that he would run an errand, I didn't believe him. I would try to give him the benefit of the doubt but after being burned so many times, it was easier just to take care of everything myself, no matter how thin I stretched myself, rather than having to rely on him, the whole time thinking to myself, "Is he really going to come through this time...?..." only to be disappointed yet again & have to inconvenience myself even further later in the day/evening & run the errand myself.
I never knew what was going to happen from one day to the next. He kept saying that he would stop but he never did. My life was chaos.
In the end, he got so bold as to just start bringing the drugs home & doing them in the garage! It didn't matter that I would come to the door, be standing less than 6 feet away from him & yelling (not to mention that our 2 year old would come to the door to see what was going on) - he would look at me with his glazed over eyes, not raise his voice, but in a very "under the influence" tone, direct me to leave him alone & that he was "almost done"!
Eventually I left him.
We stayed in contact. After all, we had a daughter together & I still loved him. If he could just get the drugs under control we could still be together.
Life was different. The drugs weren't in my face anymore. He wasn't a constant in my life. I wasn't yelling at him. I didn't know what he was doing. I wasn't relying on him.
It worked for a while & then we started to get closer again. We didn't talk much about the drugs, other than me asking him if he'd stopped. And he never lied - he was always honest. So I always knew what was going on - if I asked.
After about a year, we got back together for good. He's been clean for over 2 years now, we've gotten married & had another child. The drugs are out of our lives...until last week...when he didn't show up for Christmas Eve.
We planned to finish our holiday shopping together earlier in the day & it didn't phase me too much when he didn't show up for that, but when he didn't show up later that evening for our planned Christmas celebration with my family, I started to worry. The drugs crossed my mind briefly but I quickly pushed that thought out - I didn't want to go that route again.
When he showed up (yes, later that evening), I simply asked him what happened. His reply..."You know." And I knew.
My instinct reaction is anger, then disappointment, then back to anger. "I will not go through this again!" "You had better figure out a way to control yourself!" etc, etc, etc...
He conveys to me how disappointed he is in himself & says that he'll go to meetings (he never sought treatment for the first go-around).
It's been just over a week (to some this is no time & to others I'm sure this is too long) but there has not been another mention of any type of treatment or any meetings & now he's been MIA since Friday at 6pm.
I don't want to do this again & it feel like I'm headed down a familiar road. I have no idea what to expect from him. I don't know if this will be the last time - I'm hopeful but not dumb...it will probably happen again. I don't want to do this again & I don't want my kids exposed to the type of environment that this will bring to our household - but I want their father there for them...ahhhhhhh...what to do, what to do...my mind is racing but I'm not getting anywhere!
I've been on this computer for hours searching support groups in my area. I plan to attend the next meeting that is available to me this week, but in the meantime, wanted to get advice from anyone who can offer, anyone who is more experienced with addiction than I...
Much of the information that I found on the web re: support seemed to be geared toward parents of addicts. It was very difficult for me to find information that would be helpful to me, the spouse of an addict with young children.
Any advice would be appreciated!