aloneinacrowd

I'm new here. I've been reading the message board since last Wednesday. This is the first time I've had the courage to post. I'm sorry this will be so long...but I feel like I just have to get it all out.

Wednesday, at marriage counseling, my husband of 13 years had a complete meltdown and confessed that he is out of control and has been addicted to pills for the past two years. He said he wants off the pills...that he just can't handle it anymore. Several months ago I found a prescription bottle and confronted him...he told me he was taking them as prescribed and it was no big deal.

Things just werent adding up...he slept for days at a time, "ran errands" by himself all the time, received hundreds of cell phone calls and texts from numbers I didn't recognize. He was spending money out of control.

I got suspicious enough to pull up his pharmacy records by using another prescription that was in the medicine cabinet. I almost fainted when I saw all the prescriptions!

It turns out those prescriptions were just the "icing on the cake". There were dozens of prescriptions and he was buying pills too. He said he's bought pills, sold pills, traded pills...he even told us about sitting across the table from the biggest drug dealer in the state. I don't know who this man is. He used our savings, our investment accounts, everything.....gone. He's been skimming hundreds of dollars off his paychecks by cashing checks at work. He's using every and any codeine based pill he can get his hands on.

I feel like I am in an "after school special" or a "lifetime network movie". This just isn't our life!!!!! My husband is educated, has an excellent job. We own a beautiful home and have three awesome children. He is well respected in the community....how did he become a drug addict? I'm happy that he wants help..but I am SO angry.

Our marriage counselor told him he needed to get medical help to get off the pills because he was taking too many to just quit cold turkey and that he needed to get to NA ASAP. He went to his doctor and told him the whole story. The doctor gave him an oxycodone prescription with directions for tapering off. He gave me the pills and asked me to give him them each day per the directions.

The first day...he took the five he was allowed. The second day...he took the five he was allowed (he's tapering off by one pill a week). He was on call and got called out to work. When he came in at midnight he wanted another pill. I told him that wasn't part of the agreed plan. He said that he deserved another one because he was out there risking his d*** life.

I don't want to be his jailer. I figure that HE needs to want this. I gave him the pill and the five for the next day. I don't see the point in keeping them from him when he can get more anywhere. He already broke the tapering off plan...does this mean he is not serious about quitting? He still hasn't contacted NA.

I don't know what to do. I don't know how he can be this selfish. We have a wonderful family and a wonderful life and he is throwing it away for some stupid pills. I can't eat. I can't sleep. I just want to wake up from this nightmare.

Our children are 16, 12, and 6....what do I say to them? I love my husband so so much. I want to be by his side and support him during this tapering off....This is not who he is. How do I do this? I never thought I would be asking this, but what do you do when your husband is a drug addict?