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I didn't have the time (or the energy) to do more than jump on here last night and ask for some support, but I am so thankful that I felt ok to do that after not being around here for more than two years. You wonderful people supported me and held me up during some of the darkest hours of my life~the hours I spent wrestling with myself and all of the "what ifs" and "if onlys" that are addiction.

Short background for those I don't know: I had been married for 25 years to a man who cycled in and out of addiction for most of that time. I had partied right beside him in the early years, but then came three children and I had to grow up. So instead of partying with him, I became massively codependent and did all the self-righteous, ugly, self-defeating things that codies do. I think back to those days and it's like watching a rerun of a bad movie. I was a miserable person, and I wanted everyone to know it! And I wanted everyone to know that it was all his fault~because I was the victim. [Oh my. It still hurts to say that, to realize what a mess I was.]

In November of 2006, in desperation, I came here in yet another effort to find a way to fix him so my life would be ok. What I found instead was a way to fix myself. And the sweet realization that I could actually do that, whether or not he got clean.

Here, I recognized patterns of behavior and situations that I thought no one else had ever gone through. One huge lightbulb moment was a thread started by a wonderful woman "Lovestoomuch" (whatever happened to her??) titled 'Famous Last Words'. I will NEVER forget how dumbfounded I was while reading that thread. SO many things that I had heard from my AH over the years were the very same things that everyone else was hearing, too. It was uncanny. I laughed. I cried. It was wonderful. Over the next 18 months, I filed for divorce (for the third time). It got ugly. Then it got uglier. Then it was over. And my SR friends were right there through it all.

Fast forward to today. We lost our business. We lost our home. We lost a lot of money. We lost most everything that the world deems important. I moved into a fixer-upper (what an understatement that was...) and just kept putting one foot in front of the other.

I went back to school and got my degree in Child and Youth Development. I am now over halfway through Graduate school in Professional Counseling-after all, why let all that good life experience go to waste?? I did have a job, but I don't right now. But I will be ok. God provides. I know that more than I know anything else in this world.

My oldest son lost his business in the crash of 2008, but he is doing better. He and his wife have two beautiful children-a boy and a girl. What a blessing!
My 13 year old son is doing great, we have tons of fun together. No stress. No tension. No pretending. It's wonderful.

My XAH kicked and screamed and quacked and threatened. Then he whined and pouted and sulked and cried. Then he wallowed in depression for awhile. Then he picked himself up, dusted himself off, and started mowing lawns for a living and went to school to learn landscaping. He's been clean for over a year now. He is doing great, and he is rebuilding relationships with his boys. He is loony over his grandkids. And we even get along quite nicely now. God is good.

What brought me back here is my middle son, who is so much like his father that it is just uncanny. He's 23. After years of cursing the ground his father walked on, he has turned into what he hated. Life is like that.

I know that, whatever happens with him, I will be ok. It hurts like hell. But I will be ok. If I had not found this place four years ago and walked this path before, I would probably have enabled him until it killed him. Or me. Or both of us. So thank you, friends, for being here. You are the best.

Many hugs to all of you,
Jen