shinebright7

I'm being restored to sanity this week...

Well, maybe just in the last 48 hours...

But thank God, because it feels so much better.

After the episode of my husband breaking into our apartment with a lock smith because I had kicked him out several days prior and he "just so desperate to see me" I had a huge insight.

I really got at a deeper level of understanding that addiction is a disease -- separate from my husband in the same way that when my BFF has a cold, that cold is separate from her.

It doesn't make me like her less. It just makes me not want to hang out with her so that I don't get sick too.

Before this deeper insight about addiction as a disease, I couldn't honestly write about how my husband was sick, because I was too wrapped up in the SYMPTOMS and wanting to judge those as crazy, scary, wrong, bad, etc.

I was also suffering from that concept of "uniqueness" that my story and situation with my husband was a big deal and worthy of freaking out over.

But since I have had this shift, I don't even feel like I'm on a forum here talking about drugs and addicts and all this in the same way that I used to.

Honestly I used to get stressed sometimes coming to the board because I would instantly think about all the incidents in our marriage that qualified me to be here.

But now, I feel like I'm on a board where there are loved ones talking about their sick spouses and family members -- like they would on a board for family members of those who have cancer.

We are talking about our loved ones' symptoms and whether they're have a good day or a bad day...

And how it's hard for us to watch them suffer...

And then we remind each other that our loved ones are in God's hands and we need to take care of ourselves first.

It's the same kind of thing that would happen in some other support forum for a medical condition where the loved ones were hanging out together.

I gotta say...

My heart is so much softer since I had this deeper understanding about it really being a disease.

I feel so much more sane!

Today I genuinely missed my husband -- not in a codependent desperate way...but in a fully loving, mature way that felt healthy and so refreshing. It was really beautiful.

I know it's because I've finally gotten the difference between the addiction (the beast) and my husband (the child of God.)

I feel so much more hopeful!

The drama is out of the picture when I think about things now and replay things in my head.

I'm experiencing so much compassion, understanding, and trust in God now.

If my husband were in a treatment center to receive chemo right now, I would be so full of love toward him. Not resentment for being sick.

I wouldn't be replaying times in my mind where he threw up on me, or was too tired to go to the store with me, or felt nauseated and couldn't eat the meal I prepared. I wouldn't be replaying how he snapped at me when he was in pain.

But that's what I'd been doing related to the disease of Addiction. I'm holding onto anger about the things he's done and said while in the grips of the addiction. Blaming him for his symptoms.

So silly! Like getting mad at someone for coughing if they have a cold or having a fever if they have the flu.

So now that my husband is still out of the house and in the hotel, I've been feeling so much love toward him. Picturing his sweet self laying on the bed, having done his meeting with his sponsor today and trying to process whatever he's going through.

Going through the "treatments" that are geared to help him with his condition.

He and his sponsor wound up going to the same church where I had my meeting this morning so I saw them walk past the window and my heart just swooned seeing him.

I feel like God has given me the grace to experience more love toward my husband again instead of all the confusion, anger, and impatience I've had toward him lately.

It's like a gift.

I can't quite express all of this in words yet, but it's just a wonderful feeling to see things differently than I had before.

My husband is my husband.

The Beast is the The Beast.

I love my husband.

I am getting wiser and wiser to the beast.

And I'm learning how to take care of myself given the fact that The Beast is active and alive in my husband right now.

That doesn't mean I have to reject my husband.

Detaching with love.

Detach from the beast. Love my husband.

I can love my husband and not let the beast live here with me because it will make me sick too. Just like my friends with colds and flus are not allowed to come hang out and be with me in my home either.

So grateful for this. Thank you, step 2. Thank you, God.