And I find myself here with you lot
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Thread Starter
Join Date: Oct 2017
Posts: 60
And I find myself here with you lot
Only to also find that you lot are, in many ways, my people. I'm reminded of that phrase, something like "Remember, you are unique. Just like everybody else."
So my husband has been tanking for a while. I actually have spent a decent amount of time deciding which forum to post in. Do I post in the friends and family of drug abusers, do I post in friends and family of alcoholics? It's a smorgasbord of choices for me this fine day.
I've been married for a long time. Decades. Long enough that the children are grown, college graduates, and off doing their things, successfully and hopefully healthily, not that they are not affected by all of this.
But underneath it all this has been lurking, likely off and on the whole time. Many times much more off than on. But always lurking. My husband has always been free and easy with the "Alice in Wonderland Drink Me" phenomenon. A pill? Let's try it! Even if it doesn't belong to you? Well, sure, that's more fun anyway. The great experimenter. Me? Not a chance. I have to read the tissue-thin folded-eight-ways drug warnings that come with every pill these days. Raise your hand if you know what causes me to do that. OK, now put that hand back down; you're distracting me
. I will let you know when you may interrupt again....
So I watched this movie one time back in the day. Had Timothy Hutton and Judd Hirsch in it. Judd Hirsch played the therapist, if I recall correctly, and Timothy Hutton was his suicidal patient. Judd asked what Timothy was there for, or what he wanted to get out of their meetings, and Timothy said something about control. "Control is a tough nut," said Judd.
That was years and years ago, I was still a teenager or early 20-something when I watched that movie (Ordinary People) and I still remember that and quote it often.
As my husband added alcohol to his narcotic addiction, at first it jibed well with some life changes we had made. Where formerly we were not a household that routinely stocked alcohol, suddenly there was alcohol in abundance, and many social engagements where it flowed freely. I had sort of thought that, having noticed in years prior that a 12 pack of beer could easily sit in the fridge for weeks and not be touched, that alcohol was not an issue for my husband.
That turned out to be wrong. Soooo wrong. I am not much of a drinker, and by that I actually mean I pretty much don't drink at all most of the time. So I did not notice that the alcohol we had in stock at the house was slowly getting drained. This went on for some time. Then my husband experienced the death of both of his parents, the first under some truly traumatic and wrenching family circumstances where his stepfather's daughter put her hands on me and left a bruise. I did not strike back but it was a close thing. My people are warriors and I can access that part of me without much trouble, although I've not been in a physical fight since 7th grade, and pretty much that was the only time. It is fair to say I have scary eyes when I go there, I guess, and that keeps me out of trouble. Anyway, boom, not that time, but we managed to extricate ourselves from the situation. However, his dad (it was a stepdad but they both considered each other father/son) died a few weeks later and my husband never got the chance to say goodbye. Then his mom followed almost exactly a year later. Following this was both a speeding up of the alcohol and a tapering down of the narcotics, which my husband was prescribed for chronic (supppper chronic apparently) pain. At first he resisted the narcotic tapering but then he embraced it, and to his credit, he was able to wean way down, from a higher-dose fentanyl patch plus 120 mg of oxycodone per day down to 10-20 mg of oxycodone per day. I long ago made it a marriage deal breaker that I controlled (hey! there's that word again) the narcotics because I do not believe anyone on them long-term is able to manage them without help, just the nature of the beast.
Anyway, so guess what increased while the narcotics decreased? Yup. Alcohol. It started getting really noticeable and he was often drunk at family gatherings, which was new. He is quite a happy drunk, but still. It was getting pretty embarrassing. I really did not fully understand what was happening for a decent amount of time. My daughter did see it, though, and by Christmas she was disgusted with him and had a talk with him. We also (the family) took all the alcohol out of the house and I told him I was giving it away. He and I also had a talk and I asked him if he needed help with the drinking/narcotic tapering. He assured me he had it under control.
What happened next happened over the space of 9 months or so. He went underground and started buying alcohol secretly and drinking it in his stupid shed in the back yard. At one point 3 or 4 weeks ago now I told him I knew there was something going on in that shed and I would find out but I took no steps to do so.
Things progressed and progressed until a few weeks ago. It was my birthday. My daughter very sweetly bought everybody a dinner from an expensive-for-her restaurant and brought it to the house. We told him it was there and he stayed outside the whole time. This has been a worsening, constant theme for at least 6 or 8 months. He missed the whole dinner. Then some other stuff happened and then a few days later on our anniversary I woke up and knew to check his pants. I never check his pants. It's just not a thing I do. What do my fingers go right to but 4 lorazepam in sort of connected packaging, like condoms. Expired in 2015. That was pretty much the last straw. I had already decided he was not going to have access to the car because I suspected he was driving impaired by this point and actually caught him once, a few weeks ago, and it's my car. So no. It's bad enough we could be liable for $$$ in an accident but worse that he could kill somebody and I just cannot live with that since I know now, and it's my car, so away came the keys and I was pretty mad.
He claims that he found the lorazepam while cleaning my dead mother's former bedroom for guests a few weeks back. I actually do believe him that they were part of my mother's hospice meds but I think he got into the safe where I formerly kept his meds and found them finally. I am pretty sure the expiration dates correlate and that there was something like that still in the safe left over from her death. He has been in the safe before to get into his meds but the last time I caught him doing it, I just kept them out of the safe and was like (to myself) have at it, dude, forgetting that they were sort of buried under stuff. But whatever, it doesn't even matter whether it's true or not anyway, or what happened etc.
So he told me a little after that that he needs help and I asked him if he wanted me to find out what could be done. Fast forward about 6 hours and I had a plane ticket booked in his name to a woo woo treatment center across the country that came up when I googled for a "dual diagnosis" treatment facility that accepted our insurance. I find it pretty irritating that he is staying in an executive treatment program in the lap of luxury but honestly I think it's exactly the right sort of place for him and it's covered by the insurance...and the people had just the right response and a lot of "no nonsense" attitude that I also liked.
So he's there for detox at the moment and then goes to some other place (location/house, not rehab, it's all the same treatment people/company) for 60 days of treatment or so. It feels very much like getting the boutique/celebrity treatment with lots of personal attention etc., and I can't imagine he could be in better hands. I did vet the whole thing and am comfortable with this place for him. What was interesting was that when I was telling his confused addlepated self about it, he already knew some of the therapeutic methods employed and even the names of some ritzier rehabs than this place, so I think he had been looking into this on his own at least a little, in his messed-up-in-the-head way. I do think he really was trying. He said he has been thinking he needed help for 8-9 months now but was too scared.
So off he went into whatever it is he faces. Here I stay with one peaceful house and I think (hope) we are both getting what we need. They sent me a book, which I read yesterday. They also sent a DVD but I will have to go to extra machinations to deal with that so I haven't watched it.
There has been no contact for about a week now other than some housekeeping-type phone calls with my main contact guy, who is quite good. He tells me I can look forward to contact with the therapist soon as well as a phone call from my husband in a few weeks, or maybe a week (he probably told me but it kind of merged together). I basically have given all that up to them to deal with. At times it feels like a chore to do the things they ask of me, but that's not a lot different than some of the experiences of the last few months, only they come from people who are trying to effect a positive outcome in a healthy way. It's nice to crawl out of the Alice Odyssey. I'm much more a Dr. Seuss person anyway.
So, I don't know what to expect other than bare bones stuff the treatment center people told me and what I have managed to learn from reading on the internet. I know enough to know that it's good that he came up with the idea to go to rehab (I was too mad to even think about that) and that he was more honest in the few days before he left than he has been in a while. I am learning enough to know that this is going to be a long, long haul.
The very best thing I have learned so far is that taking care of myself is my new job and that's kind of awesome. Weird. But awesome!
So my husband has been tanking for a while. I actually have spent a decent amount of time deciding which forum to post in. Do I post in the friends and family of drug abusers, do I post in friends and family of alcoholics? It's a smorgasbord of choices for me this fine day.
I've been married for a long time. Decades. Long enough that the children are grown, college graduates, and off doing their things, successfully and hopefully healthily, not that they are not affected by all of this.
But underneath it all this has been lurking, likely off and on the whole time. Many times much more off than on. But always lurking. My husband has always been free and easy with the "Alice in Wonderland Drink Me" phenomenon. A pill? Let's try it! Even if it doesn't belong to you? Well, sure, that's more fun anyway. The great experimenter. Me? Not a chance. I have to read the tissue-thin folded-eight-ways drug warnings that come with every pill these days. Raise your hand if you know what causes me to do that. OK, now put that hand back down; you're distracting me
. I will let you know when you may interrupt again....So I watched this movie one time back in the day. Had Timothy Hutton and Judd Hirsch in it. Judd Hirsch played the therapist, if I recall correctly, and Timothy Hutton was his suicidal patient. Judd asked what Timothy was there for, or what he wanted to get out of their meetings, and Timothy said something about control. "Control is a tough nut," said Judd.
That was years and years ago, I was still a teenager or early 20-something when I watched that movie (Ordinary People) and I still remember that and quote it often.
As my husband added alcohol to his narcotic addiction, at first it jibed well with some life changes we had made. Where formerly we were not a household that routinely stocked alcohol, suddenly there was alcohol in abundance, and many social engagements where it flowed freely. I had sort of thought that, having noticed in years prior that a 12 pack of beer could easily sit in the fridge for weeks and not be touched, that alcohol was not an issue for my husband.
That turned out to be wrong. Soooo wrong. I am not much of a drinker, and by that I actually mean I pretty much don't drink at all most of the time. So I did not notice that the alcohol we had in stock at the house was slowly getting drained. This went on for some time. Then my husband experienced the death of both of his parents, the first under some truly traumatic and wrenching family circumstances where his stepfather's daughter put her hands on me and left a bruise. I did not strike back but it was a close thing. My people are warriors and I can access that part of me without much trouble, although I've not been in a physical fight since 7th grade, and pretty much that was the only time. It is fair to say I have scary eyes when I go there, I guess, and that keeps me out of trouble. Anyway, boom, not that time, but we managed to extricate ourselves from the situation. However, his dad (it was a stepdad but they both considered each other father/son) died a few weeks later and my husband never got the chance to say goodbye. Then his mom followed almost exactly a year later. Following this was both a speeding up of the alcohol and a tapering down of the narcotics, which my husband was prescribed for chronic (supppper chronic apparently) pain. At first he resisted the narcotic tapering but then he embraced it, and to his credit, he was able to wean way down, from a higher-dose fentanyl patch plus 120 mg of oxycodone per day down to 10-20 mg of oxycodone per day. I long ago made it a marriage deal breaker that I controlled (hey! there's that word again) the narcotics because I do not believe anyone on them long-term is able to manage them without help, just the nature of the beast.
Anyway, so guess what increased while the narcotics decreased? Yup. Alcohol. It started getting really noticeable and he was often drunk at family gatherings, which was new. He is quite a happy drunk, but still. It was getting pretty embarrassing. I really did not fully understand what was happening for a decent amount of time. My daughter did see it, though, and by Christmas she was disgusted with him and had a talk with him. We also (the family) took all the alcohol out of the house and I told him I was giving it away. He and I also had a talk and I asked him if he needed help with the drinking/narcotic tapering. He assured me he had it under control.
What happened next happened over the space of 9 months or so. He went underground and started buying alcohol secretly and drinking it in his stupid shed in the back yard. At one point 3 or 4 weeks ago now I told him I knew there was something going on in that shed and I would find out but I took no steps to do so.
Things progressed and progressed until a few weeks ago. It was my birthday. My daughter very sweetly bought everybody a dinner from an expensive-for-her restaurant and brought it to the house. We told him it was there and he stayed outside the whole time. This has been a worsening, constant theme for at least 6 or 8 months. He missed the whole dinner. Then some other stuff happened and then a few days later on our anniversary I woke up and knew to check his pants. I never check his pants. It's just not a thing I do. What do my fingers go right to but 4 lorazepam in sort of connected packaging, like condoms. Expired in 2015. That was pretty much the last straw. I had already decided he was not going to have access to the car because I suspected he was driving impaired by this point and actually caught him once, a few weeks ago, and it's my car. So no. It's bad enough we could be liable for $$$ in an accident but worse that he could kill somebody and I just cannot live with that since I know now, and it's my car, so away came the keys and I was pretty mad.
He claims that he found the lorazepam while cleaning my dead mother's former bedroom for guests a few weeks back. I actually do believe him that they were part of my mother's hospice meds but I think he got into the safe where I formerly kept his meds and found them finally. I am pretty sure the expiration dates correlate and that there was something like that still in the safe left over from her death. He has been in the safe before to get into his meds but the last time I caught him doing it, I just kept them out of the safe and was like (to myself) have at it, dude, forgetting that they were sort of buried under stuff. But whatever, it doesn't even matter whether it's true or not anyway, or what happened etc.
So he told me a little after that that he needs help and I asked him if he wanted me to find out what could be done. Fast forward about 6 hours and I had a plane ticket booked in his name to a woo woo treatment center across the country that came up when I googled for a "dual diagnosis" treatment facility that accepted our insurance. I find it pretty irritating that he is staying in an executive treatment program in the lap of luxury but honestly I think it's exactly the right sort of place for him and it's covered by the insurance...and the people had just the right response and a lot of "no nonsense" attitude that I also liked.
So he's there for detox at the moment and then goes to some other place (location/house, not rehab, it's all the same treatment people/company) for 60 days of treatment or so. It feels very much like getting the boutique/celebrity treatment with lots of personal attention etc., and I can't imagine he could be in better hands. I did vet the whole thing and am comfortable with this place for him. What was interesting was that when I was telling his confused addlepated self about it, he already knew some of the therapeutic methods employed and even the names of some ritzier rehabs than this place, so I think he had been looking into this on his own at least a little, in his messed-up-in-the-head way. I do think he really was trying. He said he has been thinking he needed help for 8-9 months now but was too scared.
So off he went into whatever it is he faces. Here I stay with one peaceful house and I think (hope) we are both getting what we need. They sent me a book, which I read yesterday. They also sent a DVD but I will have to go to extra machinations to deal with that so I haven't watched it.
There has been no contact for about a week now other than some housekeeping-type phone calls with my main contact guy, who is quite good. He tells me I can look forward to contact with the therapist soon as well as a phone call from my husband in a few weeks, or maybe a week (he probably told me but it kind of merged together). I basically have given all that up to them to deal with. At times it feels like a chore to do the things they ask of me, but that's not a lot different than some of the experiences of the last few months, only they come from people who are trying to effect a positive outcome in a healthy way. It's nice to crawl out of the Alice Odyssey. I'm much more a Dr. Seuss person anyway.
So, I don't know what to expect other than bare bones stuff the treatment center people told me and what I have managed to learn from reading on the internet. I know enough to know that it's good that he came up with the idea to go to rehab (I was too mad to even think about that) and that he was more honest in the few days before he left than he has been in a while. I am learning enough to know that this is going to be a long, long haul.
The very best thing I have learned so far is that taking care of myself is my new job and that's kind of awesome. Weird. But awesome!
Community Greeter
Join Date: Aug 2011
Posts: 16,246
Dear Peach, (NotA)..........
You have got brains in your head
and feet in your shoes
And, you can direct them
any way that you choose...
by Dr. Seuss
I am giving you this link to our library of excellent educational articles from our library (contained in the stickies)...
https://www.soberrecovery.com/forums...c-reading.html (Classic Reading)
You have got brains in your head
and feet in your shoes
And, you can direct them
any way that you choose...
by Dr. Seuss
I am giving you this link to our library of excellent educational articles from our library (contained in the stickies)...
https://www.soberrecovery.com/forums...c-reading.html (Classic Reading)
Member
Join Date: Jul 2016
Location: Wareham, Mass
Posts: 7,067
H, Notapeach.
Welcome.
Enjoy the quiet and lack of drama.
You're right. It will be a long haul.
Sounds from your thoughtful post that you are really working on finding a way forward, with or without him.
Good luck and good thoughts.
.
Welcome.
Enjoy the quiet and lack of drama.
You're right. It will be a long haul.
Sounds from your thoughtful post that you are really working on finding a way forward, with or without him.
Good luck and good thoughts.
.
Member
Thread Starter
Join Date: Oct 2017
Posts: 60
Thank you for the links and for the kind words. I went through a few of them and then was full up. Right around now is my anxiety time of day, which at least I have identified. I actually didn't know I had one, and maybe I didn't prior to last week.
While I was writing my post above, I got a phone call from my brother-in-law. My sister is in the hospital and has finally been diagnosed with the lung cancer I think we all knew she had. She also likely has pancreatic cancer. One of the two has metastasized, and I am quite sure she won't be doing anything. She is a few decades older than I am and I believe has known for a while. I can't decide if it wasn't as much of a blow because I knew it was likely coming or if it was not as much of a blow because of all of this stuff going on with me, or a combination of both. Or something else entirely.
Another sister, who is take-charge and all-about-it, will go see her today and let me know what is needed, and my daughter and I will go visit tomorrow. My (dying) sister is well aware of what is going on, may have even known about it for quite some time. If I had to guess, that would be my guess. I'm sure she will be going home with hospice as soon as possible.
I am sad about that, and worried about my brother-in-law, whom I have known as long as I have been alive, but it all feels a little blunted somehow. At any rate, nothing will be changed or saved or different by me being/not being there today. They are telling their two children today, one of whom lives here in town where all three of us sisters live, so I'm thinking a little time for their immediate family might be a good thing anyway.
I do suppose I feel a general overall despairing-type sadness trying to creep up from the numbness. I dunno. This is just not going to be my favorite year, all things considered.
While I was writing my post above, I got a phone call from my brother-in-law. My sister is in the hospital and has finally been diagnosed with the lung cancer I think we all knew she had. She also likely has pancreatic cancer. One of the two has metastasized, and I am quite sure she won't be doing anything. She is a few decades older than I am and I believe has known for a while. I can't decide if it wasn't as much of a blow because I knew it was likely coming or if it was not as much of a blow because of all of this stuff going on with me, or a combination of both. Or something else entirely.
Another sister, who is take-charge and all-about-it, will go see her today and let me know what is needed, and my daughter and I will go visit tomorrow. My (dying) sister is well aware of what is going on, may have even known about it for quite some time. If I had to guess, that would be my guess. I'm sure she will be going home with hospice as soon as possible.
I am sad about that, and worried about my brother-in-law, whom I have known as long as I have been alive, but it all feels a little blunted somehow. At any rate, nothing will be changed or saved or different by me being/not being there today. They are telling their two children today, one of whom lives here in town where all three of us sisters live, so I'm thinking a little time for their immediate family might be a good thing anyway.
I do suppose I feel a general overall despairing-type sadness trying to creep up from the numbness. I dunno. This is just not going to be my favorite year, all things considered.
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