Update
Member
Thread Starter
Join Date: Jan 2013
Location: New York
Posts: 877
Update
Hi Everyone,
I've been reading SR a few times a week but haven't posted in a long time. I've been spending practically all my free time processing life with a couple of girlfriends who are going through hard times. Essentially I just regurgitate everything I've learned on SR; they seem to find me very wise and "together", which kind of cracks me up. As you all know, I am far from it!
In November, my addict brother who was living with my mother had a week long psychotic episode which culminated in my parents taking him to the ER, and him being 5150'd. He was in a psych hospital for ten days detoxing from: adderal, methadone, nitrous, xanax, and marijuana. Now he's in a thirty day drug rehab and is apparently not doing very well as evidenced by the fact that he somehow manipulated the doctor who contracts out to the rehab to write him an adderal prescription.
Yes, this is a true story! The pharmacy called my dad last night to authorize payment for some antibiotics (for a UTI), and some adderal. My parents called someone at rehab today who told them they knew this was a risk, but were hoping by giving my brother a little bit of adderal they could get him "on their side". This is in spite of the psych hospital's doctor's warnings that continued use of adderal would likely lead to more psychotic episodes for him. I am still trying to wrap my head around all of this. It is shocking to me on so many levels.
Anyway, when the 5150 first occured, I went to my mom's house to help her look for some guns my brother owns (Psychosis+speed+firearms=not good.) I had not been to my mom's house in a couple of years because I didn't want to be around all of the disease, so I could not believe what I saw over there!! The basement of my mom's house was in absolute squalor with drugs and drug remains literally EVERYWHERE. There were multiple garbage cans FULL of empty nitrous canisters. There must have been in the hundreds of thousands of them, all payed for by my mother and my brother's XGF.
Seeing all of that and how my parents were dealing with it, was a huge blow; I never realized how extremely sick they both are. It was easy to see how sick my brother is but both of my parents are so normal on the outside. They are both respected medical professionals with tons of friends--no substance use at all from either one of them.
Unfortunately, I ended up screaming at both of them which was obviously a huge mistake. It was like a lifetime of resentment, pain, and anger, totally overwhelmed me and I literally lost my sh-t. I'm now speaking to them, and my mom is seeing my kids, but we don't discuss my brother--I get all my info about him from my step-mom. This plan seems to be the healthiest scenario for all of us.
Now for the part relevant to this particular forum: I broke NC and emailed my exabf! I guess I was in so much pain over my family that I fell off my own recovery wagon. My exabf wrote me back and told me how much he missed me, and how he thinks about me every day. He also said he thinks often about what would have happened had we met before I had kids.
At first I was thrilled with his email, but then I started realizing that he never said anything about his drinking, and was essentially still blaming the entire failure of our relationship on my unwillingness to have him around my kids. He is obviously NOT sober and quite happy to live with the fantasy that he and I were victims of circumstances, not his alcoholism.
For a few days I relived all the grief, and did the whole beating myself up thing. Then I refocused on working my program which has totally helped. I think I am back on track, if not a bit shakey. What I learned is to never take my recovery for granted, and to take it even more seriously when I am under stress.
I hope all of you are doing well. After the holiday frenzy calms down, I would like to get back to more posting. I'm getting my hair highlighted right now, sitting under the heat with all those foils in my hair. It's the first chance I've had to write. If this forum wasn't anonymous, I'd post a photo of myself because I look absurd. And life just feels kind of absurd right now.
Much Love!
DoS
Sent from my iPhone using SoberRecovery
I've been reading SR a few times a week but haven't posted in a long time. I've been spending practically all my free time processing life with a couple of girlfriends who are going through hard times. Essentially I just regurgitate everything I've learned on SR; they seem to find me very wise and "together", which kind of cracks me up. As you all know, I am far from it!
In November, my addict brother who was living with my mother had a week long psychotic episode which culminated in my parents taking him to the ER, and him being 5150'd. He was in a psych hospital for ten days detoxing from: adderal, methadone, nitrous, xanax, and marijuana. Now he's in a thirty day drug rehab and is apparently not doing very well as evidenced by the fact that he somehow manipulated the doctor who contracts out to the rehab to write him an adderal prescription.
Yes, this is a true story! The pharmacy called my dad last night to authorize payment for some antibiotics (for a UTI), and some adderal. My parents called someone at rehab today who told them they knew this was a risk, but were hoping by giving my brother a little bit of adderal they could get him "on their side". This is in spite of the psych hospital's doctor's warnings that continued use of adderal would likely lead to more psychotic episodes for him. I am still trying to wrap my head around all of this. It is shocking to me on so many levels.
Anyway, when the 5150 first occured, I went to my mom's house to help her look for some guns my brother owns (Psychosis+speed+firearms=not good.) I had not been to my mom's house in a couple of years because I didn't want to be around all of the disease, so I could not believe what I saw over there!! The basement of my mom's house was in absolute squalor with drugs and drug remains literally EVERYWHERE. There were multiple garbage cans FULL of empty nitrous canisters. There must have been in the hundreds of thousands of them, all payed for by my mother and my brother's XGF.
Seeing all of that and how my parents were dealing with it, was a huge blow; I never realized how extremely sick they both are. It was easy to see how sick my brother is but both of my parents are so normal on the outside. They are both respected medical professionals with tons of friends--no substance use at all from either one of them.
Unfortunately, I ended up screaming at both of them which was obviously a huge mistake. It was like a lifetime of resentment, pain, and anger, totally overwhelmed me and I literally lost my sh-t. I'm now speaking to them, and my mom is seeing my kids, but we don't discuss my brother--I get all my info about him from my step-mom. This plan seems to be the healthiest scenario for all of us.
Now for the part relevant to this particular forum: I broke NC and emailed my exabf! I guess I was in so much pain over my family that I fell off my own recovery wagon. My exabf wrote me back and told me how much he missed me, and how he thinks about me every day. He also said he thinks often about what would have happened had we met before I had kids.
At first I was thrilled with his email, but then I started realizing that he never said anything about his drinking, and was essentially still blaming the entire failure of our relationship on my unwillingness to have him around my kids. He is obviously NOT sober and quite happy to live with the fantasy that he and I were victims of circumstances, not his alcoholism.
For a few days I relived all the grief, and did the whole beating myself up thing. Then I refocused on working my program which has totally helped. I think I am back on track, if not a bit shakey. What I learned is to never take my recovery for granted, and to take it even more seriously when I am under stress.
I hope all of you are doing well. After the holiday frenzy calms down, I would like to get back to more posting. I'm getting my hair highlighted right now, sitting under the heat with all those foils in my hair. It's the first chance I've had to write. If this forum wasn't anonymous, I'd post a photo of myself because I look absurd. And life just feels kind of absurd right now.
Much Love!
DoS
Sent from my iPhone using SoberRecovery
Member
Join Date: Apr 2013
Location: Mmmmmm
Posts: 3,178
Thanks!
You are a good writer. Many thanks for your update. I cannot imagine finding all of those garbage bags and drug stuff in the basement. Lord I hope you located the guns! It sounds like staying away from this hotbed is a wise decision for you - a good boundary.
And look how quickly you righted your attitude and read between the lines with xabf rather than beat yourself up. That it probably an improvement from past behavior.
And look how quickly you righted your attitude and read between the lines with xabf rather than beat yourself up. That it probably an improvement from past behavior.
Member
Join Date: Jun 2012
Posts: 1,452
Even though you may not look it at the moment with all those foils sticking out of your head like you are trying to single-handedly radio contact aliens, you do have your head screwed on right!
You have clear and compassionate boundaries with your mom, and you know what is real and what is not. Congratulations on your on-going codie recovery. For me, I find that when I've been living and breathing in "normal" land for a while, a glimpse of the psychotic life of my family-of-origin quite takes my breath away and reminds me how far I have come from the craziness and how much I never want to go back there.
Take care,
ShootingStar1
'
You have clear and compassionate boundaries with your mom, and you know what is real and what is not. Congratulations on your on-going codie recovery. For me, I find that when I've been living and breathing in "normal" land for a while, a glimpse of the psychotic life of my family-of-origin quite takes my breath away and reminds me how far I have come from the craziness and how much I never want to go back there.
Take care,
ShootingStar1
'
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