Justice
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Join Date: Jul 2012
Posts: 12
Justice
When I first met my husband, I was shocked by his behavior and lack of love for himself. I really despised him and looked down at him. He was my roommate and I remember coming home from a night out with friends to find him unconscious in the living room. There I'd be kneeling next to the couch checking his pulse and holding my finger under his nose to make sure he was still breathing. I finally kicked him out because as I told him, I didn't want to come home from work to find him dead in my living room and have to explain it to the cops.
Then several months later, in my stuff, I found a poem he had written. Not some sappy lovelorn poem but one that laid out our tense terse relationship and how we were like birds who migrate back to each other after living through our own personal experiences. I went and found him and stood throwing an empty juice bottle against the window of the drug dealers house. I was an angry Jewish girl from NY back then so I busted in there and said if he didn't come with me, I was going to call the cops and bust the whole place . He was literally green, he had done so much drugs. He didn't come and instead downed several bottles of horse tranquilizer and ended up in the ER. After he got out, he came with me and he went into several rehabs and psych wards. The truth underneath the drugs came out full swing but the more he was surrounded by professional help and people who supported his recovery, the more agitated he became. I let go at that point. He went home.
I went on with my life. Mellowed out, loved myself, recovered, let go and stopped being a codependent. 2 years later, he wrote to me about how he wanted to change and knowing he deserved a better life but that he knew he had to do it for himself. And he did... he went to rehab, he was able to get a stay on a warrant. If he didn't go through with the recovery, he'd be back in prison. We got married... but it was all down hill after that. Pills, creepy people, not coming home for days, begging for money to get crack from the bus stop, not getting out of bed, anger, etc. I had forgotten how exhausting it all was, but not once did I give up my life. I kept going to work, hanging out with friends, living my life. But that anger was still in me -- that this wasn't fair, that he had come this far and just collapsed. I was running for justice again. So I let him drag out his demise -- helping him get into therapy, helping him get into a rehabilitation program, NA meetings, driving him to and from work every day before and after I drove myself to and from work, but each effort blew up in my face. He walked out of therapy, didn't want to go back to rehabilitation, gave up on NA but kept hanging out with the enablers he met there, and stopped contributing to the bills so driving him was useless.
It wasn't fair, but I learned the hard way that there was no justice here I could exact, that I could make happen. Like Winnie the Pooh, his dark cloud followed him wherever he went. I tried to read him the poem and letter he wrote and he became angry, saying he didn't want to hear them. Those were for me. In the letter he wrote me on our wedding day, he said I made him feel free and alive and my Aunt told me after I had him extradited back to his home state, that she felt he was jealous of my happiness, zest for life and the fact that I was so together. She was probably right. I get better in life every day and he goes nowhere.
I saw someone who had been profoundly abused as a child, beaten down, his parents called him stupid over and over again right in front of me and like everyone else, the lawyers, the parole officers, tried to give him a chance at life, but in the end, he didn't want it. When my daughter grows up, I'll let her read her fathers letters because that was who he really was. I took him to the Red Cross who pulled his rotting teeth for free and they found cancer in his mouth. I looked up all kinds of treatment and insurance, and the Red Cross offered to do it for free but he refused. So chances are, he's going to die and it will be very very painful.
When she asks me why Daddy couldn't be the letters, that's when it will be really real. He wouldn't love himself, he wouldn't get help, and he was very very sick. And that there is nothing you can do to make someone want to live and be happy and be healthy. The only justice is out there is for you, to have the power and will to make your life better.
Then several months later, in my stuff, I found a poem he had written. Not some sappy lovelorn poem but one that laid out our tense terse relationship and how we were like birds who migrate back to each other after living through our own personal experiences. I went and found him and stood throwing an empty juice bottle against the window of the drug dealers house. I was an angry Jewish girl from NY back then so I busted in there and said if he didn't come with me, I was going to call the cops and bust the whole place . He was literally green, he had done so much drugs. He didn't come and instead downed several bottles of horse tranquilizer and ended up in the ER. After he got out, he came with me and he went into several rehabs and psych wards. The truth underneath the drugs came out full swing but the more he was surrounded by professional help and people who supported his recovery, the more agitated he became. I let go at that point. He went home.
I went on with my life. Mellowed out, loved myself, recovered, let go and stopped being a codependent. 2 years later, he wrote to me about how he wanted to change and knowing he deserved a better life but that he knew he had to do it for himself. And he did... he went to rehab, he was able to get a stay on a warrant. If he didn't go through with the recovery, he'd be back in prison. We got married... but it was all down hill after that. Pills, creepy people, not coming home for days, begging for money to get crack from the bus stop, not getting out of bed, anger, etc. I had forgotten how exhausting it all was, but not once did I give up my life. I kept going to work, hanging out with friends, living my life. But that anger was still in me -- that this wasn't fair, that he had come this far and just collapsed. I was running for justice again. So I let him drag out his demise -- helping him get into therapy, helping him get into a rehabilitation program, NA meetings, driving him to and from work every day before and after I drove myself to and from work, but each effort blew up in my face. He walked out of therapy, didn't want to go back to rehabilitation, gave up on NA but kept hanging out with the enablers he met there, and stopped contributing to the bills so driving him was useless.
It wasn't fair, but I learned the hard way that there was no justice here I could exact, that I could make happen. Like Winnie the Pooh, his dark cloud followed him wherever he went. I tried to read him the poem and letter he wrote and he became angry, saying he didn't want to hear them. Those were for me. In the letter he wrote me on our wedding day, he said I made him feel free and alive and my Aunt told me after I had him extradited back to his home state, that she felt he was jealous of my happiness, zest for life and the fact that I was so together. She was probably right. I get better in life every day and he goes nowhere.
I saw someone who had been profoundly abused as a child, beaten down, his parents called him stupid over and over again right in front of me and like everyone else, the lawyers, the parole officers, tried to give him a chance at life, but in the end, he didn't want it. When my daughter grows up, I'll let her read her fathers letters because that was who he really was. I took him to the Red Cross who pulled his rotting teeth for free and they found cancer in his mouth. I looked up all kinds of treatment and insurance, and the Red Cross offered to do it for free but he refused. So chances are, he's going to die and it will be very very painful.
When she asks me why Daddy couldn't be the letters, that's when it will be really real. He wouldn't love himself, he wouldn't get help, and he was very very sick. And that there is nothing you can do to make someone want to live and be happy and be healthy. The only justice is out there is for you, to have the power and will to make your life better.
Member
Join Date: Sep 2012
Posts: 93
Your post is great. It is so horrible and sad that not everyone wants a better life. The hard part is having someone you love, not love themselves. I guess no matter how fond we were of them (outside of their active addiction), it really does not make a difference. THIS LEESON IS A VERY HARD ONE TO FULLY ACCEPT! Love indeed needs to come from within. The saying about how one can not love another until they love themselves is so true and especially when it comes to loving addicts. The only thing that can make a difference in our lives is to love ourselves.
Member
Join Date: Nov 2007
Posts: 1,294
Originally Posted by standstrongup12 
...there is nothing you can do to make someone want to live and be happy and be healthy. The only justice is out there is for you, to have the power and will to make your life better.
But, on the other hand...
...there is nearly infinite good one can do, for a child, to remove them from the daily influence of the chaos and abandonment - the damage - of addiction, to provide them loving comfort, stability, an environment where they grow to respect themselves and expect good things for themselves, if they put in effort.
Perhaps this is some sort of justice, in this scenario...
CLMI
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