LoveMeNow

Although, my husband is blocked on my iPhone, there have been some glitches....some by me and some with IOS 7 (per Apple). For example, I had him blocked, and without thinking, I deleted his contact from my phone, which unblocked him. Brilliant, lol!!

Anyway, I received a text this morning about what a great mother I have always been. I deleted it without a response and went on about my day. Then, I received another text about how he can't loose me, he needs help, he has the want, the need and the desire to change. Blah, blah, blah. DELETE!!!

It's the same old worn out story!! It didn't even phase me. He is the little boy who cried wolf one too many times. If he wants help, he doesn't need me and he knows where to get it. I am not his solution. It's all just a hook and he is waiting to see if I take the bait. I didn't and won't. If he truly wanted help, he wouldn't be sending me a text.

I remember the days that I prayed to hear those words. I remember the feeling of hope that would surge through my heart. How sad, today I just rolled my eyes and deleted it.

Then I got angry but didn't stay there long. All I could think was - your choices, your secrets, your actions, your lies, your abuse (because that is what active addiction is, IMO) devastated our lives and NOW you have the nerve to ask me for help, which isn't sincere anyway. It's just your own little self pity game that we have played too many times before and I am not playing it anymore.

I wouldn't think of being nasty to a friend and then asking them for help. And he was more then nasty. The insanity of what was my norm was is almost unbelievable. It's kind of like if a husband goes out, cheats on his wife, gets a STD, then comes to her and asks her to take him to the doctors. It's just that sick and twisted but it took 2 1/2 months for me to gain the clarity. When I was in it, I couldn't see it. I was too caught up in it. I wanted what I wanted and couldn't see it for what it was....manipulation, sick and twisted manipulation. He thinks he can continue to use my love as my weakness. I realize now how easy it is for an addict to use our love against us, use it to only hurt, exploit and devastate us. Now that's really sick. And even sicker?? So many of us let them. At least, I know I did.

I thank God today for clarity! I pray for all of our continued recoveries.

FeelingGreat

Hi LMN, what a clear sighted and inspiring post. Thanks.

Ann

Love is usually the weakness in all of us. It was for me with my son. What mother could sit back and let her son live on the street or under a bridge or worse...yes, there are worse. It took years for me to realize that, for him, the street was the road to recovery, he found it fastest when he had to live on the street. Each time I tried to help him, I delayed the process.

LMN, your husband has not found recovery when all your love surrounded him, nor when conditional love was there. Love cannot save our addicted loved ones, we KNOW that and yet that's the hook that always drags us back.

I reached a point in my life, when, like you, I just could not do one more day of it. I could not live one more day in the insanity of addiction and I did not have a single rescue left in my body to give. It was all I could do to rescue myself at that point.

Find your call blocker and lock him in. You will find peace a lot faster that way.

Hugs and Hugs

Vale

My takeaway from addiction is to leave rescues to
the pro's. They are trained,tested,and certified to do
it. If they go "cowboy",ignore their SOPs and operating
rules.......their quals are pulled, and they are put in
remediation. If the pattern continues---it is time for
the exploration of a more suitable line of work.

We are not qualified to rescue.We are too close
to the forest to see the trees.We lack the vital
element----the ability to disengage immediately when
premade decision points/conditions/lines are crossed.

LoveMeNow

So true Vale. It's amazing how big of egos we codies can have.

I am not interested in being a "team" with regards to someone else's addiction and or recovery. I have my own to deal with and that's no easy job by itself.

Personally, I find the whole "team" mentality to be rather degrading for either party.

Yogagurl

LOVE this!

I still have days like that. Days when my husband comes home and talks about how wonderful I am and how he just has to stop using; every time he uses it's the last time. And if he doesn't use cocaine, I might think for an instant I'm in the safe zone, because there might be hope he's off it - and then I wake up and realize every time he tells me he's not going to use anymore, he walks out the door DIRECTLY to use again.

I am so proud of how far you have come in recognizing the folly in his words and that the patterns have sunk in far enough so you don't give into his false promises. Everyone wakes up to the dysfunction in their own time. It must be so relieving to have that light switch go off.

LoveMeNow

Thank you Yogagirl. I still have struggles. It's not always easy to ignore the obvious. But the time and distance is what helped me with clarity. I couldn't do i while in it, obviously lol.

Also, an old acquaintance resurfaced in my life. She is a recovery crack addict of 9 yrs. She has really taught me so much about the tricks, the thought process, and the need to let go and let God. She played the same games and can pretty much predict his next move. It's been interesting to say the least.

Ann

Oh man, how I would love to have that kind of boundary. I can come close but I am always late on the "disengage" part.

I don't know what it is or why...but it seems that once we truly hit the "enough" point, it all makes sense, all that "stuff we have been hearing for years", it all becomes so clear. I still shake my head today wondering how I could have let myself get in that deep, that bad, to the point that I really wasn't sure how to get out, which way to go, lost in my codependency just like my son is lost in his addiction. The difference is, I grabbed the lifeline of recovery as if my life truly depended on it...because it did.

I don't know if anything would have brought me to that moment of clarity any sooner that it did. It's all such a blur now, but I cannot think of one moment during all those years when I was "almost" there. I sank until I hit bottom and only then could I begin to crawl back up again toward the light.

It's sad but interesting to look back from a safe place today and try to figure out how I ever let it get so bad. And the truth is, I don't know.

So glad to be free and living in the light today. Grateful for all who cheered me on and all who went before me and left wisdom as their legacy.

Sorry, LMN, you ought to know better than to hand out thinking caps to people like me.

Hugs

LoveMeNow

LOL

terryr97

You wrote my story, LMN. When my ex told me that my obsession over him was old and to let it go already, I had my moment of clarity. My "obsession" to me was love, to him it was guilt. So I gave up. I still have my moments but then I play the tape through: lies, manipulations, always waiting for the other shoe to drop, etc. and remember that I deserve so much more than what I got: insanity, chaos, and lies. We all deserve so much more. :-)

Vale

===============================================
One thing she'd always text me was......"Could we meet at ________, and
discuss our plan?"

(Which meant of course.....bring money)

.......and what's this OUR PLAN sh*t? I HAVE a life, firing on all cylinders just
fine---thank you! I don't NEED a plan .......your life is the one that has jumped
the rails, sister, not mine!

But the truth was, my life WAS blinking yellow. I was telling lies to
coverup expenditures and telling others I had broken contact with
the addict......I was too ashamed to tell my buddies I was still engaged
with this mess.

I did disengage, but it was not nearly as clean or as straightforward as
I had anticipated.