Help

The next day…

He came by to get some clothes early this morning. He left quickly the other night. I tried not to say anything, but of course, it had to turn emotional. He said he doesn’t know how to get help. He tried an online site, but it hasn’t helped enough. I don’t think that is enough right now.

He doesn’t trust any kind of therapy, thanks to a bad experience with some group counseling years ago. He wouldn’t go into a rehab even if we could afford it. I want to find someone he can talk to, to help him understand what he’s doing to himself and how to stop.

I could tell from looking at him I was right yesterday, that he had been using. He has screwed up his sinuses… and has barely gotten over a really bad cold at New Year’s. He looks terrible. I don’t know what happened to the man I married. I don’t know if he wants help or permission to just kill himself.

And where does that leave me? Alone with our teenage son, who has Crohn’s disease, who wants to drop out of high school and move to Canada, where he can get decent health care. (He has a point)…

Half of me wants to start packing right now. And the other half wants her old life back.

Loneliness

He left last night, and I couldn’t get to bed then either. I spent the night pacing, wondering if I had just sent him off to get high, which exactly why we have problems in the first place. When he is gone, I do not sleep.

I talked to him today. He sounded like he’d been using. His voice has a false cheerfulness when he’s on coke. I thought he might come by, but then I realized he probably didn’t want to see me, because he wasn’t straight.

All I asked him for is for is honesty. And I can’t even get that. He’s looked me at me with flying saucer eyes and lied through a fake smile more than I want to remember. More than I can take. That’s why he’s gone now.

I like to remember him the way he was before he starting using. There was trust then. I could believe him. I felt safe. I mattered more to him than scoring some dope. But this has been going on for six months now, since he came home from a year of working in Ohio. I don’t exactly know when it started. I don’t exactly know what I am up against, but I know it has a hold on my husband. It has changed him from the man I always thought was stronger, better and smarter than me. It has made him lie, steal and hide. He has become someone I barely know and do not understand.

He isn’t fighting it. And I am beginning to think I may have lost the battle too.