What happened???????

So it's been a couple of weeks since I posted. Life just gets busy I guess. Actually I stopped posting for a little while because someone who likes to stick her nose where it doesn't belong sent me a pretty nasty email putting me down in a big way because of my addiction and my feelings about some things that have happened recently. Well I'll be honest. It got to me a little bit.... but only for a minute.... then I realized who it was that sent it and um, it didn't bother me so much anymore because this girl has more issues than uh, um I'll just leave it at that. She's completely delusional and I don't even know why she reads my blog to begin with but I'm not going to let anyone keep me from writing honestly or let anyone make me afraid to write my true feelings and/or struggles as well as the positive things going on in my life. Period. Moving on.......

I'm getting ready to go on a road trip. I personally LOVE road trips. I'll be traveling with Gracie this time and I'm really excited about that because we have a lot of fun together and we haven't taken a road trip by ourselves yet. So this is our first major one. I'm taking her "back home" with me to meet family and friends. I haven't had 2 weeks to spend back home in Michigan/Indiana in so long so I'm pretty psyched. I'll be going to my niece's high school graduation (wow they grow up so fast!), then to my grandparents' on the lake for a few days. My grandpa is in a nursing home now. This is hard for me to accept. My mom's parents were a huge part in how I turned out. They were my rock growing up. My grandmother gave me my first Bible and they just made sure that we were well grounded in the Christian Faith. So in a chaotic stormy house of turmoil, even though they lived three hours away, they were my rock. I can't wait to spend time with them. The thought of losing either one of them is beyond what I am even capable of comprehending at this point in time. Even though they live 16 hours away from me right now, I plan on spending as much time with them as possible over the next few years. I have to. The last thing I want is for time to get away from me and to regret not doing so.
Moving on..... Then I plan on driving 3 hours south to my hometown, Niles, MI/South Bend, IN. I literally lived on the border of Michigan and Indiana. Stateline Road. My side of the road was Michigan and the other side of the road was Indiana. My friends think this is pretty cool. During Daylight Savings Time, it would be 5:00 on my side of the road and 4:00 on the other side of the road. Crazy huh..... Actually, since I grew up with it and it was normal to me, I thought it was annoying because I lived in Michigan but went to school in Indiana and worked in Indiana. Anyway, I have quite a few family in that area and old school friends and such. I plan to see as many as possible but I will only be there for about 3 days cuz after that, I am going a little west to the Chicago area where my best friend from high school lives. She is much more than a friend though. She is more like a sister and her family is very much family to me. They have included me as part of their family for as long as I can remember. I don't even know where I'd be today if it were not for my friend/sister Heidi and her husband Todd. I can't even say that I'd be alive, honestly. Heidi has played the friend, sister, mother, mentor, guide, teacher, spiritual advisor, you name it. I am beyond excited to spend some time with her and her two girls for a few days. It's Katie's 5th birthday! We will be riding the train to downtown Chicago and seeing a show and maybe going to the Sears Tower. I totally can't wait. Then we will be heading back home to Virginia. The drive is about 18 hours altogether coming from Chicago. We will probably stop to take lots of pictures. I'm a picture fanatic. Anyway, that's my summer trip back home..... and it will be so fun to take with Gracie.

I need this trip. I need to get away. It's been a little rough lately. Where do I even start..... geeze.  Personally, my addiction has had its rough spots but that's pretty much it. Spots. I have been doing amazingly well with it. It's been hard as hell but I've been doing it. I've been only taking medication when I reach an honest to God red level 7-10. Lately that's been averaging out to 1-3 times a day. Seeing that on the screen makes me rethink... am I really doing that well? But compared to what I was doing before, I am. I was taking twice as many before. But the past 3 days, I've gotten even better even though my pain has been beyond rebellious on me. I have committed to not taking any pain meds for anything less than a true red 10. So once a day for three days pretty much. I'm anticipating that as I take this trip for the next two weeks, it will make my fight easier to fight. For reasons I can't put into words, really. I am completely committed to only taking pain meds when I reach an honest red 10. And even then, I will try several other methods first. I will not jump straight to the narcs. The other night I tried that for a migraine and although it didn't kill the migraine, it relaxed me enough to where I could just go to sleep for the night and it was gone when I woke up, so kudos to me. So all that to say I'm fighting and I'm fighting hard. It's slow slow slow progress, but the key is that there is progress and it's actually more progress than I'm probably seeing because I tend to be pretty hard on myself. I would like to see myself going several days between taking doses but that is actually coming up here soon. I went a day and a half this week, so I'll slowly begin to stretch that out as time goes by.

Well I began by saying that it's been pretty rough lately. Here's where I don't even know where to start. The truth is that my husband, too, is addicted to painkillers. I think I've mentioned that he takes them occasionally in another post. When I married him and for the 2 years before that, I felt like he was the perfect man. Of course he had his weaknesses and he wasn't literally perfect, but he was the perfect one for ME. Since he began to have a problem with these pills (even after SEEING what it does to ME and how it has hurt ME..... why would you even get close to going down this kind of road....ugh) I haven't wanted to throw him under the bus in any way. I haven't wanted anyone to know that he has this problem because I want him to always have the reputation of being the perfect husband for me. But I can't pretend anymore. Yes, we have problems now and things are not the best right now. Now he does have a legitimate injury and a very bad foot that causes him pain and he has a physical job (he's a mechanic) so that doesn't help. However, he used to get along just fine without using them on a daily basis so I'm not sure what changed. I remember 2 Christmases ago (around that time of year I mean) that he was hurting pretty badly and I offered him a pain pill. He was hesitant to take it as he didn't want to begin to have a problem with them. I understood but I didn't think taking it one time would cause a problem. So he took it and it made him feel better. I offered him a pain pill a couple times after that I remember. I don't remember when or how it happened but he began taking them more often and actually asking for them himself. I began to get worried that he was taking too much of them and confronted him. He said he'd be more careful. I trusted that. Then beginning in October when we went to Disney World, he began taking pills daily. He was going to pain management himself at this point in time. Part of that was to help me and part of it was for himself and it only enabled him to take the pills on a daily basis. I really confronted him about it at this point and all of the addiction signs began to show their faces by this time. I told him so. All I got was complete defensiveness. He did NOT see that he was addicted at all at this time. I told him he'd see it in time. When he could not go a single day without a pill w/o feeling the effects of withdrawal. So one day he wasn't feeling well and I asked him what was wrong and he finally said it. "I hate to say it, but I think it's withdrawals." "I don't want to say it, but I TOLD you so!" Yea, I had to say it. I told him "You think I don't know an addict when I see one? You're looking at the expert of pill addiction you know." Screw book knowledge. I know this crap firsthand. Addicts can NOT fool another addict. Well now he knows. Or does he? Because he still tries to.

So this is where we stand currently. A few nights ago we had a little "family intervention." It was pretty intense to say the least. All I want is for him to fight his addiction at least as hard as I'm fighting mine. And fight it WITH me! I feel like I could be quite a bit further in my own recovery if I had him on my side. But he is just not ready apparently. Even after the "intervention" I doubt his readiness. His willingness. His sincerity. His promises. Everything. I just doubt it anymore and it will take some time for him to prove himself, if he will even desire to at this point. His addiction has affected our relationship in so many ways. My trust is gone. I feel disconnected from him. I do understand pain. Of all people, I understand it. But when the pills begin to take control of your life to the point where you treat people like crap and you act so cold to the very ones that you say you love with all your heart, something is wrong. Very wrong. We have had very lengthy conversations about all of this and it all seems to go in one ear and out the other. I don't feel heard. My heart is broken into a million pieces right now. This is my third marriage and I am going to make this work if it's the last thing I do on earth. I quit too soon on my last marriage and I will NOT do so on this one. However, it is killing me inside. I cry myself to sleep a lot lately. I dissociate way more than I ever used to. I just want to crawl up into a ball and hide from the world. All I ever wanted was a partnership so wonderful that anyone walking by would be jealous of what I had. Instead of my being jealous of others all the time, I wanted what "they" had so I didn't have to be the jealous one for once. And for several months, that's exactly what I had. My marriage was beyond any standards I had ever set for myself in a marriage. It was greater than anything I could have ever imagined. And now with Gracie as part of the family, I couldn't be happier. Well, yes.... I could be..... not for Gracie though, as she has added so much to my life, it's unreal..... but I could be happier for my marriage. I'm scared as to what it will turn into. Will I ever give up on it? Not a chance. But for now, my heart is broken by him. The other night our "intervention" seemed to do some good for him... for all of us. He promised not to take another pill ever again. Pinky promised even. Pinky promises are unbreakable you know. And he knows that. Now, if he were going to get another prescription for pain pills, he is due on Wednesday. We will be gone on our trip. I was a little worried that temptation would get the best of him. Addiction has its way of manipulating and deceiving to no end. I worried that it would. I mean, he made this promise and I even gave him opportunity to back out that night because if he were going to commit to this promise, it was to be unbreakable. He committed to it. So tonight, I asked him. I said "I'm worried that you might go get that Rx while we are gone. You're not going to right?" Of course, it was what I expected. He couldn't tell me that he wasn't going to take any pills. As I began to cry at the heartbreak of him choosing AHEAD OF TIME to break his pinky promise, he walked away from me so quickly and so coldly. He was on his way out the door and he made a fast escape. I sat at the top of the stairs in tears, in such pain and anger at the addiction. He TOLD me that he would do what I wanted him to do to begin to recover from the addiction. So I've been thinking of things that we can do together or things just for him personally that might help him think differently about things. I really had hoped that it would work. And it could. If he would commit to it like he said he would. This is not the man I married. And I want him back. It's like I'm grieving. I am actually. Totally. I have lost the man I married and I'll be damned if he stays lost. But for now, he chooses to be. And that fricken hurts like hell.  Dang I want him back. The man I married didn't snap at the drop of a hat. The man I married didn't make empty promises. The man I married made me feel like the most important thing on earth to him. I feel like I've been passed up by a pill. A fricken pill. Believe you me. I understand what addiction can do to a person. But I'm choosing to move past it. I'm working harder than I've ever worked in my life on anything. And it IS hard work. But I'm choosing to do it and I only wish and pray that he would make the same choice. It hurts so bad that I can't trust him anymore. His promises, his words mean NOTHING to me anymore. The pain I'm in right now is unreal. How long will it take to get all of this back? I've lost so dang much. This marriage and family is the most important thing to me on earth anymore. This is my life. And I love it. I WANT IT BACK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! *I'm melting down in tears and I only wish he cared*
Oh yea, and I feel like it's all my fault that we are even dealing with this. I am the stupid one who offered him a pill when he was in pain a couple of times. What was I thinking??  Yep, this is all my fault....