"Desperation is the raw material of drastic change. Only those who can leave everything behind they have ever believed in can hope to escape."-William S. Burroughs
Sometimes, especially now that I am a Zen Master Blackbelt Detachment Warrior Of The Order Of Nar-Anon, I feel like I'm watching a race when I watch my husband struggling with his recovery. Yesterday, recovery was leading relapse by a nose...who knows what we'll see today.
I watch him wanting to get better but battling such a well of despair, fear, depression, guilt. It sometimes seems like he doesn't think he deserves to have the wonderful life that is waiting for him on the other side of his sickness. Sometimes, I'm so afraid for him.
One thing I never understand about him, and about addicts in general, is the need constantly to be perched on the edge of some precipice. Instead of taking care of problems before they become too huge to be manageable, my husband pushes and pushes and pushes up against walls and deadlines and boundaries until there has to be conflict. He has waited 3 weeks, for instance, to begin the process of reconciling with his family member who employs him. At this point, he is very close to being unable to work, which will mean he won't have money for methadone. I understand that he hasn't felt well while his dose has been adjusting, but I don't understand why the promise of feeling so much worse when his methadone runs out hasn't been enough to get him out of his stagnancy and on the phone.
It's always like that with him...always, he creates situations where he is on the verge of a crisis...so much of what he faces is so perfectly within his purview of control. I can't understand not taking care of stuff before it spirals completely out of control.
Which is why I have to focus on me, not him. I have to reign myself in, often, before I let my thoughts get carried away in trying to understand his thoughts. If I'd married a schizophrenic, would I constantly try to understand why he wanted to wear a tin foil hat? Nope. So why am I constantly trying to understand my husband's addictive behavior? It's outside of reason, in the land of tin foil hats.
