I've been avoiding including many of the details of my amazing life as a junky's wife here lately for a few reasons...partly because I'm trying to be more aware of anonymity. I've been bad at anonymity, and as I progress through the program, I want to work it right. That twelfth tradition matters as much as the rest of it, so it's important not to compromise myself. I've also been avoiding too many details because the details are really rather ugly. There are beautiful transformations happening in my life, but they are happening to me, alone. They aren't happening to my husband, not yet. They aren't happening to my marriage.But I need to talk about this stuff, and it's probably too early to start making program calls, so I'm going to tell the internet my business like I used to. Welcome to my house!
He has been detoxing and struggling to get his methadone dose to catch up with his detox. The clinic will only raise his dose 5 milligrams every 5 days, so it's been a pretty slow process. He's gradually gotten better, but as he's gotten better, he caught a really nasty flu that's been going around. It's not been clear to him what he's feeling bad from...detox or flu or what. For the last several days, he's not been able to keep any food or drink down. On Saturday, he fainted...fell all the way down. I heard a big noise in the bedroom, and I went to find him lying on the floor looking as if he didn't know where he was. I've tried and tried to convince him to go to the emergency room, but I think he's afraid I'll have him committed or the doctors will commit him once they fully understand what kind of a state he's gotten himself into.
He'd borrowed money from a relative for the methadone clinic, and then I broke one of my cardinal rules (THOU SHALT NOT PROVIDE MONEY FOR THY JUNKY HUSBAND) and bought him a week of methadone. It was interesting the way I justified paying for it...he's really trying, right? At least he's not using, right? You've got three jobs now, so you can afford it, right?
But now, the money's all run out. His relative who loaned the money the last time said that she'd be glad to loan it again if we needed it, so I told him today that he should call her and ask about borrowing money. He freaked out.
You see, the last interaction he had with her was a big barrelfull of lies to get some money so he could use. He'd been working for her for a few months, and she had come to trust him (against the warning of other relatives and her own better judgment), so she bought into his fairy tales about this imaginary car he was going to get, the imaginary insurance he needed to put on the car, the imaginary title and tag he needed money for...she bought into all of it, the part about how he needed the car to be able to work for her, to keep me from having to cart him all over town. She handed money over by the fistfuls, and helped my husband to build up a great big, unmanageable habit.
So he is ashamed. He's afraid to talk to her and embarassed to ask for money to help him now. You might ask, as I did this morning, why he is afraid to ask her to help him with healthy things when he's not afraid to ask her to help him use...and if you asked this question in my husband's presence, you might get a can of Campbell's Chicken Noodle Soup hurtled at your feet at a high rate of speed. At 5:30 a.m.
Now, I don't like unpleasantness at any time of day, but I find it particularly offensive when I've not been awake for very long. I have a harder time processing his insanity when I'm still carrying around a head-full of sleep, so instead of walking away immediately, I engage the madman. I ask him, very calmly, not to throw anything else and to please stop screaming and explain what he's upset about.
Still screaming, he says, "YOU SHOULD CALL HER FOR ME."
Another of my big rules, my boundaries, and really Tenet Number One in the Nar-Anon program guiding the ways that you interact with your addict, is THOU SHALT NOT DO FOR THY ADDICT WHAT THY ADDICT CAN DO FOR HIMSELF.
So really, since my husband had made it clear that he's quite capable of talking, he should call his own relative and ask for money. I am not related to this woman, and I don't need money for methadone...so it's not properly my business to call her. Being an adult who is self-sufficient, I don't like asking people to borrow money. I've had to humble myself quite a bit and be willing to accept help from people and to ask for help where appropriate over the last year that I've been living with this madness; however, I still hate it. And he can do this for himself.
There, now. I feel better. Thanks for listening.
