White Chip.

My husband went to a meeting tonight, and he picked up a white chip. I didn't cajole him or anything. He wanted to, by himself. He went to the meeting, and he told the truth about his decision to detox from methadone, how hard it's been, and sought the support of other addicts.

My sponsor often mentions this equation for success in our program: Low expectations and high gratitude. I am so, so grateful for the steps he's taking, and I'm grateful that it's all his own work, his own decisions. I'm proud of him.

Reservations.

"Relapse is never an accident. Relapse is a sign that we have a reservation in our program."

-Narcotics Anonymous, Basic Text, p. 76

My husband has a big box of reservations that he was storing in our kitchen. It's kind of the strangest thing I've ever seen. It made me embarrassed for him.

I was looking for a tea bag in my kitchen cupboard, and there was a strange box. I pulled it out and opened it. There were about 20 syringes in it, in various stages of disrepair. There were 4 lighters, none of which worked. There were little tiny pieces of wax paper, which I've come to identify as the packets heroin comes in...tons of those. Old paper towels. The plastic that syringes come in. Some fucking spoons.

I go to him with the box. I am rather, strangely, unperturbed. "What is this about?"

"What?" as if he's never seen the box before.

"This box, full of old syringes? Trash? It was in the kitchen?"

He was embarrassed. He said he'd leave. He said he can't get rid of it. He swore it's old. He said he'd take a drug test. He swore by the sex we'd had ("Do you think we'd fuck like that if I was using!?" And it's true, his penis is a veritable barometer to his sobriety.) that it wasn't possible for him to have been using.

We'd had such a good weekend...I don't know how to process all this. I don't know why it's there. I don't know why it's in the fucking KITCHEN CUPBOARD, for the love of god. I don't know what I want.

Watching.

I don't like watching him hurt. I want to fix it. Imagine that.

He's all over the place, mostly doing well, but occasionally being really consumed with guilt and shame and pain. It seems almost as if the bad moments are worse for him than they have been before. He's finally feeling like a person again, contributing to our livelihood, participating in the world...and it's hard to realize that he's missed a year of his life and hurt everyone he loves, everyone who loves him.

Last night was meeting night, and he fled the meeting in a hurry. I found him sitting on a bench by himself, looking upset. He used to like this meeting, but a few weeks ago, someone mentioned methadone, and the group largely trashed MMT as a valid tool for sobriety. He's afraid that folks know that he's on methadone maintenance because I've told the people in my meetings, and he's convinced that no one is talking to him anymore.

It might be true. I don't know if some of the people in my meetings might talk about their experiences with their spouses. I think, though, that he's likely paranoid and upset with himself for being dishonest. It might be better if he finds a meeting that isn't affiliated with my Nar-Anon.

It hurts me to see him hurting, though. It hurts to see him sitting alone and feeling rejected. It's hard watching him work through all the crap he's working through. I want to help him, and I can't. I want to take some of his pain off of him, feel it for him. I want it all to be easier for both of us.

Oh, Thank God.

It's meeting night tonight. I am so very, very much in need of a good meeting. I got charmed out of my last meeting by the garlic bread at G's family's dinner and the very sincere look in his eyes when he told me that he wished I'd stay and eat with his folks.

I know better than to skip my meeting, and really, he knows better than to talk me out of my meeting. Without a good dose of Nar-Anon, I end up stomping through our house with rage in my eyes like a zombie. I wake up in the mornings with my mind already agitated, cycling through all the things he's done wrong, worrying about all the things he will do wrong, fretting about how I'm going to find a satisfactory stopping place for this MADNESS.

He is in his second day at a job that seems to be going well. I hope this one sticks. I'm sweating it, though, as the schedule is going to mess up the meeting that we like to go to together, the one with Nar-Anon and NA in the same building. He'd started to develop some relationships with folks there, so now he'll have to find a new meeting and start fresh. It won't be as easy as it was to just go when I'm going. Even though I know it's been his thing and he's come to value the meetings for how they've been helping him, I also need the peace of mind I get from him having his own program to work. I guess I'll worry about it when the time comes to worry, and focus on keeping my side of the street clean in the mean time.

My side is getting a little weedy...

Make New Mistakes.

One of the speakers at yesterday's meeting, while talking about that particular habit of addicts of doing the same damn dumbass thing again and again and again, a habit my husband can demonstrate for anyone who has never seen an addict in action, as he does it on a dailyfuckingbasis, said:

Make New Mistakes.

He said when he first started coming to meetings, someone told him to make new mistakes, talk to people who seem strange and different, and explore everything that you don't know. If you're used to slick-talking, greasy motherfuckers, go sit next to the people who seem different, square, boring. Find everything new and different...because even if they fuck you up or fuck you over, at least it will be new. You'll be breaking that maddening cycle.

I thought it was very wise. I'm putting it in my list of wonderful things I've learned. I can't expect perfection, and I am going to make bad choices and fuck up, probably a lot. But at least I can have a new adventure with every fuckup!

600th Birthday, and Observing The Natives.

This is my 600th blog post. It took 600 blog posts to get my husband to go to a meeting. I wonder if it will take 600 more to get him to go again?

And here's more about that meeting, as it's been on my mind all night. I was just giggling to myself because I kind of feel like I went there with this stance of a stuffy tourist observing the wild, restless natives. Mostly, my impression of the meeting was positive...there were some people there who were really honest, strong, and earnest in wanting to help others. I liked all the talk about keeping the doors open to other people and how the newcomers are the most important people there. There was a lot of hugging. There was a good energy in the room.

But there was a part of me that wanted to say, "This is all wrong! Sit down! Be quiet! Turn off your phones! Good God don't pass the basket around this room! Junkies steal! Read louder! Don't talk out of turn!"

And there was this other detached, journalistic part of me that was already composing my post about it before I even left. I couldn't wait to get home and call Vowels and tell her all about it. I couldn't wait to get online and write about it. I kind of want to talk about it at my meeting--raise it as a burning issue:

"I've been spying! I went to THEIR meeting! It's an emergency! They do it wrong over there! We need to go fix their meetings and help them out! They're never going to get fixed if they keep talking out of turn like that!"

And then we could all march across the hall and show them how it's done.

Silly natives! Here's how you build a fire! Here's how you cook your meat! Here's how you pray and love and dress and live!

I also laughed at the thought of that wonderful cat in a wizard suit, and how I could fix them all if I'd just unveil the wonderful, glowing poonahnah of victory that I had hidden away under my MPJ-inspired hippy skirt. It looks something like this, but with a wizard hat:

Like Herding Cats.

So I can sit next to you, right?

Yes. There's no Nar-Anon.

Can I draw?

I don't care. You want me to go? You're sure it's better if I sit with you?

Yes.


So we went to our first NA meeting. It's not his first, as he's been to a few before, both state-mandated and wife-mandated. This was the first meeting, however, that wasn't "required." It was requested, again and again and again, and spoken of as my number one favorite wish in the whole world...but it was his thing.

We got to the church, and he disappeared into the bathroom, but that's ok, because I'm good at being at meetings now. People were sort of walking around and looking sheepish. I sort of walked around and looked sheepish.

I recognized a few folks from the NA meeting in conjunction with my Nar Anon meetings. That made me happy.

He came and sat down next to me. We were early, or course, because I was in charge of driving us there, and so he pulled his hat way down over his eyes and drew a dragon. I looked around at everyone and smiled, sheepishly. He had this piece of paper in a plastic cover in his hands. He handed it to me.

"I think it's time to start this meeting!" shouted the leader. She was a sort of butchy looking pretty woman with a pony tail and a man's shirt on. She was loud and boisterous and excited. People were coming in and going out and talking and phones were ringing and babies were crying and folks were flapping fans. It was hot. Folks started reading things off of pieces of paper in plastic covers. I realized that he'd handed me the twelve steps, and I'd be reading.

But that's ok, because I'm real good at reading, and I like the 12 steps. I read them passionately. I'd have to say that I was, by far, the best reader there. That's what a Master's Degree in poetry gets you...you can read the 12 steps with a certain verve and ardor in your intonation. Best $24,000 I ever spent.

So after the readings, some folks went off for "Just For Today" meditation. I don't know what that means. People were coming in and out, in and out. It was hard to hear. I was smiling because I was sitting next to him in a meeting. His knee kept pressing into mine. He was drawing and drawing that dragon. The rest of us stayed for an open discussion on the first three steps, and the topic the leader chose to focus on was step 2.

It was really good. About 10 people did all the talking, and everyone else sat, either head in hands in pain, nodding their heads knowingly, or absent-mindedly staring off. It had been hard to hear before, but during the part where people were sharing their experiences, it became very clear and vivid. Except, people were getting up and sitting down and pushing chairs around and coming in and out of the door...it made me think of herding cats. It also made me think of my own, orderly, responsible, nerdy meetings. It made me think that they needed us to come organize their meetings for them...make them all sit quietly and wait their turns to talk and talk when it's their turn and read nicely and do right. It made me laugh at myself for allowing myself to think it.

Crazy addicts. Crazy codependent.

Everyone who spoke focused on that "sanity" word.

"Came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity," is the text, for those of you not in the know. Most people talked about how when they aren't working to recover, aren't coming to meetings, aren't actively trying to get better, they are insane. They do and think and act insane. Two people referred to themselves as "Greasy-ass addicts." One of them even called himself, "a greasy-ass porkchop addict. A dope fiend."

It was fitting, as meetings always are, with the things going on in our lives. We've been talking a lot lately about doing the same thing again and again and expecting different results.

He'd stopped drawing by the time people were talking. The dragon lay in his lap, half-formed. He even looked up from underneath his hat a few times to look in the speakers' faces. He didn't go get any chips. Instead, he sat next to me and looked sheepish. I wanted to be mad, but then I realized that all I'd accomplish is that I'd be mad.

Overall, it was hope-filled and promising. We're going to go to an AA meeting next Tuesday evening...I'm going to sit next to him.

Maybe The Sun Will Shine Today.

So maybe all my recent quiet agonizing is going to be worth something?

I say "quiet" agonizing because, while I've been writing about it a lot, I haven't had much to say about it at home. I've found that we get along a lot better when I'm not reciting the litany of his offenses against me or recounting every single change in feelings I've had in my tropical rainforest of a brain. Sometimes, I think this approach is hurting me...I'm stuffing things that I need to get out. Other times, I think it's working. I gave up on the need to tell him all the ways he has hurt/was hurting me when I realized that he already knows, that he's already suffering and paying in his own way. I recognized that what I was doing was expressing a need to be heard by him, and once I recognized that he'd heard me and that he knew, it was ok for me to let it go.

But I'm still agonizing, still hurting.

Last night, I got home from a long day of avoiding home, and he'd cleaned the house, and he told me he wanted to talk. He said he wanted me to tell him everything.

Everything?

I want to know everything, every bit of what you've been holding back. I'm ready to change. I need to know all of it.

I couldn't muster up the anger to tell what he wanted...I think he wanted me to tear into him, to rip his ass a new one or whatever. I could have done it a month ago, but now I can't. Instead, I told him that I want him to go to meetings, more than anything...that I need to feel like there is someone or something outside of me that's interested in him getting better. That I want him to have a sponsor and a philosophy and a way of life that will help him grow and change and be the kind of man that he wants to be.

He said he would, that he knows he needs to. We've got a date for Saturday. That will be the first meeting, and he said no matter what that he'll go, no matter what kind of excuses he comes up with, what kind of mess he looks like, what kind of plans he can make instead, that he'll for sure, no matter what and no matter how much he doesn't want to, go to that meeting. He thinks he'd rather go to AA regularly than NA, so he asked me to help him find some AA meetings near the house.

I don't know if he was sensing my frustration and he's looking for a way to make me happier or if he's really feeling pushed to a wall of his own, but either way, I'm getting what I need.

I'd thought that if I just kept my own life and stuff and feeling safe from him, that it really wouldn't matter what he did...but it does matter what he does. I think that setting healthy boundaries and being reasonable with myself and my expectations has made it actually clearer for me, however, to see what I need from him...and I need him to do something active to help himself. I know I can't fix him, but I also can't bear to watch him slowly unravelling.

I have seen from my own growth with Nar-Anon that the whole 12 step business works, and I'm not even that deep in it yet. I hope that he's in a place where he can let it work for him, and I really believe that we can grow a lot together...working the steps together could be a way to start moving in the same direction...

NA Convention This Month.