I'm Sleeping With Myself Tonight.

I was chatting with MPJ earlier about Elton John, and now I'm trapped in an Elton John nexus in my head. I love this song:

It's four o'clock in the morning
Damn it listen to me good
I'm sleeping with myself tonight
Saved in time, thank God my music's still alive.

It's particularly appealing to me because I've found so much strength in sleeping alone. When I find myself responding too much to my husband's situation, I go sleep in a spare room.

I used to follow him around. If he couldn't sleep and got up to watch television, I'd go sleep on the couch next to him with my head in his lap. I hated to be away from him. I still hate to be away from him, but sometimes he's not there. Sometimes, it's better just to be with me, to sleep with myself.

It's the way it's phrased in the song that's so special. It's not sleeping alone; it's sleeping with myself. There's enough of me to keep myself content.

I slept with myself last night. I got home from a long, long day of working all my various jobs, and there were all kinds of things wrong. He didn't even acknowledge me when I came in, didn't get up off the couch to let me in the door. He'd been home all day, and he'd wrecked the house and neglected to take care of our pets. It made me furious, but it's ok. I took a long bath, and I took myself to the spare room, and I slept with myself. And I'm ok. I'll deal with the mess when it's time to.

Thanks, Elton John, for giving me words to say what I was thinking!

Soup Toss.

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.

The Ancient Tribal Junkies Of The Southeastern United States.

Several thousand years ago, a syringe-worshiping peoples inhabited this particular region. They had a rather simple civilization...most likely they robbed neighboring tribespeople and traded stolen goods for the small amount of food they desired and other necessities.

It just so happens that my husband and I have purchased a piece of real estate located precisely over the sacred syringe burial ground of these people, and our house appears to be infested with these ancient syringe artifacts. In fact, a syringe appeared in our bedroom just this morning. It appeared to have fallen out of a pocket of his pants; however, it seems that the logical explanation for how he syringe got on our floor was that, due to the particular molecular structure of this tribe's sacred syringes, it was absorbed from the earth through the floorboards of our home and emerged, fully formed, on our bedroom carpet.

My husband has no idea where this syringe might have come from, so it seems that the only logical explanation is that it is very, very old. Ancient. It was so old, in fact, that he had to demonstrate the needle's lack of a sharp edge, the crustiness of the brownish substance caking the sides, the plunger's lack of pliability. Sure, he used to dabble a bit with heroin and syringes and all that, but it's been, like, almost a MONTH since he last used, and the needle couldn't possibly have anything to do with him using. It couldn't possibly be his. Could I, possibly, have planted it there to trap him? (Yes, he suggested this.) Perhaps it belongs to someone else. (No one except for me and him has been in this house in over a month.) Maybe it's from when he relapsed (Note: relapsED. It's in the past. Don't put it in the present, or you might get a tantrum.) Maybe it's one he set aside, you know, for sentimental reasons. Maybe he was going to make a scrapbook or something.

This Is Just To Say.

Cuntface Damsel In Distress just reminded me of this goddamned poem by William Carlos Williams, who apparently has lots of opinions about my marriage this week.

(Dear Dr. Williams, if you must send me poetic messages from your grave, could you please send them with less infuriating frequency? Yes, I loathed your work as an undergraduate. Yes, I submit to its relevance, crispness, and chill beauty now. I'm sorry I didn't like you and called you cold and male and said that your name was stupid when I was but a wee girl of twenty years. OK? Can we stop this now?)

Anyway, while these poems keeping popping up in that bitch-slapping, higher-power proving kind of way, I continue to find them very sexy and repulsive and annoying. How dare he:

This is just to say

I have eaten
the plums
that were in
the icebox

and which
you were probably
saving
for breakfast

Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold

How dare he eat her breakfast and leave her that sexy poem note! How dare he!

Yes, darling wife, I took your stuff, that was yours and necessary in the most basic, breakfast way. I know you might have thought of those cool plums last night and how they'd be great in the morning. But alas! I am very sexy, very needy, and a tortured artist, and so I take your things and leave you with an empty belly and this thin sliver of beauty, ripped right out of my tortured little heart. Forgive me and love me! I know you're hungry now, but look at how I bat my long eyelashes and make your world more beautiful! Fill you belly with my loveliness!

I Don't Feel Like It.

"I'm not feeding the dogs or letting them out when we get home. I don't feel like it."

"Really? What if I don't feel like it?"

"Then I guess it won't get done."

"OK. What if I didn't feel like paying the mortgage or buying groceries? What if I didn't feel like having a job anymore?"

Silence...

It's an infuriating refrain, and it comes up again and again. Tonight was lovely, and we were on our way home from having dinner with family when he pulled out some "I Don't Feel Like It."

I never know quite how to respond to these little tantrums. What makes me angriest about them is that they are proclamations and plans. If he just came in the house and started ignoring the dogs, I'd just let them out because they needed to be let out. It's just what you do. But because he had to make a declaration of how he was letting himself off the hook for being responsible for any of the grown up work around our home, I resented every fucking second of a chore that isn't even very onerous...that is, in fact, something I look forward to doing.

"I always take care of the dogs. It's your turn," is his explanation for how this asinine assertion is anything like reasonable.

First, it's not true. He is home with them all day while I'm at work, so he spends more time with them than me; but he doesn't do a majority of the caretaking. I buy their food, groom them, walk them, talk with them, pet them, and take care of them when they're sick. I take them outside and throw the ball. I bring bones home for them from the grocery store. In spite of him being home with them all day, I'm still doing more than my share.

And second, I'm ALWAYS doing more than my share. That's the world that we're living in right now...it's unfair, and I'm pulling more than my share of the weight. Because I love him, I am willing to pull more than my share of the weight while he is working on this whole recovery business, and it's ok. However, when he indicates in any way that he thinks some little old bullshit that he sometimes does to represent some portion of contribution to our home life is in any way unfair, I kind of want to sew his eyelids to his forehead and make him look at my bank account until he acknowledges the goddamned miracles I've been performing with my pittance of a salary in stretching it to pay our two-person bills.

I just have no idea where this shit comes from. Is it because he was raised by wolves? Is it a manifestation of the disease of addiction and its profound ability to make the addict feel entitled, wronged, and to allow him to lie to himself? Is it just that he's selfish beyond all comprehension? Is it maleness? Is it because his mother didn't spank him? What in hell would possess him to spout some nonsense like that and ruin a perfectly lovely night, a perfectly loving wife, and a perfectly planned evening of tv-watching and bed-cuddling?

And what if everyone in the world only did what they felt like doing? Like right now, I kind of feel like ordering a pizza. I kind of feel like buying a plane ticket to Maui. I never feel like working out, going to work, or going to meetings. I don't feel like supporting him while he finds himself and figures out how to live like grown folks. I bet all of you out there reading this don't really FEEL like reading this...you probably feel like getting massaged of getting fucked or eating pie or sitting in a hot tub. Life doesn't work like that, Mr. Junky, and sometimes we just have to feed our dogs or wash our clothes or clean up after ourselves or go to work. That's how life works. It's unfortunate, but it's real...how did you miss that memo?

Rare Form.

My baby was fussy tonight.

My husband behaves sometimes as if he were a giant slobbering infant from hell. His mood was foul, which made him break all our plans for the evening to go lie in bed and pout. Generally, I am very good at detaching from this scenario. When he is pissy and miserable and whiny and shitty to be around, I go away and protect my sanity from his bullshit. Tonight, however, he'd had a job interview, and we'd talked about us updating the website where he keeps his portfolio to make it easier for the boss to evaluate his work. I'd agreed to help him with that.

While he was hiding in the bed, pouting and pretending to go to bed, I started fretting about how he needs to update the site. I'd volunteered to do it for him, as I'm more proficient with the whole web thing, and he acted as if I were shitting in the kitchen sink (this phrase courtesy Damsel In Distress) by offering to help. His response was absurd and stupid.

I know when this addicty dramatic (and this phrase courtesy EJ) behavior is coming. I can see it coming from a thousand million miles away. I know the scenarios by heart, and I know the response that I need to have prepared to prevent myself from getting entangled in his insanity.

Is that the response I have tonight? Nope. I tangled.

I realize later that the reason I engaged in his whiny, shitty behavior is that I'm excited about the prospect of this job, and I wanted to do everything I could to help him get it. If I could update his website, that is me helping him out. I also was upset that he shitted our plans for the evening in favor of lying on the bed with the covers over his head feeling sorry for himself for his headlong dive into self-defeat and self-destruction. I was upset that instead of going to the meeting tonight, he sat in the car. I was upset that he was doing that goddamned addict dance of need and rejection, want and repulsion. I was upset that there was a goddamned needle in my yard this weekend. I was upset. I didn't respond right. I wanted his website updated, and I wanted him to want it, and I wanted it now.

It's better, and I'm better. I like to have these little lapses into participating in his mad dance so that I can remember why it's so important that I don't. I can't participate. It hurts me.

Needle In A Haystack.

There was a needle in a flower bed today in my front yard. Yeah, that kind of needle. It didn't look old.

I brought it inside and asked how in the world something like that could have gotten in the front yard. He says that it must have been old.

I promptly went into the bathroom and had a giant meltdown. I cried, and I cried, and I couldn't breathe, and I couldn't collect myself.

And then, I did.

So there was a needle. I live with a heroin addict. Heroin addicts leave needles around.

Maybe it's brand new and just fell out of his pocket this morning. Maybe it's been buried in our front yard for months and it just got uncovered by the wind. Either way, I'm safe. My stuff is safe. He's going to meetings.

I could scream and cry and blow up at him, beg and beg that he tell me the truth. He will tell me that it's an old needle, no matter what the truth is.

I am ok, no matter what is happening with him. That's growth. I'm pleased with myself.

I don't ever, however, want to see a syringe again. They hurt my eyes. They touch me in that part of my heart that's irreparably broken. They hurt me like all reminders of trauma hurt...they hurt like watching the buildings fall down on September 11. They hurt me like stories of children being molested. I don't want to see them.

NO.

Oh I say, and I say it again! You been took! You been hoodwinked! Bamboozled! Led astray! Run amok! This is what he does!

-Malcolm X

I've been bamboozled. I woke up, and realized it, and now I'm pissed and can't get unbamboozled.

Damn my man. Damn The Man.

He went to bed last night at 9, saying he has to start going to bed earlier because his new job requires him to be up at 6. I stayed up until 1 and then went to sleep. He woke me up from my dead sleep, and he asked if I had any sleeping pills left. I told him I only had a few, and he said he couldn't sleep. I got up and gave him one.

When I first wake up, I have absolutely no defenses. If he asked, I'd probably just hand over my check card like I used to when I was still stupid. I felt bad for him. I've struggled with insomnia for many years (which explains my prescription)...so I have shared my pills with him before. However, in my current health-insuranceless, broke-ass state, each pill is precious, so I was reluctant, but I did it anyway.

When I went to lie back down, I looked at the clock and noticed that it's nearly 7 a.m. I got so mad, I kind of wanted to put the pillow over his head and hold him until he was still. Why the fuck is he taking one of my precious sleeping pills after sleeping 10 hours? Why am I so stupid as to give him one? Why am I sitting upstairs hating him while he's downstairs sleeping soundly?

See, not only are my defenses down when I first wake up regarding giving him the dumb shit he asks of me, but I also react really badly. When I realized what he'd just done, I got pissed and said things I shouldn't have. "Why can't you ever just take 'no' for an answer? Why are you such a world-class fuck up? What the fuck are you taking my pills for? Why are you asking me for shit I don't want to give you?" and etc.

That's So Silly.

Go read The Sun telling about Pete Doherty and his passion for his pets. It's beautiful. I chortled my Red Bull right out of my nose.

Or, you can read about it here or here or here.

Courtesy Edith Whoreton.

Breaking News!

My husband still acts like a drug addict!

I wonder how long it will take before this stops shocking me?

We've had a few really great days between the two of us, even with the mess of the Stray acting a fool. He's been almost normal-seeming...loving, tender and interested in looking towards the future, becoming a better man, a better husband. We've had moments over the last few months where he seemed to "get it," but never this sustained level of sanity over a period of several days. It seem(s)ed like real growth.

And I'm trying to keep my expectations in check...so he went to two meetings, and even participated in one...that doesn't make him "fixed," much as I might like to indicate that he's fixed with my post labels. I know this...

Today, however, was supposed to be his first day at work. He slept all crazy, up and down, up and down. We woke up this morning, and he went to check his email, and he screams, "FUCK!" He'd gotten a notice that the shop wouldn't be open today, and he should come in tomorrow.

Suddenly, he switched gears and became all emotional and clingy and needy of my stuff and wanting me to change my plans for the day and weird and pissy and addicty.

I'm wondering if that's going to be his default, baseline emotion for times of stress (and even mild stress...he can start the job tomorrow) forever? Or will it get better, if he keeps up the meetings regularly and keeps trying to grow...maybe he will nip that shit in the bud. The whole look on his face changes...and it makes me respond really badly, too. I go into "NO" mode...no matter what he has to say, when he looks and acts like that, I say, "NO! NO! NO!" and I go into another room. I hide upstairs. I ignore him and fume.

I guess I'm answering my own question...and already, he's resolved the problem of having nothing to do today by calling a friend to ask him to come pick him up, and he's acting satisfied.

Sometimes, writing here is like processing for me...I don't know why you folks read it...it's kind of awful writing, or at least really different writing from what I think of as good writing. The process is all apparent. It's often unedited. I begin in one space, and I end in another, and I work it out as I go. It's like looking inside a head, which isn't like looking at good writing.

Blogging's weird.

Not Dead Yet.

I think it's getting close to past the time for Mexican Heroin Dealers to be making house calls.

His gun is a fucking bb gun. I don't know what kind of addict dramatic bullshit that was last night, waving it in the air like he was R. Kelly, (That's right EJ, I stole your phrase. Whachoo gonna do about it?) but I came home insisting that we sell the fucking thing or that he give it to the dealer or I'd make him leave blah blah blah, and he showed me that it's a very impressive-looking bb gun.

So that's one thing not to be scared about.

He'd fixed a bath for me when I got home. I like baths. We talked a lot, and I told him what I need. Here's the list:

• No guns.
• No threats of criminal activity.
• No strange mofos up in my house.
  
• No drugs.
• For him to go to meetings.
  

He has agreed to my list of demands. Possibly, he has agreed to my list of demands to make me shut up. He's pacing the floor, freaking out about how he's going to get money. I've been making coasters.

He appeared to hear me, though, in the way that he didn't for a long time. He didn't like it when I told him the stuff about how this addict dramatic stuff is getting in the way of my living, down to the level of my thoughts...the language that is invading my thoughts. Sometimes, all I want is to feel like I've been heard.

Fucking Dumbass Shit.

I've been given instructions to write a gratitude list...and I'm just about to get to that...but first, I need to bitch about something.

The fucking thing that I hate most right now in my life is being scared--scared for myself, for my man, and for my stuff.

The fucking thing that I hate second most in my life right now is the tediousness of it all. I hate all these ghetto scenarios this dumbass man I love keeps getting me stuck in. I hate having to think about "pawn shops" and "dealers" and "guns" and all that kind of wannabe thug dumbshit. I fucking hate the stories that I am always telling people. I hate the entire rhetoric of addict-life...the pawn and steal and gun and lie and twenty dollars and blah blah blah. I have better things to do with my head. I have better language to use than that.

It's ghetto.

Guns.

"What you think about that?" he says, with a gun in the air, coming in from outside.

I think I don't like that at all. Where did that come from?

I always had it.

That's not true. Where did it come from? Why don't you sell it?

That was last night.

Today, he called me at work, scared and urgent:

I've got to tell you something.

So in the time before Nar-Anon, before I learned that I didn't have to, I paid a debt for him. I'd hoped that by paying the debt, I'd get the scary dealers out of my life, out of his life, and we could move on. I didn't know that I'd be opening up a new line of credit for him.

He told me he owed the dealers $380, and they were threatening him. I paid it. Two weeks later, he told me today, he got in debt to them again to the tune of $220. He's been gradually paying it off by tattooing people. Apparently, there has been some transfer of power amongst the people he owes, and the new asshole in charge came by MY HOUSE today to threaten him. He owes $85 still. The dealer showed him a gun. He wanted me to know, he says, because he has to pay them, and he's scared, and he's trying to come up with the money, but he knows that if he has money that he's suddenly giving away to dealers, I'll freak.

So I guess now I'm not supposed to freak? I'm not supposed to be upset that someone is threatening the love of my life with a gun? I'm not supposed to care that said love of my life has allowed heroin dealers with guns to know where we live? I'm not supposed to be worried that I'm associated with this madman, that my safety has been compromised?

The dealers wanted to take my cell phone, which he has today, as collateral. He didn't let them. I have an idea that he should pawn the gun he had in the house last night. Let's get all the guns gone.

I'm scared to go home.

My Sponsor Is Magic.

I'm not just saying it because she might read this. She really is magic. And while I'm sure she's endowed with the magical hoohah that makes all codependents magic, she is also magic in that her voice can soothe a raging junky's wife.

She just kind of laughs, and says, "I'm sure he's not in jail. I'll come get you if he is. You're supposed to be doing whatever you'd be doing anyway."

BUT WHAT I'D BE DOING IS SITTING ON THE COUCH WITH MY HEAD IN HIS LAP!

(sob, sob)

"Well, I used to clean the house when I was worrying about things. Is there something you can do to keep you mind occupied until he gets back?"

She has magical voice super powers. I hope that through working the steps, one day I will also acquire this power. So far, however, my kung fu is not very strong in this area.

He wasn't gone for long, but he doesn't have a phone anymore, and I know he's feeling pretty desperate about money. I'd imagined him in jail, or dead, or on the ground with cops pointing guns at him. I didn't like that one bit.

Update: He's Still Not Fixed.

News flash:

My husband still acts like a drug addict.

Goddamn it, we went to a meeting and everything.

Mind On Fire.

Now I've always been a moody bitch, but my ups and downs over the last few days have been astonishing to me. My husband is moody, generally, and specifically right now while his brain is all heroin-addled and unrecovering...so he has an excuse. I don't.

In the middle of the night, I woke up, frantic about money. I sobbed and got online, searching for a part time job. Then I sobbed because I'm even considering getting a part time job. Then I went to get in bed, and I felt all warm and safe and happy in his arms. He grumbled in that delicious, sleepy way, and folded me up. And I fell asleep for a bit, and then I woke up, furious that he had me in his arms, furious that he had the audacity to be asleep at 3:30 in the morning instead of online, looking for jobs. And then I got up and stomped around, mad as hell. And then I wanted more of that arm-folding, and so I was back to bed, and warm and fuzzy again, and asleep, and then awake, and horny and wanting to fuck, and then asleep, and then awake, scared about money....

What the fuck? So now I'm at work, exhausted because my mind was on fire all night.

BOUNDARIES.

I'm feeling pretty worn down. I'm sick, and I'm tired, and I'm overwhelmed on all fronts.

I got home last night, and I dreaded getting home the whole way. I dreaded it from leaving until pulling into the driveway. I thought and thought of ways that I could stay home, longer. I don't like it at my house. It's dirty. He's there. He's miserable and miserable to be around.

I got an email this morning on my work email address from someone he scammed out of money. This is the second time that's happened, and it makes me really, really uncomfortable. First, it's money he's had and lied about. Apparently, he took a couple of hundred dollars from someone as a "deposit," and now he won't respond to her. I never knew of him having $200. So where's the money?

Second, we work in the same industry. I don't know what this person expects me to do for her. I don't have money to give her for him. I'm sorry she got taken, but I've been taken bigger than anyone. I am afraid, though, that she will put the word out that my man's shady, which will reflect badly on me. I love my job. I don't want to lose it because of his mess.

I've got all these boundaries up that I'm defending tooth and nail against his constant onslaughts. That was a helpful way to get through what felt like crisis time, but it's not the way I want to spend the rest of my life. I want to be able to relax and just be married, to share and trust and be like regular folks. I'm tired, tired, tired of this vigilance. I'm tired of feeling at war. I know I'm sick because my body is rejecting my life. I don't want to do this anymore.