But I'm Also Grateful.

I'm wary, yes, of my husband's comments earlier tonight...but this other thing happened today that was very special.

He gave me a $50 bill. He went to work even though he doesn't feel good, and he worked all day and earned $50. He brought that $50 home, and he gave it to me.

There's so many parts of that experience that are really big for him...going to work without feeling good and working through his detox sickness...making money and having cash in his hands...choosing not to use with that money...choosing to give the money to me. That's big stuff, and I have to acknowledge that it's development.

He's trying really hard to do something. I'm not sure what it is, and I don't think he knows, either...but he's trying. His face looks like it hurts to be him tonight. His body feels sweaty all over, and he's weepy all the time. He's having a hard time, but he's fighting to get to the other side of this stuff, and I'm grateful for the work he's doing. I hope it sticks.

Big, Fat Asshole.

I was wondering when the asshole would get here. My husband's detox has thus far been gentle as a lamb. Today is the 10th day since he quit his methadone maintenance cold turkey, and the asshole has landed.

I was trying to walk through the house this morning, and he'd spread himself out through the middle of the living room in such a manner as to block my way. I had to get into the kitchen to get my lunch to take to work, and he was so busy with his video game that he couldn't be bothered to sit up and let me pass. When I asked, he sighed deeply and struggled to unfurl himself from his elegant prostration. I went into the kitchen and retrieved my 99 cent Michelina's boxed lasagna, and finished packing my things. As I was walking out the door, I approached him to give him a kiss goodbye, and he slammed down his video game controller and sighed hugely, mistakenly believing that I was trying to pass him by again. How dare I interrupt his very important video game playing with my trivial needs, like for nourishment! What a bitch to pack a lunch and go to work!

And tonight, when I got home, his stomach was bothering him, and he said that it's my fault. He's been struggling to poop while detoxing, so I've been feeding him laxatives at night. It's my fault, now, that his stomach is upset. I poisoned him.

There, now. I feel better. It's written down, and it's over. Thanks for listening.

I'm actually holding up quite well in the midst of his latest drama. I'm so very tired of drama with him. I'm just kind of going to work, doing my thing, coming home, and going to bed as if he were doing his normal thing. I try to be as compassionate as I can without letting down my guard and getting too involved in his feelings or too invested in his plans, and it's working for me today. I hope that his little slips into assholery this evening and this morning aren't indicative of some new shift in his mood. I like him when he's docile. I don't like him when he's not.

The Detox Kitten

Methadone detox is really pretty kind, it seems. At least that's the way it looks at my house. There's been no throwing, no yelling, and minimal twitching. My husband is sad and weepy and miserable like he has a really bad flu. I kind of like him this way. Is that wrong?

I had a brief freakout yesterday. He'd spent some time with his mother, and I started to think they'd been using together. I had no real reason to think that they'd been using together other than that they sometimes use together, and he's detoxing, and they were hanging out. I did the whole projection thing and called friends to talk me sane and help me figure out what it was I was feeling.

Eventually, though, he came home, and he was still sad and sick and miserable. I was so glad to see him sick. Is that wrong?

I'm recognizing that methadone maintenance has given me a lot of peace over the last few months, and I'm afraid of facing life without it. Methadone is its own beast in many ways. My husband's world revolves around when and how he's going to get to the clinic when he's on the methadone program. It's his first priority financially, and it's his first priority in terms of how he lives his life. I like the idea of that being over. I don't like the idea of worrying about him using. I don't like the way it seems like methadone was a buffer for him, softening the edges of the real world. I don't like it that he needs a buffer. I don't like it that I want him to have a buffer.

Sometimes, sitting next to him, it kind of startles me how different our lives are. We live in the same house, sleep in the same bed, shit in the same toilet, eat the same food...but we face the world so differently. He runs from pain. I seem to chase it.

I don't know.

At the meeting last night a lady said the addict in her life, newly clean, seemed to want to be a house cat. He wants to lie around all day on the couch on a soft blanket. He wants everything to be warm and fuzzy and nice. It made me giggle in that way where I was afraid I was being inappropriate, like my head may split open or my eyes pop out or I might have to leave the room.

My husband is a house cat.

Detox Day 3: Redux

I should note, however, that in spite of my grumpiness and glumness and insistence on staying in bed and being miserable, my husband is being something of a detox angel. He's not half so crazy and miserable as he usually is. He's miserable, but it's kind of quiet, and it's not mean at all.

I'm grateful.

Detox Day 1

It's not been so bad. I had friends over to help me with a house project, and then we went to dinner together. He feels pretty gnarly now, but it took the whole day before he knew he felt bad.

He's coming of 105 milligrams of methadone, cold turkey, for those of you who are in the know about methadone and would liked to be shocked by how nuts this decision he's made is.

I'm kind of observing...this is a decision. He has a relative who will pay, but he's chosen to detox. He says he realized the only reason he hasn't done it before is because it's hard, and he wants to be clean. He wants his mind back, and he wants to feel like himself.

I hope it works out like that for him. I want himself, too. I'm afraid that it's going to be unbearable, he won't be able to do it, and he'll be disappointed. I'm afraid it will be unbearable for me, and I'll make him leave me. I'm trying not to think about it.

It should be an interesting week. I'd expect the projectiles to be flying by Wednesday. Stay tuned!

"I told everyone that you don't give a fuck."

"I told her that you don't give a fuck about me, or how I'll be detoxing, or whether or not I'm comfortable. I told them you didn't want to be involved at all," my husband informed me.

The relative who he's been working for is planning to nurse him through his detox. I'm glad she will do it. I won't do it anymore.

In a lot of ways, he's right. It hurts me that he's telling folks that I don't care about him and presenting me in a nasty way; however, I can't get involved in his decisions right now. I can't be his nurse. I can't spend my money or my time on it.

It's not my natural inclination. My defaults are set to "Help" mode. I WANT to sit next to him, rub his hair, wipe his face with a cool cloth. I just can't do it. I've done it too many times. Detox nurse is a thankless, painful job, and I can't put myself in his space when that's going on.

My sickness is to be susceptible to sickness in him. When he's hurting, I hurt. I hurt myself to be able to hurt with him. I try to take it into me, to take what I can of it for him. And oh, if I could, I'd detox for him. I'd be sick and crazy and mean and miserable in his place. I hate for him to hurt...

But damn it, I've learned my lessons! I've been extraordinarily stubborn, but I've learned that it hurts me more than it helps him for me to do too much. In fact, it hurts me and it hurts him. He won't do for himself what I'll do for him, and I can't do for myself when I'm doing for him. When we get swept up in that cycle, we're both stuck in his disease, sinking. I've found a way out, and I'm not sorry.

I wish the voice in my head that wants to explain myself to everyone would shut up. I want desperately to call his relative and tell her what I'm really thinking when I refuse to pay for things for him or to sit by his sickbed. My sponsor often says that it's not my business what other people think of me, though. I have to keep remembering that it's not my business what his family thinks of me. I'm doing the best I can for myself today, and that's all I can do.

Responsible.

I'm tired of being so goddamned responsible. I want to tell everything to fuck off, and I want to go on vacation. I can't afford to tell anything to fuck off and go on vacation. I at least would like a vacation from my husband.

He was "joking" with me last night about how I can't make him leave...he said he'd been thinking about how even if I decided to split up with him, he'd tell me that the house was his, too...that even though he doesn't pay the bills, I can't make him leave his house. I'm not sure where he got that idea from. I can think of several ways that I could make him leave this house, my house. I've looked into the laws for spousal support, and I know what the worst things he could do to me would be. I also doubt very much that a judge would have much sympathy for the able-bodied heroin addict who has been leaching off of his wife for 2 years...

And really, what is he thinking about to make him want to talk to me like that? Why push me towards thinking about the bad things that he could do to me if I decide to leave him? Is it really such fun to force yourself on a person who doesn't want you? I remember him so differently from this...the man I fell in love with had some self-respect. The man I fell in love with wouldn't have said that he'd make me keep supporting him even if I decided I didn't love him anymore. It doesn't make sense.

He has about 10 days before he is officially without money for methadone. He only seems concerned sometimes. I'm not sure why he is so comfortable with his present situation. The relative he's been working for is done with the project they've been doing, and he's only got about 10 days' worth of money left. I have to stop thinking about it. It's not mine. It's not happening to me. I can't stop thinking about it.

What is scary is that I've decided I'm not doing detox with him again. If he doesn't find a job and get himself squared away, I'm asking him to leave for the detox part. It's not good for me, and I can't do it, especially not right now when I have too many jobs and not enough time.

So many things in my life are going so well right now. I wish things at home would ride the coattails of my professional upswing. An unhappy marriage sucks the sweetness right out of life. It's hard to celebrate anything, and it's hard to have perspective on the things that are going well when the things that are closest to me make me feel like a rat running in a treadmill.


Art by James Christensen

Upswing.

Rollerfuckingcoaster...

I got home from work last night, and the house was spotless. My husband had cleaned the house, cooked a wonderful dinner, and had $80 deposited into my bank account. It was like a fog had lifted off of him, the fog that had been keeping me from coming home over the last few weeks.

I'm confused about this up and down behavior, as it's not typical of him. If he's using, usually, it gets bad, and then it gets worse, and then it's a crisis, and then he's in bed detoxing for 2 weeks, and then he's really sorry, and then it gradually builds up to a better place. This new kind of rapid spiraling and upswing is different.

One thing that I thought might explain what's happening at my house is that he is gradually lowering his methadone dose. Every time he goes down a notch, he's shitty for a few days, and then he levels out. He's not gone down for a week or so, and maybe...just maybe...that's all that is going on.

Yuck. I'm not going to think about what's going on. All I know is that I'm looking forward to going home this evening to an orderly house with no allegorical turds, a loving, lovely husband (who even asked if I'd pick him up for the meeting tonight), and hope. Hope is nice, and the prospect of a nice evening is nice, and spending time with my husband while he's on an upswing is my favorite thing in the world.

Heroin-Eze

I can't count the number of times I've found myself in a pharmacy looking for various ointments, pills, juices, vitamins, elixirs and potions to treat my husband when he's detoxing. Ibuprofen and Aspercream for his legs, laxatives and antacids for his stomach, vitamins to try to combat that awful grey-color of his skin, Tucks for his hemorrhoids, oils and Ayurvedic remedies, flush-your-system detox kits, teas and heating pads and ice packs and all kinds of things.

I was wandering around in a store again this past weekend, and I wondered if I'm the only one wandering around filling a basket with various remedies, and I realized that I'm probably not. I'm surprised that the pharmaceutical company hasn't recognized the potential market for a single pill to treat all the symptoms of detox.

Come on, evil pharmaceutical robber barons! Help the many junkies' wives out! It's exhausting to roam the aisles of the drug stores picking out these individual treatments for the individual symptoms. You made Midol! Why not Heroin-Eze?