"You're Going To Get Yourself Stabbed."

I got home last night from work at my normal hour. I arrived home in my normal car. I unlocked the door with my normal key, and then I unlocked the deadbolt with my other, normal key. I didn't enter through the window, or come down the chimney, or make any unusual noises. I went outside to coax the dog in, and I stood there and petted her for a while. When I came back in from the backdoor, my husband burst out of the bedroom holding a large hunting knife in the air.

"What the fuck is wrong with you!?" he screamed at me. "I was screaming your name! Why the fuck didn't you answer me?"

Perhaps he was screaming my name. Perhaps he'd been making sure it was me who had come home in my car, entered the house with my house key, and arrived at precisely the same time I always arrive home. Perhaps he'd genuinely been surprised that his wife was coming home from work...and so maybe he had been shouting my name and gotten afraid when I didn't answer because I was outside with the dog. Maybe that happened...but I'm not sure why.

I stood before him, the knife still held in the air, a wild, angry look in his eye. I felt strangely calm, but rather confused.

"What the fuck is wrong with you?! You are going to get yourself stabbed acting like that! Jesus fucking Christ!" he ranted.

I realized as he stood there, still threatening me with a knife, that I was in a moment that felt pretty unmanageable, and I said a little prayer. I didn't respond to him for a few moments. I also, slowly, realized that there's a real good chance that he wasn't concerned about who was coming in the house at all...there was just too much he could have done to confirm that it was me, like look out the window at my car in the driveway. There was no need, also, for him to continue to hold the knife like that, so menacingly. There was no need for the yelling.

"Do you think this shit is funny, you acting like that? Are you playing some kind of fucking game?" he asked.

Finally, I responded, "No. I've been at work for a long time. I'm not coming home to pick a fight with you. I didn't hear you calling me because I was outside with the dog."

He finally lowered the knife and walked away, slamming the bedroom door, and shouting at me over his shoulder. I collected my purse and books from the kitchen counter, and I went and took a long bath.

Honestly, I think he wanted me to know that he is very angry about how I wouldn't let him bamboozle me out of money. I think the whole display was a pretense to scare me, to take power over me. He wanted to threaten me with a knife because he doesn't like it that I'm growing, setting boundaries, and standing up to his manipulation. He's scared, and he wants me to be scared, too.

I am not sure what to do with this incident. I have promised myself that I won't live with him if he's scary...that I won't be afraid to come home anymore. I wasn't quite afraid of him, knife-wielding maniac that he was...but I'm not sure that my calmness wasn't just the way I respond to crises now. Crisis after crisis after crisis has made me rather indifferent, rather still on the inside and out. Maybe I should have been afraid.

Today, I'm wary and distant. He is presenting lots of interesting shaming behaviors, and he seems to need desperately for me to feel like I've done something wrong or like I'm at risk of losing him. I'm not afraid of losing him. In fact, I'm more afraid of not being able to let him go.

Hope Vs. Desperation.

"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.

Space.

One of my husband's least favorite parts of my growth is my detachment. He doesn't like it in any of its manifestations, but probably his least favorite part is when I get far away from him. He says he feels like I don't love him.

For instance, if he's being insane, I tend to sleep in a different room. If he's throwing a tantrum, I tend to leave the house for a while. My natural inclination is towards him, like a moth to flame. My urge, if left unattended, is to go to him, to try to help him, to try to fix him. Mostly, though, when I go to him, I end up taking on his shit. He doesn't get any better, and I get worse. I get cans thrown at me.

I can't figure out how to explain to him that I love him too much to be around him when he's really desperate. I love him so much that his sickness gets all under my skin, and I become sick, too. I wish there could be a way that I could suck all the sick and sad and scared out of him. I could handle it better than he can. I've got tools.

But there isn't a way to take it, and I have to be here for myself. I can't go that route anymore. I need room to breathe, even when he's sucking all the air out of the room.

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...

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.

Song Of The Day.

(Question sent me a few cds a couple of weeks ago. One was from Ryan Adams, and one was from Wilco, and they were both the first albums for both artists after kicking heroin...so they are both poignant. This song has been nagging at me all day today...and I like sharing my mental mix tapes with my blog friends. So here's this song...)

Either Way

Maybe the sun will shine today
The clouds will blow away
Maybe I won't feel so afraid
I will try to understand
Either way

Maybe you still love me
Maybe you don't
Either you will or your won't
Maybe you just need some time alone
I will try to understand
Everything has its plan
Either way
I'm gonna stay
Right for you

Maybe the sun will shine today
The clouds will roll away
Maybe I won't be so afraid
I will understand
Everything has its plan
Either way

I Dream Of Hardwood.

Oh, how I want hardwoods. The puppy has peed the carpet beyond repair, and even if I steam clean twice a week, which is excessive, there are still big pee stains. I want the feel of hardwood under my feet. I want it bad. I take my shoes off at work, where there are hardwoods, just to be able to enjoy the texture under my feet.

I like being able to mop the whole house and make it smell like oranges or pine trees or whatever. I like to put oil down and make it shiny and wonderful. I like the clean look of it all, even when it's dirty.

We were going to get hardwoods before Heroin Crisis 2007 lead to this stint of unemployment. Maybe I should use my credit and get hardwoods. It would please me so...and maybe I'd feel like we'd moved past something, moved into a new era of hardwood magic.

I love the way that simple changes to our home can make things so much better, like when I bought curtains and rods for the back door after we had the peeping tom or when I fixed up the art room upstairs. I know that a big change like hardwood floors could change the entire head space. Maybe I should put an ad on Craigslist...I need someone who can install hardwoods and repair idiot hole-punches in the wall. Maybe just maybe.

I've learned from the wisdom of a woman who attends our meetings. She talks about the wonderful screened-in porch she's built for herself and her fabulous red leather couch. I don't have to let myself be held hostage by my husband's addiction. I can have hardwood floors because I have good credit and I want them. I don't have to save my money to spend on his shit, as his shit is his shit.

Sweet freedom.

I Don't Care.

I feel like such a wondrous Buddha of detachment lately. I have gotten really good at carving out this space for myself. I got home last night, and the Stray was there. He and my husband were arguing, loudly.

"You just need to suck it up and go to work and get your shit together. You're not going to start to feel good about yourself until you start acting right."

"It's just so hard!"

"Yeah, but it's what you've got to do. You're a grown man, and you need to act like it."

It's strange hearing my husband bucking up his friend with the exact language that I've used with him. I stood in the kitchen, chopping up cabbage, and laughed at the two of them, upstairs, fighting. A part of me wanted to go shake both of them. They're a shit show. They're entertaining, at least. The Stray wasn't hammered, which is a rarity, so I didn't have a hissy fit and make him leave. I didn't feel up to a hissy fit, anyway, after all the funeralizing and stuff...if he's there when I get home today, I'll freak out and threaten to call the cops, though.

There's a stack of dishes as tall as my head. I decided last night that one half of the kitchen sink is his, and one half is mine. My half has no dishes in it. His half has the stack up to my head. That stack of dishes used to look like a monster to me. It doesn't now. I don't know what's changed. A few folks at meetings promised me it would change, though...that eventually, I'd come home, and the house would be a wreck, and I'd think, "Wow. You people live like pigs." And that would be it. I'd clean up what was bothering me, and I'd ignore the rest.

Last night, I cleaned up what was bothering me, and I ignored the rest.

I'm cured!

I'm cured today, at least. Let that nasty relapse cloud come looming, and I'll step right out in the darkness. But today, I'm happy to be alive, in love, and learning.

Smut.

Oh, Oh, Oh I've still got 20 more smutty ads to write before I reach my goal of 100. I'm spent. My mind is utterly fried. I'm completely out of synonyms. I decided it was time to blog because I can't use the phrases "no strings attached," "likes to please and be pleased," or "party girl" another time without puking in my mouth a little (oops, I just puked in my mouth a little).

It's like the stuff is infecting my mind. I keep getting this weird, self-righteous feeling in my stomach while I'm writing them, as if I were really placing the ads myself. Many of them at this point have phrases in them like, "If you think you can really handle a no-strings-attached relationship," as if I've tried to establish ever so many no strings attached arrangements with various men throughout my life, and they've all been unable to handle the rigors of the discretion and lack of attachment that I need. I think I feel this way because I've written so many ads, and part of my head believes that each ad was a failed attempt at finding a new lover.

My mind should know, however, that I'm not really a No Strings Attached kind of girl. Learning to detach has been one of the most difficult and most useful skills I've ever attempted to master.

Maybe I will be a No Strings Attached hoochie now! I'll be No Strings-Detached. "MWF ISO No-Strings-Detached relationship with tragically sexy man, artsy types and addicts preferred, particular penchant for dark hair and blue eyes."

I am also concerned that my penchant for using words like "penchant" has made my ads singularly un-sexy. Which perhaps will be a good thing, as I'll get paid this time either way and I don' t know if I can do this again, but which might be a bad thing if I'd ever like to do the gig again, and no matter how smutty I feel now, it's a pretty easy $100.

Oh man. Back to it!

"Do You Mind?"

He says to me, "Do you mind?"

I was on the phone with Savannah. It was a short conversation. I wanted to scream at him. He said it nicely, but it still isn't a nice thing to say. I do mind. I mind being asked, "Do you mind?"

It's a patronizing question. I wanted to scream, to strangle. I did not. I went in the other room. I realized I was angry beyond reason...not just about a snippy comment, but about months of struggling, his stealing and lying...lots of things that didn't have to do with the comment. So I decided to leave for a few minutes to cool off. I got my phone, my keys, and said, "I'll be back in a little while." I thought I'd go to the grocery store, talk to Meagan on the phone, unwind a bit.

But no, he couldn't let me go. He had to make a giant-ass scene, scream, say, "SEE HOW I CAN'T DO ANYTHING RIGHT?"

I don't know why his inability to do anything right is my fault in his mind. I agree, he can't do anything right. That's his bucket of shit.

He had a hissy fit because he wanted my car today, and he had compelling enough reasons for keeping it (job hunting). I let him use it, but asked him to please be careful with my gas, as it's like a million dollars a gallon. He always says that I'm crazy when I say that he burns up all my has like a madman, so I flipped the odometer today to be able to have concrete proof of whether or not I'm nuts. He drove 98 miles today, using up most of my gas. I don't understand why, why, why he always does this shit. Why does he say he'll be careful with the gas and then proceed to drive it all out of the car? Why can't he keep his promises?

It's right there in the Nar-Anon book...addicts won't keep their promises. I have to start respecting my stuff, more, again. The car is one of my 3 boundaries (no money, ever, for any reason, no lying, and no car). I've been flexible with the car, though, when I thought it would help him get his life together. But I have to stop...

He's just so goddamned compelling sometimes, with his beautiful eyes and his hair and smelling that way that makes me completely helpless to him...and he has such an ability to convince me that what he's about to do makes sense, or that it's really what I want. I don't know when I'll stop believing. Maybe it's never.

Recovery

All my friends tell me that I seem strong, positive, and hopeful. Both friends who are far away and reading the blog and people close who talk to me or see me say that I seem different. All I can attribute this difference to is my growth from my short time in Nar-Anon.

I can feel it in myself, too. While I'm sometimes feeling like I'm going to drown in stress, I don't have that feeling of hysteria that I had a few months ago when I didn't know what was going on with my husband and me. The ideas of detachment, boundaries, and learning to protect myself from his addiction has helped me to grow, and I'm grateful. I'm not grateful for the pain this experience has caused me, but I'm learning to appreciate this growth and strength. I've been in therapy for years...and nothing has worked so well as participation in this support group.

It's kind of miraculous--sitting in a room full of people who I don't know and with whom I have only one thing for sure in common, without anyone being an expert or a specialist, we are guiding each other towards growth and healing just by talking, telling our stories, and sharing our successes and failures. It's really cool, and I was so skeptical about it working or not.

One thing that always shook me about 12 steps was the reliance on a higher power. I am not sure what my higher power would be--for many years, I was an avowed atheist. As I've gotten older, I've softened on that hard-core stance. I used to feel like the universe was a pretty cold, infinite space, with a certain scientific order, but nothing so lovely as a divine plan. I've started observing ways that things just feel RIGHT sometimes though--like the way my job worked out to fit so perfectly with my husband's and our new life--and other times when I just feel like there's something bigger than me--like in the presence of great art. There's this feeling I get, not exactly spiritual--but spiritual...kind of like a calming, exciting, peaceful and exuberant experience of the presence of something bigger than just me, or just this world, or just the art in front of me.

I don't know. But there is something special that happens "in the rooms," and maybe just acknowledging the small miracle of how great I feel after leaving there and how much stronger I've gotten for attending a few meetings can work for me. I'm willing to turn my life over to this experience if it will continue to help me this much.

I had dinner with a friend last night, and she said that my "aura" was different--maybe purple now instead of wildly red. Silly girl.

A Comfortable Distance

There is this new feeling between us, or at least a new feeling that I have noticed the last few nights we've spent together. After my big breakdown because of his relapse last week, we have this quiet space. It's a comfortable space, and I think we both need it. We sit on the couch, or on separate couches, and we talk a little, we lie down together and touch each other easily, gently. There is little pushing on either side. Just quiet.

It is hard, though, when we try to talk. Last night when I picked him up from work, I was trying to tell him about how a friend's dad had died, and how sad it was, and how he is the one of the only people I've ever heard talk about his parent with such total positive regard and clear affection--obviously, this is something that doesn't directly affect me, and so maybe I shouldn't expect him to listen and feel empathy for someone he hardly knows...but he interrupted me and started talking about how bad his sinuses and allergies had been bothering him and how we really needed to stop and buy him some medicine. It's a small selfishness, but it reminded me of so many bigger ones--like the time when my father was in the emergency room with heart problems and I was afraid, and he just kept complaining about work instead of listening, holding me, comforting me. Jeff's dad isn't mine, but it's someone's life who I care about and someone I spend a lot of time with, and I want to be able to talk with my husband about things that are on my mind.

It is hard to sort out sometimes what is addiction and what is him...that personality that accompanies the disease is hard to deal with sometimes, and his selfishness is sometimes insufferable.

So we're quiet. I don't say much. He doesn't say much. I feel like if I start talking, he will feel a need to start talking about himself and demanding for me to buy him things.

One woman at the meeting last night mentioned that she felt most of the time like she was living with a 12 year old. It is sad how addiction does that to a man. It made me think that maybe my husband is being such a child now because he didn't really get to be a child when he was younger because of his parents' addictions.

I hope we are able to keep this nicely detached space comfortable. It feels somewhat like it could fall apart--he might get enraged that I'm not being affectionate enough, like he does sometimes, or I might blow up because he will say something or do something that I think is ridiculous.

He needed his legs rubbed last night, and he wouldn't let me say it was because he had used. He says that he's always had trouble with restless legs, that it has nothing to do with using. I told him that his brain is broken, and that every time he uses, he sets himself back a little in the process of healing, and his body is going to react. I don't know if he can hear me when I say these things.

Detachment Rocks

Yes, I'm one of the Nar-Anon freaks who reads the detachment handout again and again. I have read that purple piece of paper until my eyes almost bleed when I see it. It helps me SO MUCH.

I found this link to the Al-Anon books How Al-Anon Works for Families & Friends of Alcoholics, and I thought it was a clear explanation of the practice. It's useful in every aspect of your life--when something is getting under your skin, to practice detachment is so healthy.

Another instance of this mess making me a better person...

That's Your Bucket Of Shit

I love new slogans.

At my last meeting, we were discussing how you set boundaries, and one woman said that she often uses the phrase "that's your bucket of shit" to explain to her crack-addicted husband that she wasn't going to deal with his problems. The post on property lines from the Betty Ford Clinic handout reminded me of this phrase, and it's a battle I have to fight every day.

It's so hard for me not to take on all of G's buckets full of shit--and he really has bucketloads of shit. It's hard not to take everyone's buckets of shit. I was telling Jeni about it, and she agreed--certain people are shit-magnets, or shit flies. It's like we are always welcome to take on anyone else's shit bucket, get our hands all in it, and let them dump it on our heads if they need to.

I think it's a powerful metaphor, and metaphors always help me. I'm a freakin' poet, for god's sake.

So next time someone is bothering you, let them know you won't be taking their bucket of shit. You won't even let the carry it too close to you because you don't want to get splashed. We've all got our own shitbuckets to carry.