One of my most favorite quotes is from Katherine Hepburn.
I wanted to thank everyone for being so helpful and welcoming. The comments section was getting out of hand long, so thought I would just write a note to say thanks! ej, I really appreciate your view today, as well as the rest of you, whom I hope I've already remembered to thank in comments!
I think what I've learned is that there probably isn't anything I can do to stop my son from getting out of control other than to keep the lines of communication open and be there for him; ultimately though, I guess people will do what they will do. Knowledge is power though right....right....right? One can hope....
As i wrote in my last post on my blog. F is in jail. He go there yest. morning i haven't spoken o him since.. he has been trying to call his moms house but she cant except the call . I set it up so he can call me cell but he hasn't yet...whether it doesn't work or he hasn't thought to call my cell thinking i didn't set it up.. i don't no.. but i hate this.. not talking to him not knowing wuts going on. i don't even no why he is in there so really i don't no whether to be mad at him or what.. i mean i will be mad either way but how mad... I'm gunna go there n see him Sunday with his mom... i doubt i will talk to him b4 that so I'm anxious to see him and to talk to him. I just hate this crap... i wish it would just end already and i really hope it was just something like he violated parole b/c he didn't show up for a meeting or w/e if its something new ill be more pissed.. idk like i said previously this whole thing is nothing but a giant emotional roller coaster
I wanted to take a moment and thank all of you who participate in this blog, both the writers and the readers. Thus far the blog has produced a variety of amazing topics from light hearted humor, to deep emotional issues, to personal triumphs and hardships, and everything in between. I have had the opportunity to see new people join and develop a sense of fellowship quickly and easily as everyone is welcome in our group. I have had the opportunity to meet new people and make new friends. I have grown to be a part of an amazing fellowship of diverse and wonderful people, and I couldn’t be more proud.
I know that each of the writers has his/her own individual blog, and it’s not always easy to find time, nor additional material to write about here. Yet, in a way, the blog and community has served its purpose in this area as to offer many topics based on solely on a single comment, or as offspring of another post. This is what makes every contribution an important one.
Every part of this blog contributes to the bigger picture; from each post to every comment, and the fellowship that has developed. Each is equal in importance as to its contribution to the blog as a whole. It proves to me that the whole has developed into something much larger than the sum of its parts.
So again I thank the writers for their contributions, the readers for their wonderful comments and input, and everyone as a group for making this blog it’s own unique, living, breathing, entity. It has grown of its own volition, and developed through individuality, different perspectives, and a common goal of sharing experience, strength, and hope.
One last note:
I have noticed that we seem to have more writers than I have links to each individual’s blog. If you are missing from our blog roll, please send me an email with a link so that it can be added to the site. Also if anyone has suggestions, comments, additional content, or anything at all that you think would make our blog better, please feel free to email me and let me know. This came together through a combined effort, and I would like to see it continue to grow through that very same combined effort, only now on a larger scale.
Doesn't she say "snorting"? It kind of sounds like "Schnorting." Maybe she was creating a new hybrid way of saying "smoke/snort/shoot."
It was on every Saturday morning when I was watching cartoons.
Here's a comment I got today on my Relapse Scare post, from this guy:
you are one piece of low life for doing nada and whining and contemplating, attenionwhoring it is.
feels neat to have an audience right .time to grow up kiddies.
Real adults stop doing dope.
i know i did.
cos i am a survivor without being a pain in the ass.
I'm tattlin' to you all. I knew I'd get my honor defended here.
I really get the crazies over in Junky's Wife land. Does anybody else get crazies? Are you able to ignore them? I have to do crazy shit like come over here and tattle to my team.
I wish we could all get together in my backyard. I've got a great hammock. We could all pile in.
For some reason, I balk at the idea of drug testing my husband. I'd like to know what you guys think about it...other than the obvious, cut and dry answer that it provides, I want to know what you think of all the reasons I don't do it.
What do I do?
His sister told me some mess, and his mother told me some mess, and he's acting ways...
What do I do?
I'm calling my sponsor when I leave work...but I'd love to know what you guys think.
Yesterday as I was still pissing and moaning about my hair and bathrooms and still on my quest for internal self-mutilation over my 8th Step, my unofficial online sponsor,dear Meg, told me, not quite in these words, to get out of my own head and go do some service work with people much less fortunate with myself. I had been telling everyone else to basically piss-off for the past couple days, so I am not sure why I took her suggestion, but I did.
I ended up at a meeting where there are many newcomers. I sat alone in the row reserved for "pissy members" and watched people come in late, as frickin' usual. But hey, they were a distraction from the readings I was whining in my head about having heard fourteen katrillion fricking times.
And then I saw her.
She walked in kind of slowly and hesitantly, her gait looking like she required an immediate chair. She sat in front of me, in the "not so pissy right now, but definitely uncomfortable and could get pissy if you bug me" row. Before she sat, we looked at each others eyes and I noticed the familiar blown pupil look of opiate withdrawal. After she took her chair, I clearly saw her story -- the back of her hair was wet with sweat, but she wore a heavy girlie sweater kind of crocheted thingie. Through the "holes" I saw goosebumps across her arms and back. It is 102F today. She was/is beautiful, even in her sickness, and she was hurting so very, very badly.
And then she spoke.
She said it was her second day of withdrawal. She desperately did not want to use, yet her head was screaming to her to help her body. She said her thoughts were wrapped with, "Just one little push, girl. Just one and you'll be all good again" -- almost word for word what my head would say to me in the pits of the hell of heroin withdrawal. She spoke of gratitude for a meeting where she could come and get out of her own head even for an hour. She said we gave her hope that she could continue down this path of recovery. She spoke with that sort of quiet desperation that only an addict who has truly surrendered knows.
And I FELT every single word she said.
To me, that is the beauty a Fellowship; any Fellowship really. To be moved by another person's quest for the new road you, too, are walking is something more than magical for me. And to know that simple, stupid hug I gave her before I left was a hug of knowing and a hug of faith and hope that she, too, can and is about to, walk this very, same path.
And I felt better for an hour today.
Hello, and thanks for letting me into your circle.
I have a question for the addicts. I hope you can help! My 15 year old son has recently informed me that he smokes pot. He is very honest with me and we talk about everything, and I mean everything. I try to keep an open mind and guide him with a firm but loving hand. The fact that he smokes pot and drinks on occasion is not a surprise to me, given that I too was once a 15-year-old girl and not as honest with my poor single mother regarding my activities. I'm grateful that he confides, and possibly I overindulge hoping that I'm a 'cool mom' (which my boys assure me I am :)
Ok, the problem:
He unfortunately suffers from rather extreme anxiety, and distracting (for him) obsessive compulsive behaviours (the anxiety is definitely inherited from me, who inherited it from my dear gramma). He informs me that he smokes too much pot, even by his young standards. He says that it's the only thing that helps him, as 'I've never had a panic attack while 'stoned or baked', other than one time when the pot was so strong he worried it was laced, and that time he went home to bed, freaked out. A very real problem. He says that he purposely avoids harder drugs and drinking too much, as he fears that it will exacerbate the problem (which is why I never did the hard stuff myself). However, he exhibits addictive personality. This was most apparent during his last visit (my boys live with their dad), I noticed my Gin, Sambuka and Vodka became very low, and I knew I nor my husband had drunk it. I came into the kitchen one evening to find him pouring himself a Vodka. Now, I have let him have the occasional small taste in the hopes that if I don't make it a big deal, neither will he. He confided in me that he had indeed been sneaking alcohol during the week (he had no weed). I didn't freak out. I told him I appreciated his honesty, but I was concerned he was taking it too far. I too sneaked alcohol from my mom, but usually that was on a weekend here and there, when I was being naughty. I'm no saint and don't expect him to be either. I'm a realist after all.
He came to me shortly after I found him sneaking the Vodka and asked me 'Mom, do you think I might be the kind of person to slide down the slippery slope to addiction?' I was stunned! What do I say? I told him that I worry about him and yes, I do think it's a possibility, but I hope that his awareness will make him think before he leaps. He told me he'll always be honest and knows that I'll put him in check if I think he's getting out of hand. Stunned again! Am I to question his every move???
My question to you dear addicts:
Do you think it's possible to stop addiction before it becomes a problem? Have I done the right things in being forthright and allowing him the freedom to smoke pot? I will share with you that I believe myself to be what I call a 'functioning alcoholic'. This means that I drink daily. Not necessarily during the day, unless it's sunny and we're socializing by the pool or some such. But I do self-medicate for my own anxiety and try hard to keep it moderate. However, it took me till my mid-thirties to get here. He's a young boy already concerned!
Is there anything I can do???
Oh, and I'm sure the first thing you'll all think is that we should get him help for his anxiety and whatnot but his doctor only wants him to get therapy, which I know from dealing with it myself is not helpful. Drugs have not been helpful for me, in fact more harmful than anything, so I'm leery to insist on that for him. Haha, he's also expressed to me that he's afraid to take the drugs for fear of it turning him into a numb zombie and fucking with his sex drive (he's still a virgin, but doesn't want to be one day lol). Ativan does work for him, which is a good thing. Ok, I'm rambling, there's so much more to it, but the bottom line is can addiction be stopped before it starts from your experience???
I'm in way over my head with this one. Can anyone help?
Thanks!
~e~
TDA's comment where he describes the puke-green outfit made me want to come up with a name and an outfit. This also reminds me of an old MPJ post...
I think I'm the Enigmatic Enabler or something like that...The Heroin Helpmate...
Maybe I'd rather be some kind of goddess...St. Junkyface Of The Everflowing Nipple Of Money And Love And Cars And Computers. Then I could finally formally establish the St. Junkyface Home For Sexy Tortured Artist Addicts, so I can be surrounded by my drug of choice. I'd swim in blue-eyed addict boys. They'd rub me and slap my face with their wangs...
Wait, I think I forgot which blog I was on for a second...
So anys, what's your superhero/god/goddess?
In keeping with my recent theme of anger, disappointment, and overall general pissy-ness, I went out and cut off all of my hair. I have not had my hair this short since I was in my early 20's and doing the whole feminist, separatist, deal and dreaming of living among other hippy lesbos on Doe Farm.
I also forgot that I am no longer in hip and ultra- PC Minneapolis, MN. No, I am in da dirty south; in the bible belt. These people don't do short hair on women well. I have used a public rest room twice since "the cut" and on both occasions I was stared at like I was somehow mistaken on which door I pushed.
Hell-o! Do you actually see these hellacious ta-ta's I am sporting? Do these look like he-hooters to you? Oh, perhaps you are jealous so you are trying to make fun of my hair instead of feeling badly about your own body. Women can be so fricking mean to each other; especially when it comes to looks. Yes, I'm cute AND I'm not straight AND I'm cute even with no hair AND get over it cause I don't want your stupid man anyway (except maybe for some good fantasies. ) I know it's hard to accept a lesbian that isn't fat and ugly being in "your" bathroom, but get over it.
Gettin a hair cut is such a great way to express anger, isn't it?
I don't think I'm going to get the job in U.S. Federal Court that I applied for though. Somehow I don't think I'll make the cut after I interview. ;-) Oh well, I don't really need it any way......
I wish I could just FEEL better. Give me SOMEthing to make me feel better!
A HA! It's a widely used term. The normie. I saw in Scouts comment to links that she was waiting for JW to use her magic and make her a normie.
Hey guys...if you want, go say "hi" to a newcomer to the blog world...this woman posted a guest blog on my site a few months ago, and now she's got a site of her own. I told her to come check us out over here, but maybe you all can say hello, too...
It's Mother To An Addict...and she's using Wordpress...I don't know if we have some kind of Blogger-only policy....
Hah. Nerd jokes are funny.
Quoted from http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2007/08/08/EDS9RET9T2.DTL:
SAN FRANCISCO doesn't want syringes in its sandboxes - or anywhere else in public. But that's not to say a clean-needle giveaway program should end. It just needs to be managed more sensibly.
The city hands out, no questions asked, an enormous number of needles, more than 2 million per year at last count. The reason: the city has an estimated 25,000 injection drug users. Among this crowd, shared needles can pass along hepatitis and HIV, but clean syringes will cut down on infection. It's a real-world accommodation to the drug abuse that exists.
This humane and well-intended program has run for years, but it has reached the breaking point as far as public trust. Why? Because dirty needles show up in public places where users congregate and toss them away.
They're on sidewalks, lawns, in alleys and doorways. Intended to minimize risk, the needles can do just the opposite, if a tainted one jabs a passerby accidentally. This risk is hard to measure because there are no firm numbers on accidental infections from dirty needles.
But the tossed-out syringes come with symbolic value. What kind of city allows its population to freely dump such potentially deadly waste on the civic lap? Parents, pedestrians, visitors - just about anyone - must wonder what sort of geniuses run City Hall when they step over one on the ground. Right now, the program amounts to a giveaway with no requirement or provisions for returning the needles or disposing of them safely. If users won't take responsibility, then the city needs to step in.
It's past time to clean up a program that the public has generally supported. Several steps are worth trying though not all may work.
First, users need to return the needles for safe disposal. More clinics are needed to handle this task though no neighborhood wants such activity. Metal carry kits can allow users to store used syringes until they can be returned.
Also, homeless workers and park clean-up crews should be equipped with disposal boxes. The city should strongly consider the higher cost of retractable needles that can minimize the danger of accidental jabs - though users prefer the customary design. It's a sad commentary on San Francisco's politics that we even have to say that public safety must take priority over the addicts' preferences.
It's time to tighten up this program before it leads to a loss of innocent life.
This past Friday I had found out that someone I had been good friends with in school had past away at the age of 31.
There was a lot of mystery surrounding this death and everyone had their opinions. We had all seen our friend out at the local bars from time to time. He was about 40-50 pounds heavier than he was in school, sometimes looking for a ride, sometimes looking for money, always annihilated...and always by himself.
Right away everyone made the assumption that he drank/drugged himself to death. The comment was then made by someone..."well, he brought it on himself". See this is what gets me. Yes, if he did drink/drug himself to the point of death, it obviously was brought on by himself but can't these people understand that there was obviously some underlying factors?
Would his death become less upsetting if he caused his own death with drinking and drugging? I don't feel that way but I have a tendency to be able to empathize with about any situation that a person can be in. Obviously when he was younger he didn't dream that one day he would grow up to become a drug addict...things happen.
After attending the wake we then found out that yes, he did have a drug and alcohol problem for many years. He had recently checked into a rehab for this problem. He made it through the treatment and was out on his own. He then suffered a fatal heart attack. All of the tox screens came up negative. He was clean but his body couldn't handle the stress of that.
This is one of those situations where if you let yourself get carried away with the shoulda, woulda, coulda's... you would be in trouble.
I do wish that I had dealt with my own addiction earlier on so that when I did see him I didn't judge him as harshly as I did. I wish I was more understanding of what he was going through. But what I do feel good about is my reaction to his death when it was thought that he died as an active addict.
I didn't hold that against him saying he deserved what he got. Instead I felt awful for his mother and brothers, I thought about how glad I am to not be actively using drugs any longer so that the threat of me dying from drugs has been eliminated and my family never has to deal with that. Mostly I thought about how great it was to have gotten to know him before all of his drug problems. I knew the real person...not the addiction.
OK, so how ironic is it that I was posting about boundaries when Scout commented that she assumes it's ok to link to me since she saw I had already linked to her? Was I supposed to ask permission first? If so, I apologize to each of you who post here, b/c I added a link for each of your blogs onto mine today. I'll take them off if I wasn't supposed to do that. Please let me know if it's ok or not ok with each of you. And here's my blanket ok for any Write Thought author to add me if you want to.
All this talk about staying and going and choosing has made me go back to the time when I had my first big breakthrough with Nar-Anon. I came home one night from a meeting, and I was in the tub, which is the site of many if my best realizations...it came to me that no matter which path I took with my husband, what I needed to do was focus on me.
The work that I was doing in Nar-Anon...the things that I was learning...these were the things that I needed to stick it out with my husband or to be able to leave. To learn to accept that his addiction is not my problem was critical. Never since that night have I thought, "But if I leave him, what will he do?" I stayed with my first husband for far too long because of thinking these kinds of thoughts...wondering what would happen to him if I left and thinking of how sad he'd be.
He was sad. It was hard. But he's FINE.
And if I leave this man, he'll be fine, too.
And learning that his mess is not my problem was important for me to be able to stay. I'm still working on it, but I'm getting better. A few nights ago, he was making a list of goals for himself. When he is doing something like that, he usually wants me to sit next to him an feed goals to him. Generally, I'm all too eager to comply, to give him my insight and wisdom and answers (hah), and then, he wakes up the next day, and he doesn't want to do any of the stuff on the list, and I get my heart broken. So most recently, I said, "I don't think it's a good idea for me to help you. Why don't you just come up with a few small goals that you know you can accomplish and that you know will make you feel good?"
And of course, he's only done a few of the things on the list...and that's ok, because it's not my list.
It took me a while to remember that not everyone has that urge to get an A+ on every assignment. If I make a list of goals, I'll do them, all, and do them to perfection. I'm a nerd like that...but that's another post.
So I'm rambling...but I guess what I'm trying to say is that I found it really empowering when I recognized that no matter which path I choose with my husband, what I needed was to focus on myself, making myself strong and happy.
I think the unhealthy aspect of addiction and codependency is how it demands that people dealing with it not act in their own best interest and that they ignore their own desires. It is whether or not we are maintaining our own health and paying attention to the fulfillment of our desires that is the pertinent question as opposed to whether one stays or leaves. The answer to that becomes academic if we are taking care of ourselves. Because if one is healthy and fulfilled, they are stronger and more tolerant and more apt to make decisions that will be best for both themselves and those they love.
The other point I want to make is I truly believe that this talk of sickness is not the answer. Instead, talk of health and fulfillment... talk of the solution would be a better focus. We do need to be aware of the problem but we must remember to give the majority of our attention to the remedy, to what we want and to what is best. Otherwise we will continue to define the problem more and the solution less.
My husband is a doofus.
I was getting dressed for my meeting yesterday, which (subsequently) I somehow managed to be too late to make. My man was on the couch, and he was so handsome and silly, and I kept sitting down next to him and kissing him, and it made me late...
But all day, I was talking about how we'd go to the meeting together. See, he told me that he wants to start going to meetings, but that he's going to have to say that he's going to go and then not go and make me cry fifty or sixty more times before he actually makes it to one and starts really being ready to go. I decided to make yesterday be #1 in the times when we'd do that little dance of madness.
So I'm getting dressed, and saying, "I'm so glad you're coming with me to the meeting tonight! It's like a dream come true! You're such an angel prince baby husband pie from heaven!" And he would say, "Yes! I am! Let's buy me things! Please make lunch for me!"
We did it all day. It was awesome. You should have been there.
So finally, I'm about to walk out the door with 5 minutes to get to the meeting that is 25 minutes across town (I ended up just going to buy groceries and run some errands instead), and he says that he doesn't want to go because he looks too bad. He said he's too ugly to go to meetings...and he wasn't playing. He meant it that he thinks he's too ugly to go to meetings.
I wanted to cry, or slap him, or shake him. First, he's fucking gorgeous...a gorgeous, gorgeous, beautiful man. And second, last time I checked, you don't have to be in a fantastic place to start going to fucking Narcotics Anonymous. It's not like it's for folks at the top of their game, especially when you're just starting out. He said, "I look so bad, and I don't have a job. I want to start going when I look better and feel better and I'm working so I won't feel like such a fuck-up."
Isn't that the saddest thing?
The End.
The questions and the answers of the last week have really stirred me. I want to own the positives of why I stay- the love, the committment. I have to own the rest of it too, here more than anywhere, and that is MY addiction, my addiction to my addict. Somehow, it's the addiction piece that keeps bubbling up first, and that's what's troubling to me.
I started my recovery in Codependents Anonymous, about a decade before I even met my addict. Each week, I heard the characteristics of a codependent. One is that we are extremely loyal, remaining in situations that are harmful for far too long. I heard Mantra share that for a moment, the pain of staying was greater than the pain of leaving. I was in that place, in a moment that startled even me, back in March. My addict was making choices about our family that I couldn't live with. She saw how it was affecting me. She back-pedalled. But the damage was done. At the time, I felt so stuck, that I had no decent options. The pain of staying was overwhelming, but so was the pain of going.
Damn, it's 6 months later, and we're in such a good place right now, but just writing about this brings me right back there. It's not healed. It's buried. And this is NOT where I was going with this post. But I guess it is. I am addicted to my addict. Like any addiction, it starts as a great ride. But what used to bring pleasure begins to bring pain. And it's my addiction that kept me here in the midst of the worst of the pain. When I'm honest with myself, it wasn't the love, it wasn't the commitment, it was the addiction that kept me here through the worst of it. I couldn't stop, even when it hurt.
You know, this stuff is so messy. Sometimes I wish I were addicted to a specific substance, and one that is not necessary for life. I am a codependent. My addiction is to relationships. And even if I chose to leave this particular relationship, even if I chose to be single forever, I can't choose NOT to be in relationship, period. I'm also a compulsive overeater. And I can't choose NOT to eat at all. So I muddle through with the tools I have found in my programs of recovery- detachment, a plan of eating, working the steps.
But here's what else I find confusing. I'm grateful for my addiction. I'm glad that I was stubborn enough, or loving enough, or commited enough or even most likely sick-addicted enough to make it through the worst part and be in this good place that we're building right now.
I don't know. I'm all over the place. I think I'm just gonna stop this post here and put it out there. Thanks for letting me ramble.
