I should not day dream about taking the kids and moving far away and not telling him where I am.

I should not consider moving out of the apartment that I pay for, simply because it’s the only way to not live with him anymore.

I should not even think that killing myself is an option of getting out of this marriage.  No, I’m not REALLY going to ever do anything like that- but the fact that it crosses my mind tells me that this is bad.

I truly cannot stand this life.  That man just sucks out all the joy and I just want him out.

Good morning Xanax, nice to have you back.

I know that this break is good for us. I know that treatment is helping him. He’ll be coming back in a few weeks- that’s the plan.  He says he will be ready but I don’t know if I am.

I don’t know how I feel about it. For years I pushed a lot of my feelings down. Buried them and just dealt with life at hand.  In regards to my dealing DIRECTLY with my husband, I kept my mouth shut- a LOT. Some arguments are not worth having at the time. Sometimes he was too out of it for me to discuss it, and by the time he came around, the anger was mostly gone and I was just happy to ‘see him’ again. Over the years, I have been told that he and I could not effective work on our marriage until his underlying issues were dealt with. So I waited. and waited. And now, it’s 10 years later. He seems to be working out a lot of his issues. That is great. However, I have issues of my own- LOTS of them. I have so much anger, it’s hard to even talk about it.

I decided to keep busy this afternoon.  I’m just in a weird place.  I’m frustrated and it’s starting to affect everything.  My friendships are suffering because I just can’t talk to anyone and when I try- I almost immediately regret it.  Not because my friends are insensitive, because they are not.  My friends are great.

Last week at work one of my friends/ co-workers asked how things were going and I made a brief comment on how I’m feeling about things with J.  It always sparks the “you should” or “do this” or “why don’t you”.  I know that she was trying to be helpful and a friend.  However, at no point did I ever say those words.  In regards to J you almost never hear:

What should I do?
or
What would you do?

The reason is simple.  Nobody can tell me what to do.  Nobody can tell me how to feel.  Being married to an addict, using or not… it does something to you.  It changes things about you.  That’s why they have whole support groups for it.  My sense of responsibility can only be matched with the fact that at one time, I truly feel that he is the love of my life and I will never EVER love someone the same way.  Good or bad- it’s just a fact.

If I thought that we could make it work- I might try.  If I believed he was seriously making changes… well, I guess time will tell- but do I want to wait around to find out?  Do I want to sit around and let him hurt me… again??  I’m simply not sure I can take that chance.  Each time it makes me want to die a little more.  On the other hand, lets assume that he IS getting better.  Lets assume that treatment has given him perspective and he’s finally ready to grow up- am I going to sit around let him take my wrath?  Is it fair for me to be the angel of perpetual revenge??

Regardless, truth and logic does not make any of this easier. I’m so angry that it spills over into everything.  I’m impatient and irritable.  Detached from my friends, my family and everything else.  I’m depressed- and that’s no good excuse, but it’s the only one I got.

I don’t want to deal with any of this.  What am I feeling?  I’m feeling everything.  Everything that I’ve stuffed down for all these years.  It’s all right here now.  I don’t know what to do with it- but I know that I can’t be told how to deal with it either.

Process.  I just have to process it all.  He’s going to come home to a sick wife.  He’s going to have to deal with me, the Angel of Perpetual Revenge.  The Resentment Queen.  I am worried that I’m going to be the worst thing that could happen to his sobriety.  I’ve been in enough program to know that he’ll never get well as long as I’m around punishing him.

I love him.  I know this.  I still love him, I never stopped loving him.  I just don’t know that I will ever forgive him.  I know I will never forgive myself if I give him another chance and he hurts me again.  I’m just not sure I can recover from it one more time.

It didn’t happen like that.  The doctor called him out on his overuse of pills.  It was as if the doctor had a camera in my house and knew exactly what he was doing, filling scripts from other doctors- overusing and going through withdrawals.  Basically doing all he could to self distruct.   He told him that if he didn’t want help, he should just let everyone know and go away to die.  If he DOES want help, he should shut up and take the help that is offered to him.

He has 30 days to get into a rehab center- and the doc gave me instructions on what kind to find for him.  Until then, I am the deputy of his pills.  Every day I give him a days worth of pills.  At first he looked at me when the doc wasn’t looking and said, “We’re NOT doing that.”

I said we were.

He said “two days…”  and I said ‘maybe.’

I could already feel myself caving.  When we got in the car, he was just trying to bully me- so I said “No-we’re gonna do this every day- and if you WANT the script filled at all- this is the way we’re gonna do it.”  He accused me of taking pleasure from this.

There’s J- always being the victim.  Acting as if this was not his own fault.  I gave him a sharp glare and said, “I’d really rather you just move out- but since THAT isn’t happening, then we are going to do this my way!” 

I understand that he hates not being ‘in control’.  But what is it he has control of anyway??  He’s spinning so fast, if you listen closely, you can HEAR it.  It’s madness and it has to stop.  I was so happy though- selfishly happy for myself, that I didn’t have to be the one to give him the ultimatum.  If he doesn’t comply with the doctors, then his doctor is going to drop him as a patient.  Part of me hoped that this would happen, but I guess in the grand scheme- this is better.  I would like to see him get sober.  I’d like to see him be functional again.  This is his chance to do it. 

Last night I kept the kids home instead of sending them to my moms.  I figured if my oldest was home, it would avoid me having to talk to J.  I needed the safety of distraction.  I just know a huge fight is coming.  Late last night he gave me his empty bottle of pills and said, “you should give me the new ones now cause I take them thru the night!”

I thought about it- but remembered that I gave him a whole days worth of pills at noon.  It was just 11PM.  He had gone through 24 hours worth in 12 hours.  Typical.  I went to bed shortly after, ignoring his request.  I hid the bottle close to my bed in a place that he couldn’t get to without waking me.  He came back to bed and asked if I gave him his pills.  I said no.

He said “Well I take them at night!”

I reminded him that I gave him pills 12 hours ago.  I asked if he took them all?  Of course he said no.  The man couldn’t tell the truth if he was on fire!!  I said, You don’t need them- you can have them in the morning.

“Why can’t you give them to me now?”

I told him because he isn’t supposed to get them until morning.  He started to bitch but I cut him off.  It was dark and my back was turned, I felt somewhat strong knowing that I was merely following the doctors orders and it was allowing me to spite him a little bit.  “If you don’t like it, you can fuck off.  It’s not my fault you took all your pills in 12 hours.”

“I DIDN’T!” he yelled at me.

“Well, then I guess you’re fine for 5 and a half hours.”

I didn’t speak anymore, and I went to bed smiling to myself. 

I’m proud of myself that I didn’t cave and give him his pills that night.  I thought about it- but then if just gets sooner and sooner and he never has to have any consequences.  He simply has to figure this out.  Follow directions.  Take two pills every 6 hours, or take one pill ever three hours.  Whatever.  Either way- he has to figure it out.  Learn a little discipline.

I have to learn to.  I have to learn not to let him bully me.   Not to be afraid of being ‘the bad guy’.  It doesn’t matter what I do, he’s mad at me all the time anyway.  I know that if I had been stronger, it would not have lasted this long.  If I wasn’t the classic enabler- perhaps he would never have taken advantage of me for so long.  It’s time I stop that, even if it makes him hate me.  I think I feel a little stronger, because I know that his alternative is get out and go away.  Even though he may not like it, this is the better of his options.  Left to his own devices, he’ll lose his doctor, get sicker, and he out of the house with nothing at all.  I know, climb on a cross right?

Well, there’s no easy way out of this.  It took us a long time to create this nightmare.  You can just wake up with a splash of water.

I remember one day I was leaving for work, he was nursing a hangover (by drinking more) and I stopped before I walked out the door.  I turned back and faced him, “You’re pathetic- you know that?  You are a pathetic excuse for a man.”  and I left.

I felt horrible all day long.

My logical mind knew that he was not trying to hurt me.  I knew that he was hurting.  I accepted early on that his alcoholism was a disease and not a choice- but I hated him for being so weak.  I hated him for being unable to keep his promises.  I hated him for putting me through this shame and some days I really don’t know how to deal.

I try not to be a hateful person.  I try not to be openly hurtful, even though I know that some people would not blame me for it.  I would blame me for it.  As a general rule, I try NOT to judge people and I try to understand that everyone comes with their own set of instructions in a language that nobody else can read.  If I understood what was going on in my husbands head, I guess that would make me an alcoholic too.

Realizing that I can’t change him, and can only control my own actions never helped me as much as it should have.  I don’t think that I made good decisions.  I am a classic enabler, due to my own guilt and co-dependency.  I acknowledge that.  I don’t ask for advice regarding my husband because I know what I’m emotionally capable of.

I have learned to keep my mouth shut most of the time.  It doesn’t make me FEEL better to be hurtful or mean.  It doesn’t fix or change anything, nor does it help me make good decisions.  I’ve been very quietly lately, because what I really WANT to say is, “I just don’t want to do this anymore.”

I was miserable.  I had been called into the office by my boss, who had been asked “what’s wrong with her?”  I just cried in his office.  I didn’t tell him why.  I just cried.  I said I couldn’t talk about it.  He asked if I’m being abused.  I said no.  He asked if I was in trouble with the law.  No.  He asked if he could help.  No.

With that, he suggested that I take some time off.  No.

God No, I can’t stay at home.

So I tried to put on a face at work.  I tried to do what those Al-Anon meetings I had rejoined told me to do.  Be where my feet are.  At work, focus on work.  So please, don’t make me go home.

I started having allergies.  I had this daily rash on my hands on my sides.  It was unbearable.  I was on Benadryl all the time, and I couldn’t figure out what I was allergic to.  My doctor wanted to do the tests, but I didn’t have time for that.  I used to take a Claritin in the morning because I would wake up and immediately start sneezing and a Benadryl in the afternoon to take care of the rash.  I always felt like I had a cold.  If I sat still for too long at my desk, I would start to doze off.  I wasn’t well. I was having chest pains.

We still had a decent sex life then, which always made me hopeful that perhaps he wasn’t drunk that night.  What he would do though is drink enough to ward off the shakes, we’d have sex, I’d fall asleep and then he’d finish off the bottle.  He tried to hide it- and I tried to ignore it.  Al Anon said to detach.  I chose simply not to confront on most days.

Back then, my son spent more time with his dad, every other weekend and overnight on wednesdays.  He was at my moms when I was in class.  I didn’t ask J to babysit very often.  I used to lie and say that he worked late.  On weekends when his daughter came over, I did all I could to complete some sort of normalcy for them.

By July of 2000 it was unbearable.  He was always starting to have his hangovers during the day.  The only thing that would control the shakes, was more alcohol.  He was starting to have pain.  Lots of pain, that he would control with more vodka.  I saw my doctor and told him about what was going on at home.  That I needed something to help me.  That I needed something for the chest pains.  He gave me an EKG, and  more Claritin and sent me on my way because I didn’t want to hear any of this LESS medical advice.  He was an my doctor as a teenager, my moms doctor, my dad’s doctor.  He was a friend of my family, and I trusted him but he didn’t understand, right?  However, he asked me just before he left the room, the question that made me start to really acknowledge what this was doing to me.

“What time do you break out in those rashes?  Just before you come home from work?”

We drank some I think, right?

I don’t remember how it started, but I remember standing in the bedroom.  Face to face, toe to toe.  Screaming at him.

“You promised me!”

He did.  And he was doing  it again, telling me he wasn’t drinking- he wasn’t drunk.  But that voice, that slurr, that undeniable tone… he was, wasn’t he?

This is the way it would be, for the next decade.  Me being sure, but still allowing myself to doubt- whether he was or wasn’t drinking or loaded on something.  Over the years it changed from naturally assuming he wasn’t, and having those nagging doubts- to naturally assuming he WAS, and then having some guilt about ‘what if he’s not’.

But looking back, I remember this as the first moment.  The moment when I thought to myself:

Oh God.  What have I done?

It was the start of my decline- sometimes I’m not sure if I ever hit my bottom, or if I’m still on the way down.  You just can’t be sure when you are always on a roller coaster.  I know now though- that I should have been braver, that June day when I found all those bottles.  To avoid being the embarassement of calling off the wedding, which would have lasted about two weeks maybe- I have spend the past 10 years being… this.

This woman who people feel sorry for, but still say, ‘she made her own bed’.

I did.  I don’t blame anyone but myself.  I want to say I BLAME my husband, but I don’t.  I resent him.  Some days it’s all I can do to not answer every question he asks me with, “I want my life back.”  Some days I just sit and silently hope he will ask me what’s wrong.  Or say to me, “Are you happy?”  or even ask me “So where were you REALLY tonight?”  just so I can free myself.  But I do blame myself.  I enabled him into this hole.  Sometimes I feel like he’s trapped me, but I know in many ways, I trapped him.

I take care of him, making him unable to care for himself, and then I resent him for being unable to care for himself.

THAT, my friends, is what co-dependency truly is.

I used to be afraid of him getting sober.  I used to think, oh my god, if he doesn’t need me anymore- then what good an I?  Some days, I wonder if my whole, “I can’t leave him because he can’t care for himself” is just ME, climbing onto my wooden cross and sarcifing myself for all his sins.  I know right, I deserve a medal?  No- not really.  I did this to myself.  Don’t ever confuse bravery with fear of moving forward.  I say that a lot.  But it’s true.  Change is hard for me.

All I wanted was to change him.

Here’s how it went.  When he got in the shower in the morning, I would get up and search the house.  I’d look, quickly in his drawers, his briefcase, under the bed, his art table.  All the usual places.  I would take a mental inventory of what bottles I found, how much was in them etc.  Then I would get back in to bed.

When he was done in the shower I would get in the shower.  I would search the house before I left for work.  I’d also search the house when I got home from work, if I could.  Taking mental note of any changes.  Did I say anything?

No.

But I knew!!  So when he said, “No I’m not drinking.” I would know he was lying.  What good did this do me?  Really none.  But I felt like knowing meant something.  KNOWING meant that he wasn’t fooling me.  Of course nothing was changing, except now I had ammunition.  I had resentment because he was lying to me.  He thought he was so smart- like I didn’t know what was going on.  I knew.  I knew everything.  I watching him like a hawk.  I watched every dime he spent.  Paid attention to how long he was gone, how late he would come home.  How many times he got up to go to the bathroom.  How much liquid was in his glass.

He would have a mostly empty glass of sode, then he’d go to the bathroom and then it’d be almost full- and WAY lighter.  I’d eyeball him, sometimes ask him what he was drinking.  He’d look me in the face and lie.  He’d swear that it wasn’t alcohol.

Once, he even said HERE taste it!!  He was stone ass drunk and denying it to me so much that he handed me his drink to prove his point.  Of course it was vodka with a SPLASH of soda.  I almost choked on it.  I remember saying to him, “THIS IS ALCOHOL!” (as if I had any doubts)

His response?  “No, it’s diet.  You don’t like diet that is why it tastes funny.”

I remember looking at him- thinking, “Are you fucking kidding me??  Do I really look that stupid?”

He continued that diet soda just tasted bitter and it’s kinda watered down so it’s gonna taste bad, but it’s NOT alcohol- would he HAND it to me if was alcohol?  “It’s not, baby.  I’m not drinking.  I swear.”

I didn’t believe it, but I for the moment I chose to.  I chose to end the conversation.  It was him against me and it was a losing battle.

You are.

I’m not.

You are.

I’m not.

You ARE.

I’m NOT!!

and we stand there- facing each other, until someone back down.

“Maybe you’re right.” and I walk away- shamed and angry.

It’s a disease.  It’s a family disease.  For as much as I didn’t WANT to admit that it was affecting me, it did.  For years I ignored what I knew, because I was incapable of making a decision of what I was going to DO about it.  So if I’m not going to do anything, what is the point of the argument?

This was often my reason for turning my head to what I knew.  This was often my thought process.  If I pretended I didn’t know- then I didn’t have to do anything about it.

And here I am- almost 10 years later, and I still keep this pattern.  I still turn my head to what I know.  I still pretend not to know because that way I don’t have to do anything about it.  Leaving will not solve all of my problems.

Yes, it will solve a LOT of them- but not all of them.

I know what you’re thinking- well, ok I don’t know.  I hate when people say that to me, so I won’t say it to you.  I know what I’m thinking.  I’m thinking that I have been a coward for all this time.  That everyone thinks I’m so strong and so brave- but I’m not.

You should never mistake fear of making a decision, with bravery.  I am not brave.

I’m terrified.  I’ve been scared for so long I don’t even know what I’m afraid of anymore.  I’m just used to it.

We who live, or have lived, with the problem of alcoholism understand as perhaps few others can. We, too, were lonely and frustrated but in Al-Anon we discover that no situation is really hopeless and that it is possible for us to find contentment and even happiness, whether the alcoholic is still drinking or not.

My first Alanon meeting was on Friday night close to my house. I cried the entire time. I was ashamed to be there and I wanted to know. How could I fix this? Was it my fault?

The first thing I heard was that I could not change him. I left thinking two things: 1) WATCH ME and 2) I am never going back to one of those meetings again.

This was the beginning of my love/hate relationship with Al-Anon.
In some ways, it saved me. I had dark days. Days that getting up, lighting candles and reading my literature, praying was the only thing I could do to get through the day. I’m not going to get too far in to it, but I had a Ala-nazi sponsor for a short time. She messed me up. I went without a sponsor for most of the next 5-7 years that I went in and out of the program. I went to the meetings, sporadically- on and off for years. Searching for a safe place, but never really finding it.

Program is a great thing. Al-Anon can be great for some people. It’s hard for me to say bad things about it- because there were days that it saved me. There were days that I knew if I didn’t get to a meeting, I was going to hurt myself. I was going to get into the car and drive and drive and never come back.

That first meeting- I don’t know what I expected.  I thought I was going to learn how to fix him.  I thought I was going to be given the magic key to solve his drinking problem before it was too late.  (As if it wasn’t already too late). When I didn’t get that- I went back to J.  “Well, those Al-Anon people are ridiculous.  Now what?”

He had promised me he would quit.  He loved me.  We were getting married.

I’ll quit, I promise.

I know he meant it.  I know he wanted to.  What I didn’t know was that my husband was an alcoholic.  I didn’t know that he couldn’t stop.  I didn’t know that no matter how much he wanted to NOT take that drink, he simply could not make that decision.  He was already too far gone, but I just didn’t know it yet.

Three weeks later we got married and I truly believed that it would be ok.  He promised me right?  He loved me.  And he said he’d quit.  It’s hard to admit that.  It’s hard to admit that he said he’d quit and I said, “ok- its all ok.”  What did I know??  Well, I didn’t know anything.  I didn’t know that alcoholism is a disease.  I didn’t know that you can’t just decide to stop.  I didn’t know that will power is really NOT enough for most people.  I didn’t know that what I was dealing with was years of self-medicating to hide emotional pain and mental illness that he would never share with me, but that I would eventually figure out.

One week after the wedding, he got drunk.  I remember standing in our bedroom screaming at him.  Asking him, demanding to know WHY he got drunk?  WHY? was the question I would ask him for at least a year.  I wanted to know why?

There was never an answer that made sense.  There was never a reason.

–

There’s a story I like to tell about the scorpion who hitches a ride on a turtles back to get across a stream.  Just as they get to the edge, the scorpion stings the turtle and then climbs ashore.  As the turtle, paralized begins to drown- it asks, “Why did you sting me when I helped you?”

The scorpion answers, “Because I’m a scorpion.”

It was five years ago today that I got the call.  The day after Thanksgiving.  Three days before my scheduled C-section for my last child.  The months before had been stressful.  I knew he was using and I knew it was bad.  The savings account had been emptied.  Things were missing.  Yes, it was all going right down hill and here I was, trying to have a baby.

Since the mid Octobers talk about him getting his shit together, his behavior was normal.  He seemed the most sober I had ever seen him in five years, but something wasn’t right.  The slightest oddity dug into my brain and nagged at me.  Why did it take so long to get the mail?  Why was he ALWAYS in the bathroom.  Why are there these burned q-tips in the trash can?

In my distorted effort of detachment, I did my best to ignore it.  Acknowledging that something was happening meant I had to DO something about it.  No, I was having a baby.  I had a 15 month old at home.  and an 8 year old.  I could not deal with whatever he was doing because I was having a god damn baby.  I realize that it was stupid to think that I could ignore his using and call it detachment, but it had worked for me so far.  Sort of.  My husband could not have a drug problem because I was having a baby.  Period.

Until I got the call.  It was my dad.  He was concerned and confused- was I ok?  Was I in trouble?  Where was J.

J had left the house an hour ago.  He was going to his sisters. We are fine why?

You know, I can’t do the dialogue.  I can’t even REMEMBER the fucking dialogue.  All I remember were emotions and word.

Checks missing.  Forgery.  The check cashing place had called my dad to confirm a check written to my husband for $800.  Normally it would not be an issue, except he cashed one yesterday for $300.

I was confused.  Didn’t I say that was my natural state back then.  Confused.  Wait- was he saying that my husband stole and forged checks from them, from my PARENTS?    Yes, that is what he said.  He went to the check cashing place.  He saw the video.

The Video.

And honey, there’s jewelry missing.

–

I called J on the phone.  I was hysterical.  I demanded to know what was going on.  I was hysterical.  I was cramping.  I was terrified.  What in the holy fucking hell was going on?  I felt like I was living my worst nightmare. I have spent many wondering what I would have done if I got the call when J was in the house. What would I have done and said had he been in front of me when I found out. Maybe I was lucky that he wasn’t.

Don’t come home, I told J. Don’t ever come to this house again.

The realization came over me like a cold knife into my pregnant stomach.  My husband had been stealing, not just from me, but from my parents.  MY PARENTS. to pay for his crack.  Stealing from me, from us, was acceptable, because nobody had to know.  I could lie to myself, and not tell anyone- and then I didn’t have to face the music.  Who was it hurting?  Nobody knew what was REALLY happening in my house.  Nobody knew how many times I had to get my camera out of pawn.  Or how I lied to my son and told him that I lost his gameboy, when I knew exactly where it was and that J had stolen it.  Nobody knew what J was doing.  I didn’t tell anyone.  I told some people, some things.  But nobody knew everything.  Saying it out loud meant I had to do something about it.  What was I going to do?  What was I willing to do??  The truth was.  Nothing.

It was the first time, but not the last, that I truly wanted to die.  That I understood just WHY desperate people kill their families before taking their own lives.  I understood feeling so much shame that you want the world to swallow you up, silently, in hopes that nobody knows you were ever there.

Right now, thinking back- I want to throw up. Even now, five years later- I still silently blame myself.

I remember when I found them all.  We had been dating for almost two years, we had been living together for about two months.  The past few months had been strange.  J was working, but his behavior was odd.  I saw it.  I denied it, but I saw it.

He came home from work, it was close to 5PM he was a little late.  He looked and seemed fine.  But within 30 minutes, he was hammered drunk.  He could barely stand up straight.  He was stumbling and falling over.  I wasn’t sure what was going on, but he said he was tired.

Tired.

I knew better, but I know that I denied it in my head.  Why?  I have no idea. He stumbled around the house, slurring, and knocking things over.  My son was home.  I ushered him to his room to watch TV and shut his bedroom door.  God, he was 5.

I tried to help, I made him some food.  I made him some beef stew.  He fell asleep in it.  Literally, fell asleep with his face in the soup.  Really- this isn’t horrifying me yet.  I remember being annoyed, and confused.  Confused??  What in the world was I confused about.  My fiance is stinking drunk at 5:30 in the afternoon.  He must have drank it in the car before he came inside.  I still have this picture in my mind, of him drinking so much in so little time.

“How much did you drink?” I asked him, wiping his face off, sitting him back in the chair, giving him some water.  Watching him spill it all over the place.

“Ooooh, it’s ok- it’s ok.  I’ll get it.”  Always helpful me.

Just a little airplane bottle, he said.

An airplane bottle.  Really??  Why did I believe this.  I think I believed it.  It’s laughable now.  I turned to get another paper towel and when I turned around he was gone.  He had gotten up and stumbled to the bedroom and was face down on the bed.  Passed out.

I stood confused.

This was my natural state of being at this time.  Confused.  I didn’t know what was going on.  The behavior was odd.  Yes, I hear myself.  I described it as odd, because I was unfamiliar with it.  I’m not used to being around drunk people.  Not drunk like that.  Not UGLY drunk.

So I started looking around the house.  His art desk was in the corner of the living room and there was a tall thin box where he kept his art paper and canvases.  I looked there first.  I heard the glass when I tilted the box.  I reached in the box…

this is where the nightmare begins.

Bottle after bottle after bottle.  Vodka.  The full size bottles, what is that- 750ML, 3 cups?  The smaller ones, liters.  One after another.  Then there was his portfolios, more of the liter bottles.  His briefcase.  More.

It was surreal.  I went numb and kept looking.  It seemed like no matter where I looked, there was an empty bottle.  Under the bathroom sink?  Even more.  Tucked into every corner I found more.  Jesus.  How was this possible.  He’d only lived with me for two months.  He possibly couldn’t have drank this much alcohol in such a short time, could he?

Well of COURSE he could.  Who the hell ELSE was drinking it.  I don’t even like vodka.

I took the bottles and covered the kitchen sink and the counter with them.  There was probably 50 of them, at least.  Seriously. I wish I was making this up.

Two months.

I stared at them for a long time.  I wasn’t sure what to do now.  I called a friend, who I had been talking to about the weird behavior.  I told her what was had happened, what I was looking at.  I don’t remember the conversation, but I can bet money she said something like, “Now do you think he has a problem?”

I didn’t know.  I really didn’t know what to think.  At that moment, I didn’t believe it was hopeless.

Looking back, I can pinpoint this as the moment I should have walked away.  The wedding was 5 weeks away.  I could have avoided it all.

In the upcoming months and years, everything would melt away.  All that I thought I knew about love, commitment, marriage, and friendship would be tested, and replaced with life in this disease.  I was about to approach the lowest of my lows.  I was about to sell my very soul and lose absolutely everything I ever thought I knew about myself to addiction.  To HIS addiction.

His addiction that would eventually become mine.