Becoming free from an Addict

Living With An Addict - Part 1

Living With An Addict - Part 2

Living With An Addict - Part 3

Along with picking up items from my house and speaking to the landlord, I had many other things to do in order to protect myself, my kids and our future.

I was extremely overwhelmed with the amount of stuff needed to be taken care of and I had a melt down.

I called my mom from the side of the road, crying my eyes out . She calmed me down and asked me to tell her everything that needed to be done today. I gave her the list and afterwards she asked me where I was. I told her and she then gave me two things to get done. She told me after I was done with those two things I was to call her back and she would tell me the next two things to do.

It was amazing.

She put things in order of importance and location and by the end of the day I was complete. I KNOW I would have not made it through that day without my moms assistance.

I was lucky. I had a support group. I know there are many people out there who do not have a support group. They do not have someone who will be there in a moments notice to haul away there things and get them to a safe place. But it is still possible. I know there are many safe havens out there, many places to turn to and people WILL believe you, even when YOU don’t believe yourself any more.

I left my ex-husband the week of Halloween 2002.

Halloween was a hard day for me... Thanksgiving was even harder. I will never forget that day. I went to his families huge Thanksgiving dinner which was held at a church... I don’t even think I ate.

I cried a lot.

By the way, he was not there. He refused to come. He thought everyone would judge him. It was heart wrenching for myself, for my kids and for his family. He was a good person. We all knew it. We all wanted back the man he was without the drugs.

It was a painful and sad day, but we got through it.

Christmas came next.

By then he was being more civil. I had found a place to move into a week after I had left him. It was a 3 bedroom duplex that had become my safe haven. It was my place to heal. He asked if he could stay the night on Christmas Eve. I let him... it was hard and he did sleep on the couch and I did let myself trust him again long enough to have him be a part of the kids Christmas morning.

In the morning we played roles... I pretended my heart was not breaking and he did everything he could not to cry. We played with the kids and helped them open their gifts. It was a magical morning with heart ache in the air.

He only stayed for a little while. I can’t remember if we went to his sisters for brunch or not, but I do know he left some time that day and did not come back.

We were both in a lot of pain. He was “trying” to get clean on his own and I was “trying” to not let my love for him get in the way of my need to heal. I can not explain the grief I felt that day, but it was overwhelming and unforgettable.

My ex did a lot of bad things when he was on drugs. He got thrown in jail for many things... one of the times he asked me to come pick him up after he served his time. I told him I would bring a paper to sign. If he did not agree to my terms, I would not pick him up. I gave the paper to the guard and he gave it to my ex to sign.

The agreement was... He would not ask to come back to my place. He would immediately go up to a detox center in the city and he would check himself in. After the 10 days of detox he would check himself into a rehab and he would get himself clean.

He would not ask to come home until I was ready.

He would not ask to come home at all. He would wait until I asked him.

He signed this agreement. We got in the car and I drove him to get his clothes and then we drove straight up to the detox center. I dropped him off and then I left.

He called me every day.

On the 9th day he called and said he had been released. I told him there was no way. I had set everything up. They had told me he had to be there 10 days in order to be detoxed. I called the center up and they confirmed my fears. He had come up dirty in a drug test and had been kicked out.

When he called again I told him I was done. I was not coming up there to pick him up and he was not coming back to my house.

He then called his mom and I know this was extremely hard for her to do, but she did the same thing. He was now on his own.

Some how he got rides down from the city and then called his grandma and she picked him up. She brought him a blanket and took him to the rehab center near the jail. She dropped him off and he checked in.

I was proud of him for taking the initiative and finally realizing he had pushed us all too far. I agreed to go to some AA meetings down at the rehab. Everything seemed to be on the right track until about 12 days into it.

He called me up and told me his counselor wanted to speak to me. I drove down to the rehab and in his office the counselor and my ex bombarded me with all the reasons I should let him come home. They said he would still come to rehab but he would not “need” to stay there full-time.

I told him that was a bunch off BS. I knew him better than anyone and I knew he deserved to be in-house rehab. They continued to tell me how I was wrong and they were right and eventually they wore me down.

I was still weak. I had not found my strength or my voice and they used that to their advantage. I was NOT ready for him to come home. But I agreed anyway.

He came back to my place and the next 6 weeks were stressful, but very happy at the same time. He was my husband again, the man I had married, the man who had sworn his life to me.

For those 6 weeks I felt protected and happy again.

That’s why when it ended it was even that much harder on me. I came home from work one day and I knew before he even spoke... he had used. I could feel my heart breaking all over again. I demanded he take a pee test (the rehab had given me a few). He refused at first, but eventually took it and raced into our bedroom. I noticed he had some clear liquid in it before he went into the bathroom. He would not let me see and when I looked away for a split second I saw him spill it onto the floor. I walked over to where he was standing and sure enough the floor was turning a yellow color (the carpet was green).

He had put bleach into it.  I asked him to leave.  I took his key from him before he left and that was it.  I was back to square one.  A little bit stronger, but still broken.

Life got crazy after that.

I never saw my ex. He would not come around. His parents did not see him either. He had become lost.

I cried every day and night. I was so worried about him. I did not want to get the call of him being dead.


My daugter caught me on quite a few occasions sitting on the kitchen floor crying my eyes out. It was hard.

He had been seen with a girl from the rehab. Her name was Kimmy.

I hated her.

I hated him for being with her.

One time I decided to call his voicemail and listen to his messages. I had to know what was going on. Lo and behold, there was a message from her. The message was at 1 in the morning... She wanted to know where he was and she missed him and could not wait until he came back.

It was like a knife cut through my heart and then cut again and again and again. I cried all night long. I had lost him. There was no chance anymore.

The moment that ended everything happened in May 2003.

He broke into my house and left my side door barely hanging on the top hinge. He stole my $1000 camera. As soon as I drove into my carport and saw the door hanging open, I knew who had done it and what he had been after.

He already pawned off our bikes, our two lawn mowers, tools and various other things. I called him up and he said I would have to take care of it. I asked him to bring back the camera, but he told me he did not have it.

I called my dad and told him what happened.  He came up to my house and was there with me when the police got there.  They told me they could not do anything because we were still married.  He had the RIGHT to break into my house because we were still married.

One of my neighbors nailed the door shut with some boards and the next day my dad paid for someone to come put in a steel door with a large peep hole. I can not thank my parents enough. They did not desert me when I needed them the most. They did not lecture me and they did not say anything bad about my ex. All they did was give me what I needed and made sure I was taken care of.

My ex had failed at taking care of us, so my parents took it upon themselves to be there as my rock.

He got arrested that night and his dad and I found his truck on the side of the road where he got arrested. We looked through it and I found the pawn shop receipt for my camera. We also found needles... it was hard to see that. His dad found some tools that he had been missing.

It was hard on both of us...

I filed for divorce.

During that time my ex had to go to court for credit card fraud. He was sentenced to 90 days in jail and mandatory drug rehab afterwards.

During his jail time we got all the paper work done. When I went into our bank to have all the papers notarized the lady who knew both my husband and I, looked at me and said, It’s about time. They knew what he had been doing. They had many encounters with him and they had known a lot of what I had to put up with.

She was happy to sign those papers.

The day could not come fast enough.

I needed to be free.

I DESERVED to be free.

I did not want him to be my “problem” any more. I hate to say it that way, but that is exactly how I felt. I loved him so much, but he had worn me down and I deserved to heal without worrying about his life any more.

The day the divorce became final I felt like a weight had been lifted off of my shoulders.

It was over.

Now to go back to those six weeks where he was clean... my ex told me everything at that point. At least everything I could remember to ask him or he could remember to tell me.

He admitted to doing meth before we were even married. He said he had only done it a few times, but he had definitely been doing drugs even longer than I had thought.

He had started in his first marriage when his employer had gotten him to do Oxycontin with her. He was hooked and that was why they got a divorce and why he lost the rights to his two children.

He said he did do drugs a lot at our old house, but he had not started shooting up with heroin until later into the second year of our marriage.

He admitted to smoking the cocaine in our duplex and to doing meth inside the shed.

He also admitted to all the needles our landlord found buried in the yard.

He admitted to loosening a wire on our car so it would not start the day of our daughters dance concert. He did it because he did not want to go. He wanted to go get high instead.

He admitted to having drugs in his pocket the day he kicked me and the day I caught him in the shed.

He admitted to putting white out on my phone so I could not call him.

He told me I WAS NOT crazy and that I had been right all along.

While he was in jail, I asked him about Kimmy and he admitted to hanging out with her, but nothing else. He said he had been using her. To this day I do not believe him, but it does not matter any more. It is what it is and I have moved on with my life.

I wrote him a letter in jail that I probably should not have.

I told him that I did not want him to move back in with me. I told him I did not love him like a husband any more. I told him I was done completely. I told him I needed time away from him... a long time away from him. I told him he could not pressure me any more and that I need time to heal. I told him he needed to respect that time and if time did heal my wounds, maybe then we could talk about remarriage. I told him to not expect it for at least a year AFTER he got out of jail.

I said a lot in this letter and a lot of it was blunt and hurtful. I did not know any other way then to do it that way. Every time I sugar coated how I felt he was able to talk me back into doing things his way. I could not do that any more.

I had to let him go and he HAD to let me go.

When he read the letter, the jail had to put him on suicide watch. It killed me to find that out, but I had to tell him straight. It was my time to heal. He had already taken so much of my heart and soul...

I had nothing else to give him. His mom was very angry for what I did and I do not blame her. I would be very mad as well, but I hope she knows I did not do it to hurt him.

I did it to heal me.

So our marriage ended and my ex got out of jail early for good behavior and regardless of what I said in the letter he still attempted to get back into my life immediately.

I stood my ground and I lied through my teeth... I told him I did not love him any more.

At this point I had no other options. He would NOT stop. He was so self-absorbed he could not see that this was my time. I cried when he left that day, but it was one of the last times I cried over our marriage and life together.

I finally got my time to heal...

So... I have more to say. I will post one or two more posts on this long story!

I want everyone to know what kind of person he was when he was NOT on drugs. I want everyone to know what happened to my life. I want everyone to know how his life turned out.

Please come back soon to hear the next phase of our lives... apart. And if you get a chance become a follower.

Love and light to everyone!