Let’s start with I love you. I am not angry at you. I forgive you, and one day, I hope that you embrace your own Recovery and begin living that life that you were made to live.
Moving on..
I am an ethical human and believe that ethics are standards by which ALL people who have a heartbeat absolutely deserve, and addicts are no exception. They (we) are 100% worthy of love, respect, health-care, and chances to choose Recovery as many times as we may need.
But as a wife, mother, blogger, friend, person in long-term recovery, person learning not to enable or be codependent:
Don’t call me, I’ll call you.
When you call it disrupts my rainbowy, calm, peaceful, yet-imperfect life God has so graciously allowed me to build here. It makes me anxious and I end up worrying for the duration of any and all remaining daylight hours.
I ponder, I pace. I examine and re-examine your tones and linguistic patterns seeking signs of sobriety, and am always pissed when there aren’t any.
When you call past 10 pm central time here in the states, I know one of these things are happening. You need something. You need a ride, bail, money, food, somewhere warm to sleep, someone to blabber to, or someone to rage at. Oh’ wait. I forgot the one where you tell me stories that aren’t real. Completely made-up, fabricated, fictitious, stories. (On repeat.)
Not me. No no no.
I’ll call you.
Sorry.
Just because you don’t remember it, doesn’t mean that it didn’t really happen.
Because it did. I assure you, it did.
Yes you spit in my face. Yes you have tried to grab my wheel and run us off of the road. Yes you have damaged my things. Yes you have confused me with someone who you thought was a threat and physically attacked me.
It happened. It really, really did.
It’s called accountability. It is necessary for a person to begin stepping out of that box, and into one of personal growth. Believe me. I am an addict who has had to do it.
So again….
Sorry.
You are still responsible for you, even when you aren’t fully aware/conscious.
You are accountable for your actions even if some of them were not sober actions. I do not have to talk to you if I don’t feel emotionally and physically safe. I also invoke my right and privilege to protect my children from your not-so-sober behavior as well.
True story.
Sorry.
Lastly, I just can’t.
It’s just too much.
Sometimes I take a year or so to stay away because I just can’t anymore. I can’t hear it.
Falling into that fire, or getting hit by that car, or flipping the car on the highway, or falling off of that roof, or suffering heart problems, or the shakes, or throwing up blood, getting stabbed, tased, etc.
I can’t. I just can’t.
Sorry.
If you’re a person who is reading this and I’ve struck a nerve..
Sorry.
I spent years my own self-created hell because of my addiction. I have my own stories and experiences that are eerily similar to these.
I am not a hateful, mean, person. I have simply had my fill of being used, abused, and spit on.
I am also always here when needed, (for emergency situations).
Like many other people who have tried to help a family member who is addicted, I have absolutely given rides, found jobs, searched for treatment, given money, bought food, worried, cried and the rest.
But those were the years when I believe to my core that these things were equivalent to love and help.
**For new readers, please remember that this is a personal share and is my own personal therapeutic way of venting and getting through watching someone who I love very, very, much- get sicker and sicker. It is pretty tough, and aggravating. And tough…