Hi and thanks for reading this. My husband that I love and adore has been suffering from an addiction to prescription pain killers for several years now. I have dealt with a lot of hurt and distrust from him but I have stayed by his side. The vows were until death do us part not until one of us messes up afterall. Now that he has been sober for 4 months and is coming home I find myself scared to death! Ive been on my own all this time with our three children and our home has been peaceful and free of the torment of addiction. I do not want to go back to living the way we did before. I want to trust my husband. My problem is I dont know how. I feel as if I want to take away his phone, his computer access, his car, his entire freedom. Then I think, if I take all of this away how will I ever be able to trust him if I dont give him a chance?? I do not want him to feel defeated but I want him to know that although he has begun the process of recovery from his addiction our relationship is still unstable. I have not been able to heal. Please give me any advice you have. Thank you in advance and may God bless you.
Hi Chrissy and Welcome! I am an addict named Mike and also have a 25 year old .also just back from Rehab ,for a probation violation,on methadone maintenance for Heroin addiction since he was 17.I am an active member of 3 fellowships AA/NA and Nar-Anon.The last program only requirement for membership is a problem of addiction with a friend or family member.There are many tools you can learn to be able to "detach with love" ,learn to not enable,understand that trust has to be earned and that you can't live walking on eggshells.We do not give advice, we suggest what has or hasn't worked for us through our ESH(experience ,strength and hope) I could only suggest you find a Nar-Anon MEETING IN YOUR AREA(CAN gOOGLE Nar-Anon.com) and stop by to meet people just like you.Co-dependancy issues will keep us sicker than the addict if we don't learn to let go to the best of our abilities,working spiritual principles and know regardless of what we do ,the person has to reach the ultimate stage of emotional acceptance and utter defeat in their own addiction and take steps to move forward ,keeping that illness arrested a day at a time.You see we do recover from a seemingly hopeless state of body and mind based on a fit spiritual condition,a daily reprieve as such,guided by a Higher Power in our lives and applying spiritual principles in all areas of our lives..I can truly Identify and have been on the ride for many years,progressing a day at a time not in perfection but by knowledge,application and faith. Keep coming back let us know how your doing!! Many here on this blessed forum willing to reach out and help ,thats what we do "we keep what we have by giving it back>Hope to hear from you again..I wish you peace on your journey.Take a step that can put you on a path to a 'NEW WAY OF LIFE"........
MIKE F
Hello Chrissy!
I like what Mike said. Go to meetings. You will find out what other families are going through and get some support for yourself. The healing process is going to involve the whole family and it is going to take time. You will need patience and a list of phone numbers you can obtain at a meeting to call people. You don't have to do this by yourself. He will need time to accept himself before he can even begin to make amends to you.
Keep coming back!
Ann
Thank you both very much. I will try to make it to a meeting. Many people have told me to do this but with three small children and a full time job it is difficult. When you say "detach from love" what does that mean? How can I detach my love for him? I do detach it from the addiction. I have made him leave my home, and even had him put in jail for stealing my parents medication. I loved him still but I am not willing to tolerate the behavior associated with the addiction. When he agreed to go into a rehab I told him if he completed it and his counselors thought he had given it his all he could come home. I hope I have been doing the right things.
Good morning. The suggestions I have read here make sense and most of all have to work for you and your situation. If you cannot "go" to meetings keep up what you started here, that is what it is for. There are also professionals that work "online" so there are plenty of options. Learn as much as you can about addiction, the process and recovery. It does not happen overnight. He cam the is way, so get prepared for reality. Look for consistency to rebuild trust.
Hey Chrissy! You may have misread what i had suggested,it is "detach with love" not from love..We love theses folks so much we don't realize how we are not helping...Detaching with love is allowing you husband to find his way.not enabling him and "you finding " your strength and the tools to know how to detach so your not living on the merry go round..it is not an easy concept but when like we say you realize you didn't cause whats going on with your husband and you also can't cure it, and you can't control it.sounds like cute sayings but they are words of wisdom from our predecessors,you will then realize that all you can do is t take care of yourself.Again we want to do so much that we don't allow the other persons healing process to begin.,their owner ship of taking personal responsibility in life gets stiffild cause we are always doing it for them..Again meeting and discussing with others just like you in a therapeutic meeting ,one helping another,can really be helpful. I only speak from my own experience ,strength and hope from both sides of the fence..We had to put our son on the street in the worst condition possible,strung out ,stealing everything in site to support his habit,110 pounds and ready to die and if we continued to enable him I truly believe things could have been for the worse. I also have personal faith beliefs that were conflicting with booth my wife and I )It was the hardest thing we ever had to do,I love my son more than life itself but we were not allowing him to find his own way...This is not meant to be a depressing ,hopeless scenario,in fact just the opposite,we can share hope and a message of love by taking care of ourselves in our own Higher Powers grace and mercy and pray others will find their way.It is such a thin line between support and enabling,but you can learn about that like the addict has to learn about their addiction.It is difficult with children and work etc.but when the pain outweighs the pleasure we reach out. In support and prayer ,I truly can identify! we do what we do in our own way and in our own time.let your Higher Power guide you along the way and reach out to others who are living in similar situations..Let us know okay!!! peace
I have been around tis recovery stuff quite awhiole and take great pleasure in reading the Experience-Strength-Hope that abounds here. So manyhave been down this road, raods like it and raods wwwaaayyy worse. It will eventually come down to fear as much as pain. When these two areas of our lives converge, all hell breaks loos e for change.
If you cannot get out, use this forum daily. It will bnever take the palce of live fekllowship meetings but will be better than doing it alone. That is totally no fun at all!
Hi Chrissy and welcome ot the site. I can't say enough about Alanon. Go to a meeting if you can. Those people have walked in your shoes and can help you gather the necessary tools to not only help you deal with his recovery but it will make his recovery better at home. It won't be easy. Life isn't, but it can work. I'm living proof of that. And you're right in that trust is a big issue. It really took about 4 yrs of sobriety for my husband to admit that he trusted me to do my best to stay sober. I finally got him to understand that I couldn't make a promise not to pick up a bottle, because even the best ones can relapse. So hang in there with him and if you can get to a meeting do so. Even an open AA meeting will help you. An alanon meeting will help him as well. Good luck to you both.
today is the next step in the journey......paw
Hi Chrissy10. Love never fails, take note of that. The two of you went through the hard tests of times. As Dr J said, it does not happen overnight. You will not expect a sudden change in your husband's life...it is a continuous process that requires trust and reality check. I happened to read helpful articles here at sober.com. You may check this link: http://www.sober.com/addiction.html.
If along the way you still have many questions, please feel free to post here since we, the members of this forum are always ready to strengthen each other.