drugs and alcohol

they are a bitch. they can make you dependent on them and take your personality away. they create monsters that cant be stopped. but they can. love really isnt enough but it definately helps. my husband got addicted to pain meds after back surgery and became someone totally opposite of his true self in the meantime. although he was never violent, he still did things that he knew were wrong but didnt stop. he did them to push me away because he thought he would never be able to get away from the monster he had become. now, writing a bad check on a closed account has him away to come home anywhere between this coming july and january. drugs and alcohol may help in the short run but they are definately not worth your soul, your family, your self. if you choose to drink, please do it for the right reasons, if there are any. dont do it to mask pain thats too hard to deal with sober. all that does is bring you farther into the monster. love can conquer it. the addicts love of himself. now if we could just get him out of there and back home. the monster is gone and my love is back inside. please let him come home now.

its been a while

so havent written in a while. things did turn for the worse shortly after my last post and he went away last august. politics are holding him back from coming home next month. this state is shit. they dont realize that their decisions to wait to make a decision until after the election are hurting peoples lives, families of those who are inside, not just those that are there. our next would-be gov doesnt care. he absolutely hates inmates and their families. thinks we dont vote too, or that we just dont matter. we have a petition going around and have about 3000 signatures, now we just have to wait until the lazy congress decides to come back from their summer vacation, even though the state is still left without a budget and hundreds of teachers are being layed off. the most vulnerable people in our state, children, the poor, the disabled, they are the ones that are suffering right now, not the damn politicians. makes sense, right...hold inmates for 6mos longer that they have the past 30+ years spending approx 5mil extra on their housing while we have teachers and human services screwed with no jobs or money to keep them afloat. well, its an election year so dont expect anything that could be looked upon as even remotely detrimental being done. someone has to make the tough decisions regardless if they will be here in jan. personally, i would vote for someone that made those hard, unpopular decisions when they were needed instead of waiting and waiting and pretending that everything will work itself out. politicians of il...get off your asses and get this state back on track! NOW, not in sept when you feel like coming back to work. and if you do come in for more sessions during the summer, you shouldnt get paid. no one in the private sector would get paid overtime to do work they were supposed to have done already months before. figure it out and stop using this damn election to hold our loved ones captive any longer than you already have them.

NORMALCY

it has been about a little over a week and things are already feeling back to normal. it seems our family is back to a regular, loving family. without all the extra stress and fighting that had become our norm for so long. we are in this together and it really seems that way now. both of us are doing what we need to make ourselves and our family better and stronger. all that drama is just about over. no need to be worried or anxious every day. we are normal again!!!!!!!!! :)

IT IS DONE!!!!!!!!!!!!

We can finally say that all of the crap we have been worrying about for the past few months is now coming to an end. He will stay home with us and stay in the program he is currently in. Everything we asked for!! Thanks to all who have prayed through now. **sigh of relief**

finding the silver lining

so, yesterday a pretty stressful event happened (being vague on purpose) and it was handled pretty well as compared to what would have happened a couple of months ago. things worked themselves out (or are very shortly) somewhat but that's not really the silver lining that i am talking about. this one thing has caused us to deal with some stuff that we have been putting off for too long. this event will put us in a much better position than we were before. and, i was able to see that shortly before finding out it would work itself out. i am proud of myself and the fact that i could see the good even out of the bad. perhaps this is a turning point for me? time will only tell.

By the way...HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME! I am now 30. :)

the enormous change

from the last time i wrote, things have made a dramatic turn for the better. i noticed signs within him that showed he was in a mental relapse, regardless if he had used or not. he didnt see it at first but when he did, it was the moment of clarity he needed. he finally realized that the little work he was doing just wasnt enough to really make a difference and that he needed to give his all to his recovery. he needed to stop the con game he has been playing for so many years. he realized that he is really loved by both his wife and daughter. for some reason, he didnt know that before. now we are working together to make things better for the whole family and are extremely happy about it all. we feel like we did back in the day.

correction to 11/3 post

well, things are looking MUCH better now. we decided to not take the deal and to simply leave it up to the judge to decide his sentence. it seems to be paying off. he will likely only get probation, not 6 mos away. hopefully everything can be pushed until after the holidays. so far, so good. keep praying if you can and thanks for everything you all have done so far.

6 months

Well, found out he will be gone for 6mos. I can't describe the pain of it. the injustice of it. we will survive it though. i love him so very much and will stick with him through it. there is a light at the end of the tunnel, its just a bit farther off than we thought. i think i may stop this blog and start something more healthy. thank you to everyone who prayed. i guess that it wasnt God's will for anything else to happen. it just doesnt make things any easier to deal with.

more drama

so, more drama to deal with again, courtesy the court system and probation. at this point, i am EXTREMELY upset about what is going on and find things to be quite unfair. but, probation isnt meant to be fair. i believe him when he says he did not use, no matter what the test says because he has never been this adamant about it. he has always been honest with treatment even more than with me but he also has never lied when he was outright asked what was the truth. i am so tired of what probation and court decide to do with him since we seem to have the harshest punishments than anyone else that is still in the program. i just wish they would make up their minds and give him actual sanctions with real time frames, like they do with everyone else. thats one of the hardest things, the unknown. the rest is the absence from his daughter and what it does to her. she gets so excited and happy when he is home and this time it was for 2 nights. i just dont understand what they are trying to do. i sincerely hope the retest comes back negative as he says it should as he did not use. then, we will see what they will do. the other thing is that we cannot do anythign about 2 other important matters that will need our attention during the next week as he will be going to court again for them. i just wish that we could get to a place that he can start to do well. that he can start to be complemented at their weekly meeting instead of always being put down or sanctioned. i wish that i didnt need to write this down, especially here but i just need an outlet. i have been driving myself crazy all day. i woke up at 5am unable to fall back to sleep because my mind was racing. what they are doing is going to cause even more problems and start the ball rolling down a steep hill. i pray that things will begin to work in our favor. that life will start to normalize. that he can be home and stay home. and find a job so i dont have to do this all myself. i want this to work so very bad. please pray to whomever you do to help our family. we are in dire need of a small miracle at this point. hopefully the next time i write will have some good news. as i have said before, i dont know how much more i can take. i am determined to stick with him through this, though. i will not abandon him in his time of need. please pray that things get better soon. i may have to get a 2nd job but that would also mean that i would have to find daycare for the evenings too. my life is undescribably difficult. and, to top it all off, my great uncle, my grandpa munchalfen's brother passed away and his funeral was today. they wouldnt even let him come with me to the funeral. i pray that i can be more optimistic but it really is difficult with everything thats going on. wish me luck and pray for our family. thanks. :(

non-profit penny-pinching

so i found out today what my raise will be that will include both my annual (have been here for a year now) as well as an actual promotion. i have to say that i am VERY ANGRY!!! i have been working my butt off with this job, doing things that are not part of my job description, in the hopes that after about a year of that i would be compensated accordingly. not a chance!! now i got my yearly raise and even though i had gotten promoted was not going to get anything monetary to show that. so, they gave me a whopping $500 extra. no, not per month but for the entire year. i was told the raise would be about 10x that amount more per year but nope. on top of that, i am still an hourly employee. some of you may think that's good because overtime is possible but let me tell you... overtime has to be approved in advance or will not be paid and it doesnt usually get approved. along with that, it is now mandatory that all hourly employees take at least a 30 min unpaid break during the day. for those of you who don't know, i pretty much work through any and all breaks so that i can get out of here earlier to be with my family. no i have to start being here for an additional 30 minutes each day unpaid when i really dont want to. this all may seem petty to some but it really bothers me a lot. the little things are those that show you if you are really truly valued by the company you work for. this shows me that although my direct bosses value my work, the organization does not. i wish it was as easy to find a new job as it was 5 years ago but i literally have been applying for the past year because the entire time i have felt that i was not being compensated properly and havent gotten many interviews even. this economy is crazy as it is forcing people to stay in their current positions that at times dont even pay the bills. i have a freaking bachelors degree for christ sake!! i am still even after my "raise and promotion" making more than $15k less than i was before i even had gotten my degree. thanks for letting me vent. i hope i can find a better paying job.

a weight is lifted

he is in residential counseling starting today for the next 2-3wks. thank God!!!!! A lot of the things that i have been worried about have been resolved. Just a couple more to go and then i can not worry at all. Thanks to everyone who has prayed. Please keep praying for our family. We have passed a couple of hurdles, just a couple more to go.

depressed and anxious

things have not been all that great for the past week or so with the news that we received last week and the possibilities it includes. Sorry, don't really want to get into the exact details or really even some of them but need to get the feelings out of me. I know I'm a strong person, I am a great mom but this new stuff is really weighing me down. I am in a deep depression and have been having trouble breathing because of the anxiety for the past few days. I love my husband and do not want to be without him, for any period of time. I have loved him for as long as I can remember. I know he loves me and that he adores our daughter. I also know that he is going to do whatever he can (with my help) to get out of this new problem (at least to the extent that he is facing now). I don't want him to miss out on any more of Joli's life. She misses him a lot when he isn't home. This past week has been difficult for her and for the both of us too. Anyone who reads this, please pray for my family. I don't care if you believe in prayer or not. At least keep us in your thoughts, hoping that things will work out the way they should. No one should be punished as much as they want to for the small thing that was done, especially since he is getting the help he needs and is trying to fix his life. He was given a chance to change and I hope this blip doesnt take that away. Again, sorry for being so cryptic and not including much real detail. If you know what this pertains to then you understand.

getting back to good

things are getting back to the way they were when he got out of treatment. it was all part of the relapse and we have figured out what we both need to do differently in order to avoid it again. he apologized for the comments he made (see previous posting) and said they were only said because he was in full relapse. it is extremely common (9/10) for people to relapse in the 30 days after leaving treatment although we were of course hoping he would be the 1 who didnt. as for the money issue, things were able to be worked out with the landlord and so that part is fine. he is now unable to have more than $20 at a time for now since it seems larger sums of money are a problem for him.

so, what are we changing? well, he has classes to attend M-Th 530-730 (thurs 6-8) and so we were having trouble getting dinner cooked and eaten before he would have to leave. apparently this was bothering him quite a bit as he felt less part of the family because of it. so, i am now getting off work at 4pm so that we can eat together as a family before he goes to his classes. we also eat breakfast every morning together before i go to work. he is also opening up more about his feelings and when he needs to talk he does. this is a big issue for him as he often holds things in until there is no more room for anything else. he is also attending meetings at least 5x/wk and is getting a sponsor. he wants me to try to come to his court on thurs at 430 and with the way my schedule is now (getting off at 4) i will be able to do this. we are sharing responsibilities for the house so that neither one of us is doing everything alone and so that we dont always have to do the things we hate. when he is able to start working (in the process of working on that again) we will adjust so that it is more balanced since we will both be working then. i am going to attempt to start going to my own meetings once a week if time permits so that i can better understand what he is going through. lastly, we are not going to talk about having another kid until he reaches phase 2 of the program. we had thought things were going well enough but perhaps that was just too much stress.

all of these things seem pretty small to change in order to avoid disaster. we are working on it and i think we will be stronger in the long run.

Another set-back

After being all excited about finding a job and all, found out that he was told on his day he was supposed to start that he cannot work there. corporate said they cannot allow him to be hired because of his background. so we're back to square 1 with the job and will continue to be in the hole with money.

he also relapsed and used our rent money for it. don't know what we're going to do to pay rent when we have only $100 left for almost 2 wks (just got paid too). i am told that the stress of our relationship was what caused the relapse. i had made a hard effort to not be so pushy since hes been back. i dont know what else i could have done differently. i have to start going to my own meetings because i am not going to be able to go through more of this alone. i hope things can get "fixed" and back to the way they were when he got out because i dont know how much more disappointment i can handle.

Major accomplishment!!

I wanted to be sure and let everyone know that my husband had a job interview today and is on his way to take a drug test (will definately be negative with everything else that's going on, read earlier posts). He has been offered a full-time job at Dick's sporting goods as a cashier for the day shift!! He should be starting work next week, now all we have to do is find out what to do with the baby for a couple weeks until he starts getting paychecks. YAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! We will finally be able to crawl out of our money hole!! :)

Rough month finally over

Well, we had a rough month with balancing work and time with the baby but it is finally done! He is home and doing very well. He has learned a whole lot of great things that probably would have taken months had he not gone inpatient. The schedule of when to get off work, cook dinner and spend a bit of time together during the week is a bit challenging right now but we're working on it. We are both very hopeful that this is the end of all that crap. We are both working on our communication with each other and learning how to fight fair, something we unfortunately never learned growing up. We have officially turned to corner on this and although it may be difficult along the way, we are ready and willing to give our best to make sobriety work for the whole family. Will write more later.

Recovery update

sorry i havent had the time to update this as often as i wanted but i felt like it is important to all of those few who read this and know whats going on. i have to say that the inpatient treatment was EXACTLY what he needed. he is 1000x better than he was before going in and i think this is a great start to the rest of our life. he is still wanting to come home but also understands why he is there and that he should get the most out of it so that when he is discharged he can function as a relatively normal adult and parent. that is not to say that this is the end of the road. i'm sure there will be bumps along the way but this has been a very life changing experience for both of us. with me, i realized that i have lost sight of who i was with all of this and that i had some issues that i needed to deal with individually. i can say that i am coming along. i am now more aware of my looks and take the time to do my hair and makeup before going to work or out. i have done quite a bit of cleaning in the house and plan to have the entire basement unpacked before he gets home. not sure if thats going to happen, though, since he could be home as early as the end of this week. also, found a 9-drawer dresser in great condition for $25 at a garage sale this weekend so i have to repaint that to match our bedroom furniture. all of that along with being home for the maintenance people to fix our water problem and back and forth to the inlaws to pick up/drop off the baby will definately make me a busy person. all of the "free time" has been helpful to get things done that havent really been touched since we moved in so once thats done there will be a lot less to do and the place will look like what i wanted finally. back to him...i visit almost every day for an hour and each visit gets better and better. the person i married is back and here to stay. the asshole is out of him and i am EXTREMELY happy about that. we are both happier even though we are apart (and that's not why we are happy) and i think i can see the end to all of this crazy bad luck that we have had for the past 2 solid years. we are trying to make new friends and on my end it has been a little slow. i have been talking more with coworkers but thats as far as it has gotten at this point. i think if i had more time i could be farther with that but first things first. i want the house to be a sanctuary for both of us to let go of all the stress throughout the day instead of the place to harbor it. i am on the way to that and will continue to do so. my whole life i have been pretty pessimistic about things but i am becoming more optimistic now. i am thinking about going back to school for my masters when we can afford it. well, gotta go for now. quote for the day: the way to true happiness is paved with sadness and disappointment because you would never know true happiness without first knowing sorrow. by: me :)

Hard road to recovery

He is still in treatment and will be for almost a complete month. It seems to get harder and harder each day for him because he wants to be home more than anything. It isn't like he wouldn't do the program when he's out. I know though that this is what he needs. If he could just get over the feeling that it's unfair and that he is being mistreated he could have a pretty big breakthrough. When you are dedicated to recovery 24hrs a day its a lot more condusive to actual healing since there are no distractions. The problem is that he creates them. He is shutting down because he is falling into depression again and they will not give him his medication to help it. I don't understand that but feel like this is the way they do things for a reason. They are the professionals and know what works and what doesn't. If witholding psychiatric medication is what they do, then that's what has to be accepted. I am having trouble making him understand that. I am not doing things against his wishes because I don't care. It's because I don't want to stand in his way of recovery. I want him to be better and I realize that I had a part in why the last time he tried to get help didn't work. I will not do that again. I hope he realizes that I am only doing this to help. Right now I'm a little bleak on my outlook and am pretty lazy when it comes to doing things around the house. I thought that I could take this time with Joli at his parents for the few days she is to clean the house and get it to where I think it should be but that is going much slower than I expected. I think its because I work 10hr days and then visit for another hour. By the time I get home I am just too exhausted to even look at the dishes that have been washed and just need to be put away, the 1 load of laundry that I have been putting off that is soon to become 2, the numerous boxes of "junk" in the basement that have never been unpacked due to both laziness and not really having anywhere to put them. I did, though, get Joli's room, the hallway and the stairs vaccumned last night and I put the dishes away this morning before work. I think that tonight I'm going out so another day that I can't get anything done. Oh well, I guess that's just how it will be. Anyways, I have to cheer up or I just won't get through this. It is really making me depressed to be without both of them. I am alone with the cats. It is giving me some time to work on my issues myself but I feel like that's all I have been doing with the little free time I have had.

Inpatient treatment

He is in treatment now. Went in this past Monday and will not be out until the end of next month. I go visit every day and talk to him on the phone numerous times. He is right in the building next to mine (and I work for the same company that he is getting treated by). He told me something on Saturday that really hit me hard. He started opening up and said that when he gained a daughter he felt like he lost a wife. I took that day to think about things and actually finally talked to my mom whom I have been sheltering from all of this because it was easier for me than to deal with the added stress of her advice. I think that was part of why I was so angry with him. Because I felt like he made me lie to her. So, on the car ride home I felt so much lighter so much better about things. Then I got home to a drunk in the midst of a fight with the neighbor. Some pretty bad things happened that night and then he passed out on the couch. I cleaned up part of the mess and went to bed. The next day we were trying to spend time together before he was to go in to treatment and got into another fight. He left to calm down and the idiot neighbor seemed that he still wanted to start something. I confronted him when he was swinging numchucks at my car and it frightened me more than I have ever known before. All day it seemed the neighbor was gathering a mob to jump him right outside our door. I was scared to leave the house. We tried to watch a movie and ignore it and it seemed to die down thankfully. I was still scared to be at the house by myself and that has also passed.

My first visit was Monday at 6pm. It was typical of our reactions and we fought about letting him leave and come home as he didn't think that he needed it. I stood my ground, not letting him talk me into letting him come home because after what happened the weekend before I knew that he needed it and I really need time away from him to get back to where I should be mentally. He called about 1/2 hr after I left to apologize. Tuesday's visit was MUCH better. He was only there for about 2 days and I finally saw HIM. I hadn't seen the true him in so long that I wasn't sure that he existed anymore. That is why I wanted to leave. As I told him, I hated the person he became before. Seeing his true self starting to come back with me made me even more upset that he was there to begin with. Not angry but sad that he couldn't come home. I had made the conscious decision that he needed someone to stay for the long haul if he was to get better. He has had abandonment issues the same as I have and it was time that we both stuck. I love him more today than I have for the past couple of years or so. I think I treated him the way I had because I wasn't with "him" but with his negative side that had pushed him down into himself. That was the person I was angry with. I can see now that person no longer exists. He has been defeated and the true self is here to stay. I forgive him for all that he has done and all that we have had to go through for the past few years. I am optimistic for once that this is the changing point that will get back to where we should be already. I love him more than I can ever say. I feel like we were always supposed to be together but the timing had to be right. That is not saying that my relationships with other people in the meantime were any less. I have loved others in different ways throughout the years. And I know that I can say for certain that I ended up with who I should be with.

I know you're reading

So, I haven't been posting anything for almost a month because my computer's monitor doesn't work and I really don't like doing this at work but I feel like I have to since I now know that people are reading this. First, I want to say that I have researched and pryed the truth out and that little girl was not really his. He did not come into her life until she was 2 but he felt like she was his daughter. She even called him daddy for a time. The girl left because their relationship went sour. So, the last post I wrote was not entirely accurate. I thought it was at the time but it had been told to me in a drunken stupor.

Back to other things. I now know that a few people who were involved in what happened in high school have read this and know how I feel. It may not make any sense to them but this wasn't the first or the last time that anyone left me. I have been abandoned by most people I have cared about for a long time and so this particular time took the little self esteem that I had and crushed it like a morter and pestle. My father left when I was about 16 years old officially but had really never been there for me to begin with. He was too busy with his own life and his own problems that there wasn't a place for me. Add to that I am not a boy. All he ever wanted was a son and that is clear to me with the way that his is even now. When I was in 7th grade we were supposed to write journal entries for english class which only the teacher read. I'm not sure what this was supposed to do but I know what it did do. I thought I had a confidant with my teacher and told her the crap that my "friends" at the time were doing to me. One started a huge rumor (can't remember what it was now) and it caused all of those who were my previous friends to stop talking to me and/or start treating me badly. The teacher read an entry and then took the girl who started it aside to tell them not to do that anymore but it just made things even worse. So, when I had started high school and had made friends in youth group I felt like I had overcome that. I felt like I fit in, like I belonged. Just for years later they all left too. I have wondered what was so wrong with me that people just don't want to stick around. I do understand what the ex-boyfriend's motives were. No one wants to be around someone that they cared about who hurt them as much as I did. I apologize for that. I don't think I needed to be punished with that extreme measure, though. Because of what happened in high school I decided that I had to leave the area so that I would have no chance of seeing any of them again for a long time. That is why I went to NIU and didn't stay at JJC for 2 years to save money. While I was there I joined what basically amounted to a youth group for college-aged people. I made some friends there and thought again that I had found a place to fit in. I even became Service VP for a year and had the opportunity to be in charge of all the service projects done by the membership of approx 60. There were some issues within the organization and so me and my friends quit after jr year. They were still around though for the most part. I'm not sure what changed that but then one left and the other was there off and on depending if I had a boyfriend at the time or not. I almost moved to AZ with her but changed my mind at the last second due to being scared of moving so far away from everyone I knew. I visited a few times and things seemed ok but then asked her to be part of my wedding. She agreed and then a couple of months later I got a nasty email stating that she would not be in the wedding, would not come, and did not agree with it at all. That was the end of that. All throughout college I did have my one friend who stuck by me through all of the high school crap and that's because the same thing happened to her. Although, she really didn't come around much or really even call. So I felt alone again. I lost all ability to communicate with people on a personal level. I have an insecurity about people leaving because so many have that I don't want to put out the energy for it to happen again. That is my story of abandonment. I am trying to work these out but it has been a long road and still has a long way to go.