Letters

This is the letter I wrote in therapy that my therapist encouraged me to mail to him.

Dear S,

This is not going to be the same kind of letter you wrote me. I don't think you understand how horrible you made me feel. You would come home from work very arrogant, armed with evidence of your co-workers' and family's opinions about me, and you would tell me I was weak. I would beg you not to air our problems at work, and you told me work was your family (and essentially more important because you chose to tell them instead of honoring me). And I guess I was weak, because not only did I let you tell me I was nothing, but I believed you. I honestly felt this was as good as it gets and I didn't deserve more from a partner.

You write you're sorry. That you couldn't tell me the truth because I wouldn't love you anymore. My therapist (who has worked with both of your rehab facilities) says that anything after "I'm sorry, but..." is B.S. According to the 12 Steps, you are not to make excuses, and you are certainly not to place the blame on me. And the thing that gets me is not that you were never honest, it's that you continue to lie.

I know that you didn't "graduate" from Uxxxx. You up and quit. Your father called them and spoke to them. And my therapist says Sx is not related to Uxxxx, so it isn't the next step in the program like you said. You called me from Gxxxx Hospital and never told me you were there for your tooth; I had to find that out from your old counselor, making me look like an idiot. And he confirmed to your family that you never had "the flu/pneumonia," but chest congestion. It makes me think that you haven't learned anything. He already told me you weren't doing the program at the old place.

And when are you going to be really honest with me? You act like drinking a case of beer a day was some big revelation, but when are you going to admit about the CRACK? I know, S. I'm sure there is more I don't know, but I know about the crack. And your family does too. It all makes sense now: the constant muggings, your inability to control your bowel movements (crack is cut with laxatives; I've gotten quite an education since I left), the disappearing money you would accuse me of taking, my money you took, and my things you pawned. Not in the name of alcohol. In the name of crack. Your alcoholism is an excuse and a cover up for your crack use. I know what all those beer cans hidden in the bathroom are really for. And when I think about how long I've been finding those cans, I am physically sickened. You stole my car, smoked crack, defecated your pants and then drove home. It makes me feel disgust, rage and unforgiveness.

The fact that you continue to lie to everyone around you makes me think you congratulate yourself for your deceit. You think you are so smart for being able to cover up your crack use while living with someone as straight-laced as me. I am a good person, S, and I did not deserve to be put through that. I have to live with the fact that I lived with someone for years and never really knew him.

I also don't think you understand the effect your lying has on others. You think all you are doing is protecting yourself, but you also really hurt others. You would tell me the things I believed were not real. That the truth was not real. It made me feel crazy. Because of your chronic lying, I was taught not to trust myself. This is what happens when someone has a feeling and we're told it's wrong or inappropriate. Or when we confront a lie or inconsistency and we're told we're crazy. I lost faith in that deep, important part of myself that senses truth, feels appropriate feelings, and has confidence in my ability to handle life's situations.

I believed what you told me about myself, that I was crazy and wrong. It made me think, "You're okay. You must be because you told me so. So it must be me. There must be something wrong with me." So I abandoned myself.

Do you understand? Your lies made me lose faith in me. One thing I've learned from my own therapy is that I was right in my feelings more often than I gave myself credit. I'm not as wrong as I thought I was.

The one thing that I've wanted to tell you—that I need to tell you—is that your lies and manipulation of me stop now. That's what you were doing when you called me and told me I had to decide in that instant whether I was going to speak to you again. It was emotional blackmail. And I wasn't ignoring you; I was waiting until my next therapy appointment so I would know how to respond in a healthy manner. I don't want to feel wrong anymore. But you had to have a response that moment, and when you didn't get one, you used pressure to intimidate me. That tactic will not work anymore. Unless you can approach me humbly and honestly, I don't want to have any contact with you. Even one more lie. I'm serious. I am done with the lies. And lying is a symptom outside of addiction, S. Just because you're currently sober doesn't mean you are honest. It is a character trait and a personality trait.

I'm doing well. I've learned to trust myself again. I'm standing up for myself. I'm happy. My job is secure and I love my new apartment. The Femme Fatale no longer hides under the bed and acts three years younger. I'm direct. I ask for what I want and I move on if I don't get it. I expect more from people. I'm not wasting any more time. I'm no longer going to let any man treat me the way you did. You hurt me physically, emotionally and mentally.

I gave you everything, S. My heart. My home. I supported you on several occasions after you had gotten fired from Fxxx and Cxxx. I loved you. And you threw it all away for drugs and alcohol. Not only was work more important that me, but so was crack and beer. And Erica. I sat in our apartment and watched you go out with another girl. You've already admitted to me you were trying to start a relationship with her and I am sick of you now trying to deny it. No more.

By the way, I no longer believe you found that gold earring on the floor at work and brought it home. And I no longer believe that cocaine baggie I found in your dopp kit was old. I no longer believe most of what you told me. Like we were going to get married. You had it made taking everything I had to give.

In the two years we were together, you never made a single move towards anything. Not to get your license back. Or to pay your bills. Or for us to have any semblance of a life together. But I believed in you and thought one day you would turn your life around. I believed I was that important to you. But I know better now. My leaving wasn't good enough for you to get help. You had to wait until you were squatting in an empty apartment with no power and no scooter. You were perfectly happy doing what you wanted and living in squalor.

You choked me. You lied to me. You took swings and me and you bloodied my nose with a book. You write you're sorry, but you never acknowledge any detail, instead just providing a blanket apology. A one-size-fits-all fix-it. I deserve better than all of this, S. I know that now too.

Sarah

This is the e-mail I received from him yesterday.

i received your letter the other day and i have to admit i laughed but i guess you expected that. look i did alot of really stupid shit under the influence of alcohol and drugs. the reason i contacted you when i went into treatment was to appolgize for the things i did to you and us. now i realize how you feel and all of the sudden your completely right and i was wrong for everything. yeah when hell freezes over. my therapist has told me you were just as stupid as i was and i have to agree this time. good luck on your life from here on out because you will need it! and FUCK YOU and your family and i hope you don't see any of mine because it won't be pretty, good day you waste of life!

March 18, 2008

Scott has just completed his first 24 hours without any alcohol since I met him. I'm so proud of him.

Goin' down down down

Thursday my intercom buzzed. "Sarah, Scott's on the phone for you." shrilled the receptionist.

"Okay, thanks!"

I picked up the receiver to a broken boyfriend. Apparently he didn't go to work again. He said he was having gastrointestinal problems and he's been throwing up all day. "I need you to take me to see your doctor friend," he whimpered.

My doctor friend is actually the father of a boy I went to high school with who happened to befriend my mother. And because he was alone on Christmas Eve, my mother had him over to eat and go to church with us. He was so grateful that he said I can go see him anytime despite the fact I don't have health insurance.

I checked my watch: 3:00 pm. My boss doesn't let people leave early, but then I thought back to the beginning of the year when I got so sick that I left work without telling anyone. I stumbled in the apartment door crying and found Scott, who was home on his lunch break. He immediately called out to both our jobs and took me to cash in my favor with my doctor friend. He did it for me without hesitation.

I grabbed my purse and coat and told my boss the situation and promised her I'd make up the hours and bring her a doctor's note and left. Scott was sitting on the couch, weepy. "I tried to drink a beer and threw it up," he teared. That's Scott's gauge for being sick--whether or not he can have his beer.

I packed him a nice little vomit bucket and accompanying rag and took him to the doctor. The doctor took Scott's word on his diagnosis and wrote him four prescriptions. And when Scott came home, he drank some more, which upset his stomach some more.

Scott was panicky and I've never really had to take care of someone before. He didn't want to put the beer down; he didn't want my offerings of Pepto and ginger ale and saltines. He's difficult to work with because he fights for control even when he's incapacitated. Finally I picked up his cell phone and thrusted it towards him. "Call your mother," I instructed, "Moms always know what to do."

Only his mother was less than helpful. "He shouldn't be drinking, you know," she lectured me, as if his drinking was my fault. "You shouldn't let him drink. It's probably ripping a hole in his stomach lining which is making him so sick."

"You know how he is," I retorted. "You try telling Scott what to do." Luckily for me she laughed in understanding instead of breathing fire at my insolence.

I met Scott back in the bedroom where he was sprawled across the mattress. "Your mother said to not put anything else in your system, not even water, because you'll just puke it up. Just go to sleep so you won't have to be in pain anymore."

"I need to go to the hospital!" he moaned. I rolled my eyes.

And when Scott got up after napping, he drank two more beers. And he woke up again in the middle of the night to throw them back up.

A note about blog changes

There is a new tag for posts called Al-Anon. Obviously these posts are about Scott's alcoholism and its effects. Al-Anon posts will have the comments turned off entirely. They are not written for the reader; instead they serve as therapy for the writer: an attempt to collect and expel thoughts and emotions while dealing with the disease of a loved one. It is for my well-being, and not your entertainment.

With that said, I can always be contacted through e-mail. Threats and judgments will not be read.

The official Al-Anon website is located here.

Drink, Drank, Drunk

Drunk

I got home from work and was greeted with a sleeping Scott. I wedged myself in the crook in front of his side on the couch and shook him, "Baby, I'm home. Wake up and play with me!" I've got that 2-year-old annoyance thing down.

"We have to talk," he murmured without opening his eyes.

"What?" I asked, the tone of my voice audibly dropping. Inwardly I grimaced, but I knew this was going to be nothing more than an inconvenience. He's used the dreaded expression several times, and they all were in reference not to some horrible grievance of mine, but of something regarding him.

Instead of responding, Scott's body began to shudder. After a closer examination, I saw that he was crying. I softened up, "What's wrong?" And when he didn't respond and cried even harder, "Baby, talk because you're scaring me."

"I have to quit drinking," he finally worked out. "It's not fair that I can't be like everyone else. I can't go to Christmas parties. I can't drink and not get drunk. I'm an alcoholic. And I don't want that. I don't want the stigma that's attached with being one. I preferred NA-"

"What?"

"Narcotics Anonymous."

"Oh."

"I preferred NA to AA because you weren't allowed to talk about drinking in NA."

"Well that's probably why you liked it."

"And they told me. They told me I had to give up alcohol too. They told me this would happen.

"Today, on my day off of work, I drank a 12-pack and I was stumbling around the apartment by myself. That's no way to live," he continued to cry some more. "I'm going to go to AA tomorrow. And I don't want you to leave me."

"Oh!" and I wrapped my arms around his neck. This was probably the least painful thing he could say. I've been waiting and wanting for him to say it. "Whatever you need me to do," I told him, "I'll do it. If you want me to go with you to AA, I will. If you want me to go to Al-Anon, I will. If you need for us not to keep any alcohol in the house, or if you need me to stop drinking too, I'll do it." I tried not to laugh out of happiness.

He wept again, "Why always me? Why can't I be normal?"

"Scott, you throw yourself completely into things. And that's not always a bad thing; sometimes it can be really good, like when you throw yourself into relationships and work. But it also has its drawbacks when it comes to substance abuse. Besides, this isn't entirely your fault. Alcoholism runs on both sides of your family, and pretty predominantly at that," I tried.

"I've been down this path before [with the drugs]," Scott explained. "I already know what's going to happen. And I know how it's going to end. This will kill me if I don't quit. But I'd rather have a life and babies with you. I want to do this for myself, but I want to do this for you too." He reached over and grabbed my chin, "Do you think you could be with an alcoholic? Would you want to be?"

"I already have," I said, still leaving out large chunks of detail in my life. "While it's not a quality I would seek out, I wouldn't give you up over it," I answered truthfully. "We'll do this. Together."

Drink, Drank, Drunk

Drank

In the past 25 days, Scott has not had any liquor. To my knowledge. I feel the need to add that there. I don't think he has had any at all, but addicts are excellent hiders. Desperate Housewives and Brothers & Sisters with their relative plots have been spot on every week to the point where I ask Scott about it.

But the monitoring of liquor has made me become conscious of Scott's drinking. While I would go three weeks and then have half a glass of wine, Scott continued to drink more. And more. After a while I noticed he would take beer to work with him in the morning. When he came home for lunch, he'd drink a few. There was always a silver can in his hand. Another cigarette, another beer.

On the Sunday in which we went to my father's Thanksgiving dinner, Scott drank an entire bottle of wine before noon. Blue laws in my state prohibit the sale of any alcohol on Sundays, and my wine was the only alcohol in the house. Scott actually bought it for me. It was a new kind of wine from my favorite vineyard, and he bought it so I could try it. I still don't know what it tastes like.

After a couple of weeks of this, I asked Scott to stop drinking altogether. "I think it's the best Christmas present you could give your mom," I encouraged.

Scott rested his head on the back of the couch and closed his eyes. "I need to stop drinking," he confessed. "If I was being honest with you, I would tell you that when I come home for lunch, my hands shake from not having any alcohol."

"Well then you need to stop."

"I'm going to," he resolved. "People think you quit cold turkey, but you can't--it's dangerous. It's going to take a couple of weeks, but I have to taper off. It isn't easy."

And the next day Scott came home with a 6-pack instead of a 12-pack. The next morning when I picked up the garbage, I threw away four cans, and I had to pour out beer from two of them. I was so proud of him, and I made sure to tell him that. The rest of the week continued the same: he'd have two to three beers a night. I think only once during that week did he have one during work hours. We were going to do it!

The second week, we weren't so lucky. Scott only has one day a week off--Mondays. And because it's an atypical day off, he spends it alone. He spends it alone sitting on the couch watching TV and slowly getting drunk. That Monday he got up at 5 am to go to the store and get alcohol. He started at 5 am and drank 18 beers that day.

Tuesday he tried harder, coming home with only the six-pack again. Only when he finished the beer, he opened another bottle of wine he bought me as a peace offering and drank the entire bottle within 45 minutes. Not only did he drink my peace offering, but he left me to clean up the puke when he inevitably got sick a few minutes later.

I didn't know he drank the wine until I went to put on my coat and gloves to drive to the store in the middle of the night to buy him Pepto and ginger ale. And when I spied the empty bottle I was angry. Instead of throwing it out, I took out the trash and left the bottle and the cork out alone on the counter.

"And that's why I don't drink wine," he chuckled when he called me at work the next morning. "Thanks for taking care of me."

"I'm worried about your drinking."

"That was not fun," he joked. "I've learned my lesson."

And somehow he made me feel better about the incident. Although now I can't think for the life of me why.

Drink, Drank, Drunk

Drink

What can I say about Scott's drinking? It's seamless. I don't notice how much he drinks until the next morning when I'm taking out the trash before I go to work. He gets up for a cigarette, and opens a new beer. Another cigarette, another beer.

I knew we were drinking a lot back when we first started dating. It's my M.O. to get tanked on the first date. But it's also my M.O. to all but stop drinking once I'm in a relationship. I don't need it to calm my nerves anymore. I'm no longer constantly second guessing myself; I'm no longer damning myself. When I reached that point with Scott, I was still in the pattern of buying the cases of beer. Only now I would consume maybe three of them. Because I had severely slowed down my alcohol intake, I told Scott I wasn't buying the beer anymore. And I haven't since that day. My checking account bounced back into the black, and I was back on budget with my finances.

But I also stopped noticing that there was at least a 12-pack of beer circulating through the house every day. Another cigarette, another beer.

Then one morning, I saw a bottle of Jaeger when I went to tie up the trash. Usually I know when he brings a bottle home, but somehow I stopped noticing that too. He's so seamless. He said the Jaeger would enable him to drink less beer. But the Jaeger changes him in ways the beer does not. The only times Scott would ever yell at me or talk down to me was when I saw the little green bottle on top of the trash the next morning:

"Why are you yelling at me?"

"It's the only way to get you to understand! I would say something and you don't react. I have to yell for you to get it!"

"So I bring it on myself? I deserve to get yelled at?" I learned there really is no point in trying to reason with a drunk person.

When we hung out with my friends, we would always have to leave early because Scott got too drunk. We did it when we met M-Joy, we did it at the Beer Olympics, and we had to do it at Friendsgiving.

Not to mention the drunk peeing. Things of mine Scott's drunkenly peed on, in order:

1. The couch
2. The bed
3. The shower
4. The laundry hamper
5. The oven

The shower was the easiest to clean up, and the laundry hamper was full of his clothes, not mine. The bed was the worst. This was in my old apartment. He got up and went home. I ran down the hall after him screaming, "What about me?" I just got peed on and I couldn't sleep in my bed anymore until everything had been washed. The oven was the weirdest, especially since I was awake watching TV and watched him do it.

So I made the decision. No more liquor. I sat down with him at dinner one night and I told him 30 days—starting that day, November 17th—no liquor. He could have his beer, but the liquor changes him.

"What if I don't agree to this?" he asked.

"Then I'm going to seriously think about this relationship," I retorted.

"What? You're going to leave me?"

"Yes." I said it, but I wasn't sure I could do it. I just wanted him to think I meant it.

"I refuse to lose you over alcohol. 30 days," he agreed.

And, to cover my ground, I also told his sister Thanksgiving day of our deal.

"Good!" she said. "But why just 30 days? Why not for good?"

"I was hoping it would lead to that."

"You know, he doesn't need to drink. At all." After she said it, it became official. Every single member of his family has now pulled me aside and told that to me. They all ask me under their breaths if he's drinking and tell me he doesn't need to do it. I smile and say I'm watching him, but I wonder why his family is putting this onto me. Why are they making it my responsibility? We're not married. Scott is their son, nephew, and brother—why don't they tell him themselves?

I already know the answer to that: they already have and they're hoping I'll be able to make the difference.

When love and hate collide

For another post, I had to remind myself who I was during a certain year. I thought I kept a diary that year so I walked into my bedroom, knelt in front of my small bookcase, and removed all the books on the top shelf. Then I reached to the back and pulled out my diaries.

I live alone and I still hide my diaries.

While it turns out I didn't keep a diary for the year I was looking for, I found the one I kept during the destruction of my engagement. In the face of a disaster, I chose to rubberneck.

With a fresher mind, a colder heart, and unclouded eyes, I relived those six months. In those pages I brightly wrote about how I was going to change for the boy. I encouraged myself and documented my progress to accomplish the goals that I set. That wasn't the difficult part to read. The difficult part was to slowly watch the boy completely change personalities as he slipped further and further into alcoholism. He'd abuse me emotionally, and the whole time I blamed myself. I hadn't changed quickly enough.

Only it wasn't me who had changed. It was the boy.

I've always blamed myself for the demise of that relationship. That's what he told me. He would come home drunk from the bar and scream at me -- he thinks he can do better than me, he doesn't want me anymore, that I didn't know what love is because he was the only person I had slept with -- and he'd wake up in the morning and not remember a thing. If he couldn't remember the night, I couldn't get upset.

So I wrote with more fervor, striving harder to reach my goals faster. I'd chide myself and took to heart everything he said to me. But no matter how hard I tried, nothing was good enough; I failed at maintaining the relationship.

His fraternity started calling me to tell me that he was different and had a problem. They'd take his car keys and he'd punch someone. They wanted me to intervene to save the boy, but I couldn't. The boy said the decision not to marry me was the best decision of his life.

I've carried that guilt around with me: I couldn't save him. I couldn't save him because he hated me. Because I wasn't good enough.

I don't know. Maybe I could have. Maybe if I didn't pay so much attention to myself and my wounds, driving myself crazy with little goals, I could have seen his earlier. But every night when he came home drunk, it grew to the point where I couldn't stand the sight of him. Deep down I knew that if I couldn't love someone at all times, then I probably shouldn't be with him. And I didn't love him when he was drunk. I hated him. I hated him and the words he spoke to me and the picture frames he threw at me.

The worst part: he still left me. I wasn't strong enough to leave the abusive alcoholic. He had quit loving me and I couldn't stop loving the person he used to be. I was going to marry and have a family with that person. It was hard to distinguish between the two -- the person who loved me versus the person who drank -- because the exterior was the same. The memories were fresh.

They still are.