I’m sure outsiders have thought that I must be CRAZY, and not just outsiders… my family too! Sometimes I think I have gone crazy, because I always seem to find myself in these situations where my heart is torn…. Its amazing how much a person can take when you decide that LOVE is greater than hurt, greater than disappointment and definitely greater than fear.
Okay, so the fear part I have to work on a bit, although I need to cut myself some slack once in a while. I am also recovering from the hole that my husband dragged us into. The fear seems to impact the trust factor, I want to trust my recovering addict husband but do I trust the Disease? Hell No! Not one single bit.
The Disease is what makes me feel crazy, it makes me live in fear… makes me second guess everything and makes me wonder up the worst situations, in my idle mind. So while my husband is recovering and working a program, I too need to do the same. Addiction affects the addict in indescribable ways – it attempts to kill them from the inside out but what many people don’t see is the family behind the addiction, Who are desperately trying to hold everything together. Its not our place though and it finds us in the ‘enabling’ corner. Trapped by our “love” for our Husbands, Sons, Mothers, Brothers…. They push us into that corner and the addict begins to suck the life out of us (Picture a Dementor from Harry Potter)… just as it is doing to our loved ones. An addict can never truly satisfy his disease and so comes the saying ” 1 is too many and 1000 never enough” but they can find a new way of living in NA.
So the one thing I can tell any person who loves an addict…. Please try your best to stop enabling. Its going to be HARD… sometimes harder than having the addict steal from you, lie to you and disappoint you. In fact its the hardest part that I had to deal with. I had to tell my husband that he was no longer welcome in our home… that he was to leave and not come back. I had to watch my dear mother in law do the same to her first born son. As a mother, TOUGH LOVE feels like a curse word. No mother wants to tell their child ” Please leave as I can no longer have you here”. Refusing to enable the addict usually allows them to hit rock bottom, which for us meant that Chris had an option between Treatment doors or Prison bars. All other doors had closed on him for his own good. He opened the doors to treatment on his own and that was one of the many steps he has taken on his continued road to recovery.
Its hard to love an Addict because they do such unlovable things, but detachment allows you to love the addict but hate the addiction. But when you love someone, you see something in them that makes you fight for them, and if you cant fight for them , then it isn’t LOVE. I know circumstances vary and everyone has their limits (As do I), but addiction is a disease, some people are born with it and others aren’t. Just like some people are born with blue eyes and others brown.
So although my fear keeps me from fully trusting my husband right now, my trust for GOD keeps me trying and keeps me believing. So call me crazy; but I will not give up on my addict husband. I will support him as best I can from afar. It does not mean I forget and certainly doesn’t mean that I will in anyway enable any negative behavior but I can support him in his recovery and remind him that we are proud of him and love him unconditionally but through tough eyes. In turn, I hope he will be able to understand and support that I too am recovering and I will stumble in my resentment and in my insecurities but will continue to travel the road of recovery.
So with that, I will love from afar but have the focus on me. To put my faith in GOD that his plan for me is greater than my struggles, to remain detached but stable. To continue to honour my vows and love my Husband but work on me! I am crazy after all, crazy in love!
“What Defines Us Is How Well We Rise After Falling” – Unknown
Saved By Grace 