I’m working on finding new and exciting techniques for calming myself down. I have remained surprisingly centered throughout my husband’s hospitalization and his release on Monday, but it’s requiring a lot of attention. I’m falling behind in my work again, and I’m noticing that small disruptions in my sleeping, eating, meetings, and yoga schedule can send me reeling.

I’m trying to take it easy, also, as I’d gotten used to the idea of my husband being gone, and now he’s back in my house. Before he was hospitalized, we’d been separated for about a month. I’d gotten a lot of quiet…

I visited my husband tonight. It was good to see him, and he still seems to be in good spirits, although they are waning somewhat. He’s gotten a nasty chest cold, and he’s sharing a room with someone who goes crazy at night and imagines he’s flying an airplane, so he hasn’t gotten much sleep.

When you visit someone in the looney bin in my town, you sit in a large-ish communal room. There are televisions and puzzles and boardgames and a whole collection of coloring books and crayons. I like it that they want the crazy people to color. My…

I spoke with my husband today, which alleviated much of my stress from yesterday. He seems to be in a really good place, and I’m trying really, really hard not to get too excited or to withhold positivity that might help encourage him. I’ve felt so many times like he might be taking a turn for the better, and I’ve been disappointed each time, but this seems like it’s for real for real…and I really, really, really want him to get better.

He seems happy to be where he is, and the doctors and his social worker are working pretty hard…

1. I’m grateful that my husband is getting himself some help. It’s been a rough road getting him there, but now that he’s settled in, he seems to be getting treated like a human being who needs some professional help, and I’m grateful to all who are caring for him.

2. I’m grateful that I’m in a good place, surrounded by people who love me.

3. I’m grateful for my program, that gives me the serenity to get through the hardest days.

4. I’m grateful for my new kitten! She makes me laugh, and she gives me something to nurture in a way that’s…

I spoke with my husband this morning, and that’s it. I have been on the road for much of the day heading to my relatives’ house for the holiday, and he knew I would be traveling. Still, I have knots in my stomach because I only heard from him once.

I hate playing this game with myself about the phone. First of all,  I could just call him. I’m not sure how difficult it is to get him on the phone at the hospital where he is, but I know I can call him. I could easily say, “Hi. I love…

I went to visit my husband tonight at the psychiatric hospital. It was good to see him, and he seems ok. They are dosing him with methadone, and they insist that they can’t not. Apparently, there is a federal law that mandates a patient who is receiving methadone maintenance continue to receive his or her dose if that person is kept away from the clinic; however, this same law doesn’t protect patients who are indigent from being cut off by the methadone clinic when they can’t pay.

I am almost impressed by the elegance of the Catch 22s my husband is…

My husband called today and asked if he could drop by to see me and talk about stuff. I don’t have a lot of work, so I told him sure.

He says he’s going to turn himself in to the probation office. He’s had a warrant for his arrest for some time now, so who knows what is going to happen…if he’ll really turn himself in, or what will happen if he does.

For this moment, I am ok with whatever happens. I am trying not to invest too much of myself in his latest story, as I’ve gotten myself all worked…

I’ve had two days that were pretty awful in a row, and neither of them had anything to do with my husband! I’m somehow excited about it. Yesterday, I found out that a major system in my house is failing, and I’m going to have to come up with several thousand dollars to replace it. Today, I took my dog to the vet, and she lost her mind and bit the veterinarian and me.

Living with addiction has certainly given me an interesting perspective on bad thing in my life. These bad things are MY bad things. I didn’t necessarily create…

I’ve spend this whole, entire day not calling my husband. All I can think about is how much I want to call him, and I know that I can’t call him. When I’m feeling this deep need to connect with him, he can hear it, and he will use it to hurt me.

I have a lot of plans for the weekend, so I’m trying to focus my attention on looking forward to them. I’m trying to focus on ways I can lift my own spirits. I did yoga today, and I have a big yoga workshop tomorrow. There’s a meeting…

I found a kitten in a gutter yesterday! It’s the best thing, ever. She’s soft and cuddly and has a beautiful white belly, and all she does is sit on my shoulder and play with my hair and poop on the floor and sleep and love!

Ωxxxxg

That was a message from her, a beautiful message from my sweet new kitty. I am not sure what it says, but I bet it’s very, very wise. I have to respect kitty’s anonymity, or I’d post a picture of her so you could all see.

Nothing in the world has gotten me back in the…

I saw my husband earlier this week, and the brief contact with him seemed somehow to invigorate me. It was a good visit, and I’m glad he dropped by.

I am concerned for my sanity, though, in that seeing him had such a profound affect on my mood for days. I’m feeling much better about life because of a few minutes of contact with him. I don’t want something outside of myself and my own control to have such a profound impact on my ability to function. I’m glad to be feeling more back to myself, but I’m concerned about the way…

Both my sponsor and my guru think I need some help with detachment.

Hah!

I agree. I need some help with detachment. I am not speaking with my husband right now, but I’m speaking all around him. I’m talking to his sister, his mother, and anybody else who might have some insight into what the hell I can do to fix him.

I can’t sever the ties. I can’t, can’t can’t do it. I can’t keep my hands out of his life, out of his business.

I’m not sure what I’m looking for when I speak with his mother. His sister, I can justify…

If you were falling, then I would catch you
You need a light, I’d find a match
Cuz I love the way you say good morning
And you take me the way I am
If you are chilly, here take my sweater
Your head is aching; I’ll make it better
Cuz I love the way you call me baby
And you take me the way I am
I’d buy you Rogaine when you start losing all your hair
Sew on patches to all you tear
Cuz I love you more than I could ever promise
And you take me the way I am
You take me the way I am
You take me…

I guess I’m in detox from my drug of choice.

I feel sick and empty inside. I can’t stop my eyes from leaking. I feel needy and desperate and I want to make somebody come take care of me.

I feel like I’m never going to be ok, ever again. I think that I know I will be ok, but I can’t feel it right now. I can’t get comfortable with myself. I can’t be still. I can’t sleep. I can’t think.

I want my husband, and I can’t find him. I could find his body, but he isn’t inside it. I don’t…

Tonight, I am very, very angry at my husband’s disease. I’m angry because I remember the sweet man I married, and that man is nothing like the man I’ve been living with over the past few weeks.

The reading in our Nar-Anon daily meditation book today, which was about detachment, said:

The addict has to take care of his or her own life struggles, as we have to take care of our own lives. They may not see there is a problem if they never have to experience it. It is my responsibility to take care of me and my life. By…

We went to his parents’ house to have dinner tonight. It’s the first time I’ve been around them in a while. I didn’t deliberately decide to stop hanging out with his folks…it just kind of happened. I’ve been working like crazy since last May, which is around when I stopped spending as much time with them. Once it happened, however, I recognized that there was a significant drop in the drama factor in my life. His mother and father are both addicts, and so engaging with them is exhausting.

His mother and father have both made little remarks to let me…

My husband came home from our last adventure in separation with a nasty cold, and he’s passed it along to me. My brain is full of gunk, and I can’t seem to get out of bed for very long. I’m a little freaked because I have such a huge stack of work to do, but I’m kind of thinking that my Higher Power might be looking out for me in this sickness. It’s been about 3 weeks since I’ve taken a full day off, and I’ve been wishing I could get a day with absolutely nothing to do.

Today isn’t a…

“Admitted to God, to ourselves, and another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.”

-Step 5

Today, I finished telling my Step Five “and to another human being” story to my online step group. It was a really interesting, purgative experience.

The first time through Step Five, I was working the steps with a group of women from my Nar-Anon, and this step was a major point of sealing our relationships with one another. We all became much closer after revealing ourselves to each other, and I remember feeling like it was really powerful to see how letting our guard down about…

Because of my adventures in addict, I have a very, very low tolerance for addicts in the wild. A few days ago, I was paying for a faxed contract to an employer at the local UPS store, and there was a tweaky, twitchy, loud man in one corner using the office telephone. He had a bookbag, and he kept looking at me.

They can find me, and I can find them. I couldn’t stop looking at him, either. It’s magnetic.

I paid with a $10, and got back $8 in change. The man in the corner lit up when he saw me…

There is something going on with my husband, and I’m not sure what. He’s got a lot of opportunities facing him in terms of work. He’s gotten all of these opportunities on his own, and he seems to be doing a good job of suiting up and showing up for all the projects he’s found. It’s nothing steady yet, but it’s the kind of situation where one gig leads to another, which leads to another and another. If he doesn’t blow it, it might just turn out to be a great thing.

It is possible that a lot of his crappiness in…