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…

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…

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…

I’ve been having a good time with my resentments in my online 12 step work group. It’s been quite exciting. I am digging into stuff outside of my relationship this time, which I neglected to include in my last visit with step 4.

One thing I’m noticing about listing my resentments is the amount of time I spend on the people and things I resent. So much of it is outside of my control, and I want to be able to let it all go. One theme that comes up again and again, also, is that I deeply resent anyone who…

Breaking up is hard. It’s hard in any circumstances, and I’m remembering some of the interesting mental acrobatics that I’ve engaged in previously in breakups as they come back up again. For instance, I am already plotting conversations I can have with my husband in November. I’ve prepaid our veterinary expenses for the year, for instance, so I am planning to be able to talk to him in a few weeks to tell him we need to talk his dog to the vet.

The last time I was engaged in the messiness of ending a relationship, however, I was no longer…

When I look back over the last year of my life, I see that my husband has improved in quite a few areas. A lot of the big stuff is much improved. I was talking with some program friends this morning, and I realized that it’s been over a year since the cops have been to our house. I haven’t found a syringe since February, and nothing disappears to the pawn shop anymore. I no longer lock up my wallet at night. I keep it next to me, and I can feel his presence in the room if he gets…

I am presently swamped. I’m working from home, and I’ve said, “YES!” to every project, ever, and I have come to count the hours of my day by my hourly rate. It’s late in the evening, and I should stop working, but I’m writing restaurant reviews. It seems like a waste of time to stop working.

I’m also sitting on a stack of a little over 100 papers to grade from my students, and I’m planning to attend a Nar-Anon convention tomorrow. I haven’t written on my blog much this week, and I’ve not made it to the right number of…

I don’t know what I want. I’m struggling to figure it out.

I want to be happy. I’m not sure if happiness and peace can come together. It kind of seems like happiness might only be available in a bundle with misery.

I haven’t seen my husband since Sunday, and we’ve only spoken briefly on the phone. I’m not sure when we’ll see each other again.

I am trying to determine what is my bottom line. There are lots of things that I want from him…but I am not sure what is the baseline that I’ll accept for him to come back home.

Part…

I’m working, writing restaurant reviews, and watching Tyra. The Kardashian Sisters are on today. I’ve never seen their television show before, as I don’t have cable…but I’ve heard of them, mostly of Kim Kardashian because she has a sex tape. I can have whatever I want on television, since he’s not here.

My dogs are outside, barking. I let them in and out as I please. I can go get in bed or not. I can wear clothes or not. I can talk on my phone or not.

I asked him to leave on Sunday night to give me a bit of a…

“You have a thigh, but you are not your thigh,” our yoga teacher explained. She was coaxing us deeper into our Warrior stances. My thigh was talking to me. It was telling me not to push further. I told it to be quiet…that it was going to get stronger if I kept pushing. I have a thigh, but I am not my thigh.

Often in yoga class, I find tools that translate well to the rest of my life. The teacher was encouraging us to push our limits with our bodies, but that phrase she used…You have a thigh, but you…

After tonight’s meeting, which I attended solo because right now, my husband isn’t like “those people,” I went out with a friend from my program and her spouse, who is among “those people” in the rooms across the hall. It is so wonderful and exhausting to be among people in recovery. I always love these folks…people who are acutely aware of themselves, their issues, their ups and downs…and I remember it most when I’m in meetings. It’s nice, though, to get away from the meeting setting sometimes, and to get a break from all the meeting rules. It’s nice just…

“I’ve got a lot of papers to grade,” I told him. “I’m going to go find a coffee shop where I can sit and get some quiet. I’ll be back in a couple of hours.”

“Don’t go! We’ve got all these movies to watch…”

“Why don’t you watch one without me? I’ll be back soon. I’ve got to get this done before the class tomorrow.”

“I’ll grade them with you! Just give me the answer key, and I’ll grade them for you! Stay here!”

It was very sweet of him to offer to help me with my work, but it made me realize something.…

I got an email from a reader recently asking me if I ever imagined what my life would be like if I left my husband and found a new partner. It made me think if I come across as someone who never has even considered leaving. It seemed strange that I might make that impression on readers, as I feel like I spend more time thinking about leaving than thinking about anything else.

Each day is a weighting of options: How much would it hurt to leave? How much does it hurt to stay? As long as the solution to that…

I got back from out of town to find our toilet clogged. There was a giant turd stuck in the bottom of the toilet…the kind of turd that only can be produced by an opiate addict…and a great wad of toilet paper floating in brownish-gray, greasy water. I didn’t say anything…clearly, my husband had clogged the toilet. Clearly, there was some good reason why the turd would be sitting there, stewing in its own juices…maybe he was waiting for the large, sticky, opiate-tainted log to soften in the water so that it might flush more gracefully…I tried everything to think…

I’m discovering more and more that my recovery touches areas of my life that I never imagined it would. I found my 12 step program to help me learn to deal with my husband’s addiction. That was all I was interested in…I hoped to find support in other people who had experienced addiction in their families, and secretly, I hoped that I’d find techniques to help me fix him. I wasn’t unwilling to work on myself as a part of the process; however, I was oblivious that working on myself would be a part of the process…that the same part…

I’ve got four days off from being a junky’s wife, and it’s delicious. I don’t have to be doing much anymore to feel like I’m really having an exciting vacation: Look! I can leave my purse lying around! Wow! I don’t have to carry everything with me every time I leave the house! Holy crap! Nobody wants me to pay for his stuff!

I’ve been spending as much time as possible outside of my house, which is good for me in so many ways, but it’s exhausting, too. Even the thought process behind not wanting to go home, ever, is exhausting.

He and…

I was telling a friend about how my husband pushes all my buttons, and she asked me, “What are you doing with buttons?”

Funny, huh?

Then, I was reading today’s post on Daily Om, and it made a lot of sense:

Buttons are just soft spots that have been touched one too many times, and they symbolize some pain that needs to be acknowledged and healed. This may be a wound from childhood, or some recent trauma, that we haven’t adequately tended. Whatever the case, when our buttons get pushed, the person who most needs our attention and caring is us, and blaming…

I’m learning something about myself…

I’ve really thought that I had this boundary thing down for a long time. After my first few Nar-Anon meetings, I thought I really got it. I just needed to think about what I needed and let my husband know what I needed, and voila! We’ve got boundaries.

I am also a little bit appalled at how long it has taken me to realize that, no, I really didn’t get it.

With my car, for instance…I have gradually, slowly restricted how much I’d let my husband use my car. When we first got married, he had his own…

I was at a yoga class a few days ago when the teacher reminded me of a nasty science experiment with boiling frogs that I’d forgotten all about. If you throw a frog in boiling water, it will jump out immediately. If you put a frog in tepid water, however, and slowly raise the heat to boiling, the frog will stay in the pot and let itself be cooked to death. (Yes, I know that Snopes says it isn’t so, but let me have the metaphor for a moment, ok?)

At a Nar-Anon meeting a few weeks ago, a woman who is…

When my husband is out of the house for whatever reason, I feel this huge weight lift off my shoulders. Just writing that, I feel guilty. He spent the night with family last night after his latest drama, and I got so much done while he was gone. My house is cleaner. My car is cleaner. My dogs are happier. My head is clearer. I love him, and I miss him when he’s not around in some ways, but he really brings the drama and stress. When I have this kind of time to myself, I imagine what my life…

I found this quote from Reviving Ophelia, and it was such a perfect description of the descent into codependence that I had to share it with you all:

“The story of Ophelia, from Shakespeare’s Hamlet, shows the destructive forces that affect young women. As a girl, Ophelia is happy and free, but with adolescence she loses herself. When she falls in love with Hamlet, she lives only for his approval. She has no inner direction; rather she struggles to meet the demands of Hamlet and her father. Her value is determined utterly by their approval. Ophelia is torn apart by her…

My yoga practice has been a crucial part of my recovery for the last six months. I started yoga after working the fourth step and acknowledging that I’d been neglecting to take care of my body while focusing so acutely on my husband. Before discovering my husband’s struggle with addiction, I’d always been something of a health nut, enjoying taking care of my body and the profound ways my physical health improved my mental health. From the moment I found syringes in my house for the first time, however, until working on my neglect of self-care in the fourth step…

I’m ready to bet one hundred million dollars that my husband will be using again within 48 hours. He is boiling addict behavior all over the place. In a 5-minute phone conversation, he demanded that we let go of all the boundaries I’ve set (Let me use the car. I’m going away soon, just let me use it one time. I don’t feel like working today. Why don’t you call out for me and say that I have to go home to meet the repairman or something? I feel like lying on the couch and thinking about things. I don’t…

Consequences really piss my husband off, I’ve noticed. Nothing makes him more furious than for me to observe that he has done something foolish in feeding his addiction…when he has pawned things that belong to me, the worst part of it for him is my noticing, finding out.

He is facing a big dose of consequence, the biggest he’s faced yet as a result of his behavior over the last year. It’s scaring him, and it’s making his mood foul. How dare the state notice that he hasn’t been fulfilling his obligations? How dare there be consequences for spending a year…

My husband seems determined to be a living example of the recovery dictum: Find recovery, or find jails, institutions, or death. I am afraid of the things that are happening in our lives, but I don’t know that anything short of being locked away is going to make him wake up to how much of his life he’s missing.

He is doing a good job of staying clean, if staying clean means not doing heroin. He hits a meeting about twice a week, and he frets a lot about how he’s wasting the limited amount of time he has. He has…