Drying Out
About a month ago we all found ourselves seeking shelter from Hurricane Irene. It was the “100 year storm” we’ve only heard tales about and never really saw coming. Until it was bearing down on us.
As my family was running for cover and the dry comfort of a hotel, I was also running from the reality that quite a different kind of storm was already destroying my family. It also was one I never saw coming until it was already tearing through my marriage and demolishing the structure of my life. It was alcoholism.
I have always been focused on my mental health and insisting that everyone around me be aware of my disorder and how to handle me along with it. Apparently though, I forgot that my husband might have some issue of his own and that when the time came to shift the focus to him, I was unprepared to deal with it. The downfall came all at once along with the winds of the hurricane. When it was time to go home, we thankfully made it through the weather with little damage, but needed to face the turmoil in the remainder of our life.
A lifetime of food addiction turned to prescription pain pills after numerous surgeries. Then when the pills ran out, the liquor cabinet emptied out pretty fast. I’m not sure how, but I didn’t even realize it was going on. We had a daily routine of coming home from work and not really talking much. He’d go right back to working at the computer and I would, in my own opinion “handle the rest”. The tension was just building on both sides. Something had to give. So he started going out with friends after work on Friday nights. Then came the night he tried to drive home drunk. And got caught. Drunk driving is a cardinal sin to me. It is something I NEVER, NEVER do and expect anyone I know to NEVER do!! And for as long as he knows me, he has known it’s a basic moral that I live by. I think it might have been a little bit of rebellion, since he thinks I walk all over him anyway. I’m definitely no picnic sometimes. I do like things to go a certain way. But this is not exactly the way to exert your independence from me! So this was the turning point and also where I realized the world did not totally revolve around me and my mental illness. I had to accept that I had to try to help someone I deeply loved find their way around a new way of life, too. It was an eye opening experience, where I learned that knee deep in the flood of my own problems, I was not alone, and others were suffering too. Sometimes we forget that.
So now that the clouds have cleared, the rain has moved away, and I am looking to a lifetime of more sunny days, hopefully with him by my side. It is time to start picking up the pieces, and begin the process of drying out.