Ask Neycha: Scared Wife of An Addict

Dear Neycha:
I am writing to you because I've reached my wits end. I simply do not know what to do at this point. I am a 36 year-old college professor and part of a wonderful community. I use to believe I was an attractive and reasonably intelligent woman until I lost my mind. For the last four and half years, my life has been part of a private hell shared with my husband who is a drug addict, although we’ve been married for six. Initially, our relationship was a beautiful dream come true and full of so much potential until I realized he had a serious drug problem. It was heartbreaking and it took me another two years to tell anyone because of the shame. Most people still don’t know.

​

Needless to say the mental and financial drain (continuous binging, numerous rehabs, excessive mood swings, close calls) has been exhausting. I have tried every single thing I know - prayer, paying for rehab, paying off the dealer/forbidding dealer to come around, babysitting my husband when I’m not at work (I lost my social life), cheering him on, hugging him when he’s feigning, literally getting on the floor and holding his legs having myself dragged while he’s trying to walk out the door to go get high. Finally, after being encouraged time and time again by the few people who know this to just leave him, I did 2 months ago. It was incredibly hard and still is.

​

Of course my husband keeps begging me to take him back saying he has no one else but me (which is true), and no other reason to live. I feel such incredible guilt about trying to move on with my life while he’s still struggling so much. Even though my friends don’t agree, I have always believed if you truly love someone, you stick by them. I’m terrified he won’t get any better and eventually kill himself. And I don’t know how I would live with myself if he died. He’s a good person with an amazing heart! And even though most of my family and friends truly don’t understand and think I should just be able to cut him loose, I am stuck. I am sick with fear and nervous most of the time. What can I do?

​

-Scared Wife Of An Addict,

Philadelphia, PA

​

​

Dear Scared Wife:
You are not alone. According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse’s website, approximately 22.5 million Americans aged 12 or older need treatment for substance (alcohol or illicit drug) abuse and addiction. (NSDUH, 2004). That means roughly at least another 45 million Americans alone are suffering with you holding similar fears about the addicts they love. While I’m certain these stats do nothing to ease your pain, I hope they help to make common in your mind a real crisis so many people feel ashamed to talk about.

​

First, I encourage you Scared Wife to speak and free yourself from the silence that holds you as a hostage inside your “private hell”. That’s no way to live, and like your husband, this keeps you bound to the many chambers of addiction. It is perfectly okay that you fell in love with your husband. That he ended up being a drug addict makes him no less of a good person or you any less “attractive” or “intelligent”. It is important for you to not waste energy and cower inwardly feeling shame. It is more significant that you create the necessary space for yourself to grieve the tremendous loss of the dream you held for a happy life with your husband. That dream was real, and so is the loss of it. It’s okay and normal to feel deep sorrow.

​

Next SW, you must commit with a sense of urgency to your own recovery and wellbeing! You have outlined clearly in your correspondence all the ways in which you’ve attempted to save your husband’s life, but have spoken little of your attempt to save your own. Your husband might die; that is a truly sad and painful possibility for all drug addicts. And as much as you’d like to believe your efforts circumvent that possibility, unfortunately they don’t - and you are forfeiting your own life in that pursuit. You are being controlled by the fear of your husband’s untimely death, although, as a long time addict, he is sadly already very much un-alive. So too are you – going dead - strung out on the illusion that YOU can save your husband.

 

As tempting as it is to play God, ESPECIALLY when our loved ones are involved, you MUST find (as difficult as it is) that strange, bitter place of surrender – where you allow the natural unfolding of both you and your husband’s story. That will take tons of courage, humility and blind faith on your part, but certainly you are capable of great emotional strength as has been demonstrated by your capacity to love your husband in spite of his problem. Now it’s time to take care of you.

​

Surround yourself with those who can genuinely help YOU and are willing to walk with YOU through this nightmare. Although I’m sure your friends hold your best interests in mind, they may not all be good candidates to provide the type of consistent, solid and non-judgmental support offered by a professional. People can believe anything on the sidelines! Seek the support of those who have first-hand experience – both professional and personal.

 

Call 1-888-4AL-ANON or 1-800-477-6291 for NAR-ANON to find professional counselors and support groups in your area. By seeking professional help, you equip yourself with the necessary tools to face whatever unfolds next along this heart-wrenching journey and it will help to remind you that YOU have been deeply impacted by the addiction as well.

​

The emotional costs of loving an addict in a compassion-fatigued society (that doesn’t fully respect or honor drug addiction as a real disease) are incalculable and the scars, invisible. I am reminded of how people with ordinary hearts marvel at watching babies grow into wildly fascinating children with unique personalities and curious habits that make them endearing - yet these same children 30 years older, should one become an addict – are frowned upon. Their lives once intriguing to behold are now viewed as appalling. Those with ordinary hearts turn away and refuse to bear witness to the complicated and ferocious illness that is drug addiction. You my dear have an EXTRAORDINARY heart. Let no one make you feel ashamed of that!

 

I am not condoning your unconditional support of your husband (and therefore his drug addiction) and the way it has capsized your life, nor am I excusing it. Rather, I am pointing out that yours in not an easy problem with a simple solution to be taken on comfortably at once as your family and friends have suggested. Sadly, unless life knocks directly on people’s doors with crisis, most people’s drug of choice is indifference. You care, but remember even hearts GIVE OUT. Save yourself by any means necessary while acting according to what YOU can comfortably live and peacefully die with.

​

Rock on, n