February 2020

For the first time in over a year I was working full time again.  It was great.  I was super busy, between directing a musical and working full time, trying to take care of a house and as many as four kids. But it was good busy, happy busy.  

Then the relapse.  It was what I feared when I told the boyfriend I wasn’t ready for him to come home from rehab.  I knew I wasn’t ready.  I was pretty sure he wasn’t.  Before I found out I was right things were pretty good.  I managed my stress as well as I always had - that stress about never really being sure you’re going to get everything done on time.  I was getting back into the swing of our family life, the game nights, trips, cooking for everyone.  It was the family life I had always imagined was possible but never quite had.  I had almost created the peaceful, loving, safe home I’d been trying to create for so long.  Well, we had it, for a time.

And then the relapse.  He didn’t come home and I couldn’t get him on the phone.  The tears didn’t come right away but I knew what was happening.  If he’d been sober he would have answered.  I knew where he’d been all day, at the hospital at his program, so it wasn’t too difficult to find him.

When my son got home that night he asked where he was.  He’d dealt with the drinking before and was resigned to it.  Had even asked, when I was deciding to let the boyfriend back home, “What about if he drinks again?” My son had said, “Well that’s just who he is, we will deal with it”.  I wondered aloud if we should go get him and my son was game.

I drove the car with the boyfriend alternating between sleeping and awake and pissed.  I said nothing to him the entire way home.  

The next morning he was apologetic.  He felt awful.  He was grateful we came to get him.

He relapsed once more before the month was over, on Valentine’s Day no less.  He had two cards, hastily scribbled.  One that seemed like it was for me, one that didn’t seem like something he’d get me at all.  My spidey sense tickled.  I did nothing.  What to do in any case, ask directly and you get a direct denial.  Beat around the bush and you get cleverly worded excuses.  The fact is, I hate to admit, I didn’t want to know.  I wanted my family back.

I spent the second half of the month stressed out.  When my doctor suggested I start on Paxil I didn’t argue, I just said yes.