Living alone

So after all the drama of the past few years, believe it or not living without him was harder than living with him. I was so sad. The world seemed bleak.
One day I was walking down Wilshire Blvd. in Beverly Hills and I ran into his old Legal Secretary. I just burst into tears when she asked me how I was and how Bob was. I was heartbroken. In spite of everything we had been through, I still just loved this man.

I often think about how some people can just end a marriage or a relationship and start dating the following week. I was in mourning. I had a constant knot in my stomach. The days and nights became endless for me so I started hanging out with all of our former friends in the AA program. There was this amazing group called "Try God" that was full of relatively young sober friends of ours. They reached out to me in this horrible time for Bob and included me in all their activities which included dances, movies, barbques and even a outing to Magic Mountain and the State Fair.

Little by little I was learning to have some real fun again. I tried dating a little but my heart was never in it so I just hung out with the girls in the group. I think I've been to more AA meetings than any non drinker I ever knew. I know the 12 step programs like the back of my hand. It gave me hope. Something to grab onto, because in my heart I just knew that Bob wanted to be sober more than he wanted to be drunk. I just knew it.

Several months had gone by since I moved out and I wasn't around when he also moved out of our shared apartment, but he had a new place that was all his own now. He was spending a lot of time with his cousins at the time and I have to say not always the best company where the "Ladies" were concerned. It was during this time that he would meet one of the most beautiful women I have ever met in LA. She was a former Prom Queen in her home town and came to Hollywood to make it big and become a "Star" Well, she was a working girl, but not in the movie industry. Another sad story of a shattered dream.
The reason Bob was always attracted to the "Working Girls" were their access to the things he couldn't get from the doctors. I won't spell it out but you get the hint.

One of Bob's weaknesses was that he just couldn't stand to be alone, ever. With this crown he found he could pay for company so that he didn't have to be alone in addition to the rest of it.

I haven't much to tell of this period until something tragic was about to happen. We started speaking again and he took me over to his new apartment to show it off. He had set up a really nice place for himself and even had a great room for his daughter. I was impressed. I think hanging out with his cousins had curbed some of his drinking for a while. During this time one of his cousins was having some very serious problems with the other cousins best friend. There was a dispute and the friend was asked to get out of the apartment he was renting because another friend was going to be moved in.

Things just started to get out of hand and Bob went to a hearing to testify that Stephen was a loose canon ready to go off the deep end at any moment. As a former Assistant Deputy DA, Bob did have a sense of these things. He had learned to interprete the criminal mind rather well. He warned the woman who was the mediator that Stephen was going to cause great harm to someone. She just dismissed the idea altogether like they were all paranoid. Less than a week later Stephen attacked and Killed his cousin Michael in a park in Beverly Hill's public bathroom.

That event shattered an entire family who till this day struggle with the tragety. Bob tried to warn the mediator, no one listened.

I didn't see too much of Bob after the funeral. He sunk to the bottom of some bottle and didn't surface until he called me from yet another hospital.

This time I really thought he would stay sober. Life was just too painful to relive the scene without Michael. Sobriety seemed his only relief.
It was at this rehab that he was part of what the group "The Wild Bunch" affectionatly named themselfs. Bob was starting to be less and less embarrased by his disease. He had been through enough rehabs and listened to enough other patients to finally believe he was not a bad man, just a man with a terrble disease which when he picked up a drink he was no longer capable of making any rational choices. He was always ending a drunken run now either in a hospital or in trouble with the police like drunk driving or drunken disorderly etc.

One of the guys in this group was Gary, a former heroine addict who did not have anywhere to live when he got out. It was right around Christmas and Bob invited him to live with him until he got on his own two feet.

I thought maybe it would be just the thing to help him stay sober. Two people in a house supporting each other's commitment to sobriety. Things were good.

We decorated the house for Christmas together. We bought a tree, presents. the entire holiday could not be better. Because Gary was living in the bedroom set up to be his daughter's on the weekends they would stay with me. We were back together and we all seemed happy.

Bob his daughter and I even had a great New Years Eve together. We spent it at my apartment and we got hats and noise makers and it was fun. Every now and then I look at the pictures of us wearing our New Years Eve hats and remember how much fun we used to have together. I loved them both very much.

Could this last? That was the question.

And On and On

To the best of my recollection sobriety lasted until after Christmas that year. I can't remember just when but it started to get a rhythm going 6months sober, six weeks sober, six days, sober and then always another rehab.

I can only remember the worst events accurately because the rest just blended in to one another. As I mentioned I lost count after 31 times. For example.

Bob goes to Camarillo where he is in a locked ward for trying to slash his wrists again and I desperately tried to get him out.When I got there the place scared me. During the day they would lock the patients out of their rooms for some reason and they were just all wandering around the halls until evening. I was appalled. I'm sure I must have called his dad and finally I think his dad had arranged to have him transferred to a private hospital near Westwood. He was grateful to be there. It was there that he learned to make little frogs in ceramic class or something. He was there twice.

The night John Lennon was killed, Bob was in Rehab in a great place in Tustin. I broke the news to him there. It was one of the places I helped him get out early from. At that time I didn't know how to practice touch love yet.

Then he started to hang out with the "MOB" guys again and that's whey I just couldn't do it anymore. He announced when I got home from work that we were having this thug Jimmy over for one of my special Italian dinners. I would not cook and pretend to entertain a bunch of drunken hoods. I gave him an ultimatum them or me.
He choose them. I left and slammed the door behind me. I went to the receptionist house for several hours and when I got home all hell broke loose.

Bob was beyond drunk and he was really angry. He threatened to throw me out of our apartment and he called the police. Fortunately for me after he called them he went outside to wait for them. I locked him out. He created such a disturbance outside that when the Police got there they hauled him off to the Beverly Hills Police department for the night. It was a Friday, I will never forget it because the next day, Saturday Morning his friend, an attorney, who bailed him out of jail, called me and told me if I was smart I would just leave and move out.

I packed a bag, and I never lived there again. I spent the weekend looking for a place to live and my friend put me up at her apartment until I did. I finally found a two bedroom cute apartment and I rented it. I called his dad and I asked him if he could loan me $500 to move in. He was so kind and I got the money to make the move.

Ten days later, I had to pick a day when Bob was not home to move all my stuff out. I was terrified that he would come back, but he did not. All the furniture in the place was mine except for the bed we bought together. I left it for him along with some kitchen stuff and towels.

I was on my own for the first time in almost two years. My how the time flew between dramatic events.

The Cycle Begins

Bob came out of rehab and we decided to move out of the "hood". With his father's financial help we found a really wonderful two bedroom apartment in Beverly Hills. It was one of those two story fantasy apartment buildings. We loved it and so did his daughter. She was close to her mom's house when we had her on the weekends and I'm sure everyone felt much better that she was in a very safe area now. I was cutting hair in a salon in Beverly Hills now, so it was really convenient for me also.

The only problem was that Bob no longer was practicing law and his days were spent waiting for me to come home from work. In the beginning he would read all day, something he did all the time from that point until the end. I would get home and we would head into Westwood to see a movie and have a bite to eat.

This sober period lasted for approximately six months, then one day he just picked up a drink and the nightmare started all over again. I honestly cannot tell you how many times he started and stopped drinking before the next attempt at killing himself happened. He had been out of another rehab and they released him with antabuse. It is supposed to help alcoholics not drink. Well Bob took an entire bottle with a fifth of vodka and had to be rushed to the Hospital. They held him for a couple of days to evaluate him and make sure he was physically ready to be released. When he left his doctor gave him a really good talk telling him how much he had to live for and wondered why he would try to end his life.

Bob came home and immediately went out and bought a bottle of Vodka. It was baffling to everyone. After several attempts at staying sober again his family decided to step in with a solution.

Bob was going to live in Israel on a kibbutz. His uncle and his family were all on their way there and they would take Bob with them. The only thing was Bob would not go without me. I loved him so much that I agreed to move to Israel with him. I could not leave at the same time as they did because I had to quite my job and sublet our apartment. I made arrangements to leave in two weeks.

I felt really lucky because our new receptionist was willing to sublet our apartment fully furnished. I left two weeks later.
I met him in Jerusalem and he had a great hotel with his family there. It was amazing. The following day we went to Tel-Aviv
and again we stayed in an amazing hotel right on the beach. We went into town and started looking for a kibbutz that would take the two of us. There were not that many that would take a non Jewish person, but we managed to find one out near the edge of the country. If you don't know what a Kibbutz is, it is a community run in the purest for of communism. You are provided with everything for your working. Housing, clothing and food.

It was called "NA ON". They were famous for making sprinklers and it was a very wealthy kibbutz by kibbutz standards.
The following day his uncle hired a car and took us there to make sure everything would be ok. When he was satisfied he left. They took us to get our work clothes and showed us to our "room" It was like a migrant farm workers cabin.
That night I cried myself to sleep. I was in a foreign land and was now going to be picking fruit and working in a sprinkler factory. It was a far cry from Beverly Hills.

I dug down deep and pulled myself together. After all, I had no choice. We did not have a return ticket to go back home. The family sent us there forever. I had brought my life savings with me, $500.
I started Hebrew school the following day. One of the rules for allowing us to stay in the same room was that we both had to attend what they call the Ulpon. A school that is taught in Hebrew to learn more Hebrew. I was the only non-Jew there.
I had to beg the teacher to please tell me something in English. I was simply lost. She was kind enough to teach me how to say "I don't speak Hebrew" that was the only thing I ever learned.

We settled into our routine rather quickly. If we had a good attitude it would be ok. The good thing was that all the other people in the Ulpon were young. Most of them were from South Africa and spoke English. As Halloween approached we all got ready for a party. Now we didn't have costumes so I showed up with a bathrobe and a shower cap on. That was the best I could do I don't remember what Bob went as.

What I do remember is that the punch bowl was filled with a alcohol based punch. The nightmare was just beginning again.
Bob did not get drunk that night, but he did drink. I had hoped that maybe he could handle the few drinks without going off the deep end. The next few days seemed to go ok except for his mood swings.

Little did I know that before I arrived, while he was in Switzerland with the family, he had already picked up his first drink. He was a time bomb just ticking away. He was now what they call, into "White Knuckle" sobriety. There was no support group, no rehab, just his staying dry. That is a big difference from sobriety. The weeks just went by with us picking fruit and on the weekends we would hitch a ride into Tel-Aviv. Bob had relative there who were so kind to us. One weekend they invited us to lunch and the younger cousins took us to see Cesarea. I loved it. An ancient Roman city. On other weekends we went to movies, cafes, the beach etc. It would not be so bad living there I felt.

Then the fateful night happened, Bob picked a fight with me, as was his habit when he wanted to get drunk, and he left the Kibbutz. I was frantic. I had no way of reaching him, no cell phones in those days and I knew he would be in grave danger if he started drinking.

Just like today, it is not safe to wander around as a Jew or an American in Arab territory alone, especially if you were the kind of drunk Bob was. Our kibbutz was right next to what is now famous for being Saddam Houseins home. Ramallah.
I don't know how he survived that night. When he came back the next morning, he told me that he was so drunk, they probably just thought that he was crazy and left him alone. That was the good news, the bad news was that he told me to pack up, we were leaving. I didn't know what we were going to do, but I followed him and we took a bus into Tel-Aviv.

We didn't have much money left from the $500 I brought with me, but we found a hotel for $25 a night. It was in the worst part of town. I didn't know that there was a "red light" district but there is and we were staying in it. Our room had holes in the walls and it was pretty dirty. Except for the sheets which were clean. Bob wanted to go out and get really drunk, I refused to go with him. He was gone for several hours and when he got back another beating was in store for me. This time I ended up with a battered face and a big black eye.

The next morning when he took a look at me I guess he beat me up in a black out, he decided to go drown himself in the ocean. He just wanted to die. I ran after him, and watched him swim as far out as he could. I was screaming for someone to help me. No one did. I guess he had a change of heart, and he came back to shore, exausted.
I called his father and begged him to please get us home. He did arrange for two tickets back to America. We managed to get from the Hotel to the airport the next day and we looked so bad, me with my black eye and him just plain sick. We had to be searched and everything. They finally released us and when we got our seats the worst possible thing for us happened.
We were scheduled to spend the night in Copanhagen. I don't know why. The airline put us up in a very nice hotel for the night. Bob went out drinking, and I took a nice hot bath trying to sooth my aching body. He did make it back to the hotel that night ane we managed to get on the next flight back home.
The worst thing happened to us though, we were seated in business class and they let you have free drinks. Bob started drinking heavily. The plain stopped in Seatle before LA and he was so drunk, he was threatning to get off and go visit one of his fraternity brothers. The flight attendant and me stopped him from leaving. We made it back to LA.


When we got there we literally had no money to get us from the airport to his dads house, where my car was parked. We were told to take a cab and he would pay for it. When we got there we rang the bell and his housekeeper answered the door with cab fare and my car keys. We were not let in the house.

We were lucky we had an apartment to go to. My friend who sublet our place changed her mind and left. His father was just about to take everything out and put it in storage and let the place go. We dodged the homeless bullet that night.

We now had to try and get our lives back together. It was the week before Thanksgiving and he really wanted to be with his daughter. I had $82 in an old savings account and I pawned all my jewelry. We had enough money to buy and prepare a nice dinner for her. I covered up my black eyes the best I could. She was too young to notice, but when I look at pictures of myself I can still see them.

Our life was a Nightmare and I did not know how we would ever get out of this horrible cycle.

Off the subject for a moment

Today I had to go to small claims court to try and get money owed me back. I have been trying to get back the money I spent on someoneelses business, whom I worked for as an assistant, although under sworn testimony in court he denied it. But this person is a member of the California Bar Association, so I guess that gives him a license to lie.

Anyway I was totally prepared for his denial and I presented the Court with evidence showing that I indeed did work for him. My very own Lexus Nexis folder along with his. You can only get this if you are an attorney and then you can give your employee's access to the service with their very own password. That was how I got one.

I'm sure he was pretty surprised when I showed up in court with that along with emails sent to my email address pertaining to his business stating I was his assistant. He somehow got 5 people to perjure themselves against me stating in signed documents that I had never been his assistant. Two of these people I have never met and the other three I have only met once and it was on totally different occassions. Outside of his legal work.
This is what our world is faced with. You try and get what is owed you and instead of getting paid back they try to discredit you and slander you.

Did anyone see the movie Liar Liar? Well I say no more.

Playing cat and mouse with Oblivion

The disease was progressing into something I could not comprehend. I had never been in the presence of someone who simply hated his existence and probably himself.
He was acting out, they call it a "cry for help". I heard his crys Loud and clear and still I could not help him.

I would come home and find him lying in bed with his wrists slit, actually there is still blood stains on the mattress of the pull out couch which was our only bed at the time. I would clean him up, feed him, and try to reason with him about how much he had to live for.

He didn't feel that way. His family was practicing tough love on him and simply left him to his own destructive behavior.

He was the "Golden Boy" in the family. They first one to get into Stanford in his family which started a whole line of relatives that would follow in his footsteps.
In the DA's office he never lost a case except I believe one. He was the smartest person I had ever known. I could not understand his fall from all that.

I have witnessed what it is to be a "Torchered Soul" it was heartbreaking and frustrating. We were both now 30 years old and life seemed too painful for him to continue. He tried to jump out of our apartment window one night. I must tell you that this apartment was in the Ghetto. The neighborhood was so bad that we were the only people living in our building that didn't have multiple families living with us.
He was no longer working, didn't have a car and started hocking whatever to get money for booze. I can't tell you how many times he walked down to the corner liquor store with a pocket full of pennies and change to buy a bottle of cheap Vodka.

We had two visitors at this apartment, one was my ex who literally broke into tears when he saw where I was living, it was a far cry from the house in Sausalito that we had together. The other visitor was his father, who offered to move us to a better neighborhood for the sake of his young daughter's safety.

When she came to visit on the weekends I think she must have been so scared when I look back at it. There was always a lot of loud music playing from the neighboring apartments, and once there were people spying on her through their windows.
She lived in a beautiful house in Beverly Hills, with her mother, and had the maids taking care of everything. It was like being in two different world for all of us.

That's what love can do for a person. I never cared about our surroundings. I just wanted to be with him. I wanted to SAVE him from himself. I just didn't know how.

After almost a year of being drunk and sick Bob checked into St. Johns Hospital for yet another attempt at getting sober. This was the first of many attempts at sobriety while we were together. I lost count somewhere after 30 times.

The one thing that I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt was that Bob wanted to be sober more than he wanted to be drunk. The sheer number of attempts to get sober where testimony enough in my mind.

What I had to learn was how to not Enable him. It was the hardest part of our life together.

The first time the hospital staff made me go to an Al-Anon Meeting, I left there upset and appalled at what I heard. In my world I always thought that you had to help your loved ones. They told me that I was not helping him, but hurting him by taking care of him. I did not agree. Actually had I listened to their advice, I think Bob would have died many years before he did.

The one person he knew that would always be there for him, no matter how tough or how many bad things that happened, was me. I am grateful to my God that I never abandoned him, no matter how angry he made me, I always forgave him. He was a sick man, not a bad man, as so many people viewed him. He simply needed help.