I get two phone calls

I will never forget the day the counselor called me for the last time.
He told me he had thrown Bob out of the Hospital and if he called or came over here that I should not let him in.

I was stunned. The first thought I had was for Bob's sobriety. I knew how he had always reacted when pushed up against a wall like that. The problem was twofold.

One, I didn't want Bob to go back out and get drunk, he almost didn't live through this hospitalization and he wasn't fully detoxed from the Valium yet.
Second, I knew that he had no money or credit cards on him. They were at home.

That could only mean one thing. Once again Bob was going to be my problem to deal with.
Sure enough, not more than ten minutes later Bob called and begged me not to hang up on him. something I did quite often rather than listen to him scream at me.
What he didn't know was that I had already been told what had happened and also told not to let him back in the house.
No matter how upset I was at what had happened during his slip, I could never turn him out, if I did, he would not come back alive is how I always looked at it.
In the past whenever Bob had left treatment before he was really sane and sober, it would be only a matter of hours or days sometimes before he would be right back where he started.

I had no idea what would happen. My only point of reference was the past. He had not picked up a drink in fourteen years and as far as I was concerned anything was possible.
I told Bob that I would not hang up the phone and I just listened to what had happened.

He was doing his laundry and his councilor started talking to him about something, can't really remember what, but I do recall Bob telling me that he told him to in his words, "Get the Fuck Away From Me."
At that point I guess the guy just said to himself Bob was hopeless and he didn't want to deal with him. So he excerpted what little power he had and threw him out. What compassion for a fellow addict who was still suffering. I guess a little power went to this guys head. He couldn't bear to listen to Bob telling him the truth about his bad attitude. You don't just disregard someone who didn't pick up a drink for fourteen years. Yes he had a slip, but it didn't erase what Bob knew about how to stay clean and sober. In his case he just said "Fuck It" and picked up the drink, knowing well in advance what would happen. That's the true insanity of this disease.

Bob had nothing but change in his pocket which he was using for the pay phone and his laundry. I'm not really sure why they didn't allow him to have his wallet on him or money at that time, but he had nothing, So he walked to a phone Boothe with his suitcase and called me. He was lucky he even had enough change on him to call me with.

I told him to get in a cab and come home. I never regretted doing that even though the next week would be hell on earth. He was in full blown psychosis from the Valium cold turkey withdrawal. Looking back he had one hell of a law suit against that hospital, they almost killed him out of sheer neglect. It's a miracle he survived the brutal withdrawal he was put through.

I was going to need a lot of help on this one and I had to cry out to his AA friends for help. He was going crazy to put it mildly. I thank God that I never had to go through a Valium withdrawal myself. I had been told so many years before that what a terrible thing it was by a patient in St. Johns hospital years before that. He did not even begin to describe the living hell Bob was about to go through.

When he finally arrived home he was really agitated, but who wouldn't be? It started out pretty OK and then started to get tense. Whatever medication they had given him that day to prevent him from going into seizure and probably to calm him down were starting to wear off.
He was talking and pacing like a caged animal. He was hot and then he was cold. He was really trying to get a handle on his emotions, but he was loosing the ability to have any part in the way he was behaving. His body was screaming out for his medications. I had no idea what I was supposed to do.

I asked him what he wanted to do. He asked me to take him to an AA meeting up near our house. I guess he thought maybe that would calm him down, and prove to me how serious he was about getting sober and making things right with us.

As I write this, for the life of me, I cannot remember where Matt was. He never really went to other kids houses much, but I think I sent him to our friends house who's husband was also in the program. I knew I would never want him to see his father like this so I'm sure he was somewhere other than here that night. I remember so many things to the detail and I can't even remember where my son was during all this, how weird. I do know that Bob came home before Matt got out of school that day, so I must have called one of his friends Mom's to help me out.

I dropped Bob off at the meeting but I did not go in with him. When it was over I picked him up. At first he was telling me that he had met a really nice man who had had a terrible accident on his last slip and he was raising his son all by himself. He was grateful that nothing that terrible had happened to him on this last slip. It was a very sad story and it always stuck in Bob's head. For years when he saw this man at other meetings he always would talk to him and then tell me how kind and
un-judgemental he had been that night.

But when we got home, his mood was starting to change. I tried to get him to eat but he was so agitated by the withdrawal that all he wanted to do was sleep on the floor. It was like he was crawling out of his skin. I felt helpless. The hospital just threw him out, didn't bother to give him any medication to take with him or anything. They treated him like a dog, just because the counselor had an ego problem and couldn't handle someone still detoxing. I had no idea what kind of medication he was being given. But I did know that he was being given anti convalescents and maybe something for his heart after they did the EKG on him.

That was one long night. Bob was never a great sleeper, but that night neither one of us slept. He was going crazy. The first thing in the morning I got him to our local doctor, the one who had given him all the pills in the first place.
To my surprise he laid a Hugh guilt trip of Bob, never once taking responsibility for getting him hooked in the first place. He did not help him but he referred us to another doctor in the same office who we happened to know quite well because he was also in AA. He was now specializing in Addiction recovery. I was lucky to just be able to have Bob see him immediately, He probably saved Bob from picking up a drink that day, because I know he was just hanging on by the skin of his teeth to what little sobriety he had. Actually it wasn't sobriety at all, he was being given a lot of stuff to take. He was just alcohol free.

The Doctor put him back on anti convalescents and gave him some Trazadone. It did help Bob somewhat, but what I didn't know at the time, was that he didn't respect this guy at all because he had been taking all kinds of medication and claiming to be sober. In those days, there was a real rift going on in AA about anti depressants and actually being sober. Half the people in the program were really against it and the other half felt you had to do what you had to do to not pick up that drink, Bob was one of the guys that felt you were not sober if you took any kind of anti depressants at that time. Bob was always judging others sobriety when he was clean and sober, funny how when he was taking all those pills for his bad back he didn't put himself in that category,and now when he should have been happy to have someone help him, he was commenting on this guys sobriety. Wow.

Guess he didn't see the irony in that. He just was crazy or in serious denial at the moment. It really didn't matter because in a few hours all hell was going to break loose again.

Bob and his Counselor

Bob was calling me everyday with the blow by blow daily accounts of just how terrible it was there.
His brother had found the place. It was famous because of Kurt Cobain having left there and then went home and killed himself.
They had an open door policy. Imagine giving someone that doesn't want to be locked up permission to come and go as they please, especially when all they want to do is get a drink or a drug of their choice. In my humble opinion, what kind of moron thinks that is going to work. Might and well just take their money and never let them in to stay. Same things.

For some reason, it gave Bob a legitimate reason to have a resentment. I agreed with him. What kind of program was it that lets the patients walk out when they want to. I met a woman who was there. An athlete who had been on a show on TV. She was given permission to get a pass to go to a party.

Neither Bob or myself had ever heard of that. In the fourteen years since he had been in a rehab, I guess things had really changed.
Recovery had become Big Business. Doctors were making a lot of money from the insurance companies. Actually it was hard to find an empty bed. Business was booming. Only problem was, it wasn't like the old days. It had become somewhat sheik to be in rehab. What a sick world.
When I first met Bob, AA was the last place in the world anyone wanted to go to, or admit they needed to go to. Now the program was littered with celebrities in every field.
I recently watched a TV show about recovery and AA. There are no sure methods for recovery. Over fifty percent of addicts relapse with or without a program. All those thirty day hospitalizations only helped line the pockets of the doctors. Not even they could figure out how to keep people from going back to the bottle or the drug of their choice.

I must say at the time I did think that Bob was right. They would find bottles of alcohol stashed in the bushes after someone "Went for a walk". It was simply unacceptable to him. He was there to save his life and people were drinking.
When he got into it with his counselor it was basically just a matter of time before the shit hit the fan between them.

They didn't like each other. Bob thought he was a punk who thought he knew it all, and his councilor thought Bob was a no it all with no sobriety.
A recipe for disaster was brewing in there.

His counselor would call me and complain about Bob. What did he expect me to do. I tried to be supportive of Bob, but I knew how he was. When he was mad, there was no reasoning with him. I tried to listen to him, but I was conditioned to think that the hospital staff would know what was best.
This time I was wrong and Bob was right. I just assumed that Bob was going through yet another horrible withdrawal. I knew from years past that Valium was the worst drug to get out of your system.
It has what is known as an "After Life". That means that it lodges into the bones and tissues and the withdrawal for Bob took almost a year. He would be crazy and then calm, hot then freezing, and he was still having occasional seizures. His eyes were dilated for weeks, he could not sleep which added to the strange behaviour. He was in drug withdrawal with severe sleep deprivation.
I got calls several times a week from his counselor. I told him that Bob had announced to me and the family that he was getting a divorce and there really was no reason to keep calling me.
I told him flat out to call Meagan.
That's when he told me she had been banned from the hospital.
I guess they figured it out soon enough that she was trying to bring him "Whatever".
I never did get the story straight.
All I know is that when I brought him a suitcase with some clothes for the month, not only did they go through all his stuff, but they went through my bag as well.
That never happened before and I'm not sure if it was because it was normal or because they banned Meagan.

Things in our marriage could not have been worse really, where I used to visit him everyday in the past now I had our son and his activities to put before the rehab visits. Actually without Bob knowing it, the best thing I could have done for him at the time was not visit him every day. I was too hurt and angry.
It did not do him or me any good to fight about what we could not change. I just backed away more than I ever had.

It truly was self preservation for me at the time. I had no support group what so ever. There were so many feelings in me that I couldn't even begin to understand what had happened.
I was really grateful for the two kids at the time. Even his daughter was really in my corner the entire time.

One Sunday she took me and Matt along with her other brother to the House of Blues gospel brunch. Bob was really upset. What the hell was he mad about? It was always like that with him. He would look for anything to turn it around on me.
He shacked up with a woman he met and he was upset that I went to the House of Blues with his children.
That was crazy. He was still blaming me for the kids knowing about her. He threw that in my face for years. Talk about misplaced anger.
I would not lie for him ever again. He broke the bond and as far as I was concerned it would never be the same and it really wasn't.

Life without Trust

As much as I wanted to be there for him this time, I could not forgive this other woman, to make matters worse, the Monday I went to visit him in the hospital I had to figure out in my own mind, what I was going to do.

I looked at his bedside table and there was a card from "Meagan". Talk about throwing salt on the wound, it hurt physically and my head was spinning. I couldn't storm out of the hospital, but I was a scorned wife, just like a scene from one of my beloved English novels. I was seething on the inside, but the male nurse asked me if I could get into the shower with him and help bathe him. What would anyone say? Of course. I loved this man and loath him at this very moment.

Nothing prepared me for this. I could handle the slip, looking back it was inevitable. But to leave me and our son for three days to be with some woman he met in a bar, well that was the last straw. Now I was the one who was supposed to nurse him back to health again. What a joke. It was moments like this, that I should have really taken a good look at the lack of support our family had. Of course, once Bob was back in the hospital, there was a collective sigh of relief on all fronts. But did anyone other than me and his kids bother to go visit him? NO!!
Imagine that? After fourteen years without a drink, he didn't deserve a visit from his brother, dad or his dad's wife. I was so busy dealing with my own issues, and so used to doing this all alone it never occured to me that this time really was different from any of the past episodes. He had a family, and a son who had never known his father like this. Why couldn't they be there for him or us this time? I will never know. I guess I had just assumed it was because of the fight he had had with his father that lead up to this moment. But I think it was just the same excuse. He didn't warrent a visit from them. Plain and simple.

It all seemed so natural at the time, but as the years have passed and life has revealed itself like an onion, I know to the core of my soul how much that hurt him.
Was he so terrible that he didn't deserve a visit? He was on his death bed, the first couple of days. He was not important enough for a visit. This was part of the root of his problem. He felt he was never respected, only tolerated and I guess the family really did just sit back and wait for this moment to happen. Well, when it did happen he once again felt the cold chill of rejection.

I wanted to run out of there and never look back myself, trust me. The fact that He had announced he wanted a divorce to his family, but didn't bother to inform me would have been enough to end it right then and there, but, he was sick and weak,not to mention alone, I guess I was supposed to take it and just be the dutiful wife once again to keep a vigil and keep the family informed of his progress. A role I had willingly accepted.

Talk about conflicted, I was more than confused. I had to talk to his brother, father, daughter, our son and really try to keep it together as best as I could.
If I had ever had the disease myself I would have drown myself in a bottle for sure. I really never experienced anything like this.
The betrayal warranted drastic measures, but he was on a 24 hour watch for his seizure's.
I couldn't just leave him alone, I stuck around as the most unhappy, unwilling spouse ever.

I refused to go to Daniel Freeman's counseling program for the family, I wanted to know what they thought they could possibly do to help this situation.

It would take a miracle for me to get over this final blow. Maybe it was my ego, but it didn't feel like ego. My heart was broken, along with our vows and my trust.

If you have ever loved and trusted someone you know how wonderful it is to never question what they are doing when they are not with you. It's sheer bliss. Trust will set you free. And free was how we had always felt with one another. There was never another man or woman I had thought, that could break our bond.

I had really believed that ours was a blessed union, God had answered Bob's prayers.
What happened? I keep asking myself.
Not only was I shocked, so was everyone who knew us. Bob had brought a strange woman into our lives. Without any sign the eye of the storm must have been what life was before this. Calm, but hell was about to break loose.
The best I could do at the time was count my blessings that he would be in the hospital for at least a month. I had some time to figure out what to do. I had no idea. I just needed my son to feel safe and OK.
It's like lying, you tell yourself and your family that everything will be OK, but the entire time you know it's a lie you can't figure out how to get out of.

The more he recovered, the less remorseful in the beginning he was. This only added to my anger. But I had not yet found the inner strength to do something openly about it.
One day his daughter called the pay phone and asked to speak to him. The person who answered the phone thought she said her name was Meagan. She called me and wanted to know who Meagan was. I told her. I saw no reason to keep it to myself. Bob was furious with me. Of course he was. He wanted me to lie for him to his daughter because he knew that she would tell her mom. That made him really angry with me.
I couldn't believe my ears. I was expected to lie for him. I felt he was lucky I was even speaking to him. There was no way I would do that for him. I told him he should have thought about the consequences before he hooked up with her, then I found out that she was coming to visit him.
He was having a little romance. I didn't even know how to react. It was a habit he had learned being a lawyer. Turn it around on the other guy. He was mad at Me? I was not going to take this sitting down.

My anger was festering under the surface. I have always felt free to tell the truth, but I always managed to be somewhat "wishy washy" up until this point. I had become a yes wife, never wanting to be right were I was now. Looking at the face of someone who had just blown fourteen years without a drink, and who had also broken our marriage vows.
On both fronts I was devastated, but I felt sorry for him relapsing, and all I wanted to do was leave him for cheating on me. But of course that emotion was still being kept inside, like a time bomb just ticking away. I wanted him to get better so that I could leave him when he was better. I couldn't bring myself to do anything before. He always had an expression. "You don't kick a man when he's down". Those words kept ringing in my ears. I had to wait.
On the outside I had learned how to hide my feelings from the family, always trying to be stoic, always trying to give him the benefit of a doubt.
It would take more than old behaviour to make myself believe some of the nice words that were coming out of my mouth.
I wanted to bury myself and cry forever. I couldn't. I had to help our son through this.
He had never known the insanity of the disease, only sobriety, all though at times it wasn't a peaceful time, at least his dad wasn't drinking.
I needed to help him understand what had just happened. His dad was a sick man, not a bad man.
I could not bring my rage into it, at least not at the moment.
Bob was really in very serious physical condition. The seizure's continued over the weeks. One night they rushed him up to the cardiac unit to monitor his heart with an EKG. He was not doing well those first couple of weeks.

The real problem was that the Doctor had taken him cold turkey off all the medication that he had been taking for the past couple of years. How could a hospital not realize that was putting his life in danger? They were punishing him for taking a drink and totally ignoring the real problem, He was in major Valium withdrawal and that was the cause of all the seizures and the heart problems.
Today if that happened I could sue the doctor and the hospital for the lack of medical attention Bob had been given.
This is the problem with any rehab program, no matter what they say there is a certain amount of guilt tripping attached to it.
Bob was made to start going to therapy as soon as he could. This is such a joke. His counselor had three years of sobriety from heroine, he had never had the amount of sobriety that Bob had and this guy was a typical example of power corrupts. He treated Bob like he had suddenly forgotten every thing he had ever learned in his fourteen years.
It the thing I had about AA. The new comer philosophy. Shut up and listen. I wouldn't listen to this guy either.
It only made me feel even more empathy for what Bob was going through. No one bothered to stop and think about what it must be like to walk a mile in his shoes and then have to listen to some young punk. I would never have done it either. This guy had no credibility. So what was three years in the scheme of things. He had no idea of the devastation that had happened in our lives. It all fell apart and the best they could do was focus on his being a "New Comer".