Prescription Drug Abuse Part 3

I grew up in a home that was happy.   

 

Parents that loved and spent time with their five children.  I remember working outside with my dad and watching my mom spend hours sewing me big puffy *to die for * dresses and making me many porcelain dolls. I remember my Aunt Ann once telling me that each stitch on my dress represented my mom’s love for me, and I still believe she was right almost 30 years later.

They were calm and simple, always valuing each child for their individual strengths and talents.  They encouraged us to be anything we could dream and took the time to read green eggs and ham and Sam I Am.  We went boating to bond and ran through the trees playing little house on the prairie and He-man.

I was sheltered and naive and loved.   

 

I wouldn’t take back those years for anything and I feel so blessed to have had them.  As I have have grown older, I have seen the many options parents have in raising their children.

  I have witnessed children that have been abused mentally, physically, sexually, and emotionally.  These kids can make it out, but they weren’t given the same start in life that I was.  

Thank you mom and dad for giving me a gift that few in this world get, a happy healthy childhood.

Looking at my childhood, it is no wonder that when I met my hubby that I had no idea the bondage that chemicals and substances can have on your body.  Before we kissed he would have to take a shower, gargle mouth rinse, and use cologne.  I had no idea why he was so particular until I learned that he smoked.  I could tell there was something *off* when we kissed, but didn’t know what it was.  

Little did I know that the smoking was a very small deal compared to the pain pills he kept in his truck that his doctor prescribed for his back pain.  I focused on the smoking because I hated it and I wanted him to quit for his health and my sanity.  I spent years nagging him, begging him, and pleading for him to stop.  It wasn’t until we had been married about three years that he quit.  I hadn’t said a word about it for a year…I had given up because I realized if he were to quit, it would have to be his decision.   

 

That may be the single most frustrating part of addiction, it has to be their choice not yours.

 

 

We had a very sweet bishop that called Jon to be a boy scouts/young men’s leader.  Jon tried to turn down the calling saying that he had a problem with smoking, but he wouldn’t have it.  He told Jon that if he needed to have a smoke, to walk away from the boys and take care of it.  It was the confidence this sweet bishop had in Jon {accepting him for who he was} to help him change.

I heard a quote once that President Hinckley once said, “The sweetest smell in church is the smell of smoke.”  Meaning, they are there regardless of their challenges.  They are there because that is where sinners go, church.  We don’t go because we are already perfect.

Quite the opposite of the lady that once chastised Jon for coming to church smelling like smoke.  Jon was 20 or so and his dad was being released as bishop after serving for several years.  Jon was up hunting with me and some other guys and he was planning on attending church that day, because he knew it was a special day for him.  We got stuck in the snow and he barley made it to sacrament.  Instead of the lady noticing how sweet he was for killing himself for getting there, she smelled the smoke and ripped on him.  Some sins smell, some sins you hear, some you can see, and some are invisible to the eye but there just the same.  Are the other sins any less important….like judging? 

 I don’t think so.

This was one of many times Jon and I had to learn to judge the gospel by the teachings and not by the people.  People are just that….people, messed up and imperfect.  Unfortunately people are the only things Heavenly Father has to lead his church.

Anyway, Jon quit smoking eventually and we were sealed in the Bountiful temple on June 15, 1999.  We were going along and doing well until Jon’s parents decided to serve an L.D.S. mission.  Serving a mission is a great thing to do, but when they left they left a huge load of stress on Jon’s shoulders.  He was to take care of all the extended family, take care of the cabin {this may not seam hard, but contained lists of to do’s for every season}, and run their business in addition to his normal responsibilities.  

Jon has always put tremendous pressure on himself to be the best for everyone he can be and eventually it became too much.  With the normal and consistent usage of his pain pills from the age of 16 when he was hurt in a football accident in high school, he began to abuse them.  I am sure they were abused before this point and he took them because his back hurt when he owned the landscaping business and built retaining walls…but it was still at least in check.  It wasn’t out of control and affecting people around him.  

Like I said before, I was oblivious and didn’t understand that he was already battling with prescription drug abuse.  I was working hard, providing for the family, and carrying on all family responsibilities so I didn’t see the problem.  I trusted that he took what he was supposed to.

The right amount of pressure would indeed send him into a tail spin.  

He began taking more pain pills than he had ever taken, without my knowledge and fell deeper into the trap of drugs.  At this point I started to see some warning signs, but didn’t know what to do, who to talk to, or where to turn for help.  I loved him and blabbing to the world that I was worried about his pain killer usage had the potential to tear our whole world apart.  Jon’s ex would no doubt use it to take Rooz away from us, I was worried he would loose his contracts and our income that was supporting our family…especially because now he was running the company because his parents had left.  I didn’t want to risk loosing their business and years of work.

  I just kept hoping that he could pull out of it himself.

Eternal optimist can sometimes shoot you in the foot, or heart.  I didn’t realize until later that he was self medicating.  He was trying to fix the problem that the cigarettes had fixed for many years.  He had an anxiety problem and the nicotine had calmed him down when he smoked.  Now that he didn’t have anything to help him process this, and no practice at wading through stress in healthy ways..he was becoming out of control.

As I look back, I can only remember flashes…parts of a whole.  I know I was in survival mode in the middle of raising my niece, rooz, mack, noo, and sprite.  I remember spending more time with my cousin Mandy because she lived with us while she went to college.  She was suffering through the loss of her fathers health, and we needed each other.  We never talked specifically about what was going on with Jon or her dad, but we were there for each other.  Do you know the kind of friend that you can be with for hours and not even feel the need to fill every second with chatter?  The kind you are perfectly comfortable with?  That was Mandy and she was a blessing to me. 

We would dance together with the kids, play with them, and had a lot of fun.  It wasn’t until he came home at dinner time that I noticed anything.  Whatever he had taken throughout the day was pushed through his system when he ate dinner.  Sometimes he would fall asleep in his plate of food, or on the couch watching T.V.  As much as I hated him during this time I feel grateful that he was never stupid enough to drive with the kids when he was out of control. He was at least with it enough to time his break downs at home where he was safe.   

 

When it was really bad was when the doctor prescribed Ambien to help him sleep at night.  He has always had problems sleeping and would stay up for several days if he wanted to and without the aid of a sleeping pill.  I have watched him do it several times.  It is unbelievable to me.  When he took Ambien, it made him crazy.  He would lay down like he was going to bed and watch TV but after a bit he would stand up and start going about his business.  His head was completely out of it, but his body was walking around.  

 

 

These are the times I would freak out and yell at him.  I found him once screwing things in the kitchen wall, like hooks for the spoons etc.  I found him passed out in the bathroom and in the garage.  The profanities that flew out of my mouth are unspeakable and you wouldn’t want to read them anyway…or maybe you would, but we will keep this PG13 rated.  I was SO angry and hurt and felt discarded.  I felt like he was picking medications over me, and in fact he was but I didn’t understand the chains that bind you once you are addicted.  They become a sort of animal..without rational through processes and decision making skills.  

 

 

It’s like they are in a dungeon and they can’t get out.  I know he realized he was hurting me, but it wasn’t enough to pull him out of this trance he was in.  He was a slave to his addictions and to the physical pain caused by the pills if you tried not to take them.  

 

 

Ghost pains.

 

 

If you ask any addicted person, they truly believe that their body hurts so bad that they need them, especially if you try and stop taking them.  Their body creates more and more pain..so much that they can’t control it anymore and they will do anything to get the problem fixed.  Nothing is more important than feeling ok, or normal…their kind of normal anyway.  

 

 

And so it went from about 2000-2002.

Extreme unhappiness and loss of control.

 

 

It wasn’t until about a month ago when I started going to counseling that I realized I am a protector, or in others words and enabler.  Enabling is a pretty screwed up thing to be because all you are trying to do is help the person, but in reality you are hurting them.  I was getting the exact opposite reaction to the problem than I wanted.  

 

 

Because I loved Jon and could understand his pain and stress so well, I was letting him get away with it.  I wasn’t putting my foot down and doing something about it.  Oh believe me, I would yell *when the kids couldn’t hear*, and I was mad…it affected us.  I loved him but I fell out of love with him.  He was a roommate of sorts, a friend that I didn’t give my real attention to.  I dealt with him to hold our family together.  

 

 

Some women would have left, and believe me I thought about it but I had hope that he could pull out of it.  I didn’t know when or where but I was going to sit and wait as long as I could.  

 

 

And then there were times that almost pushed me over the edge.  We didn’t have money to pay for the bills and he was so frustrated.  I remember him fixing some toys for the kids out back and passing out and hitting his head on the cement.  The kids came in screaming that dad was bleeding..and I didn’t help him fix the problem I just walked away. 

 

 

So you see, I was there…but not there.

I was in my own world and my focus was on the kids.  I had built walls, strong walls made out of anger, hurt, and pain.  

 

 

It has been a process to tear those walls down, one brick at a time….one year at a time.  It has been about 11 years since the worst of it and I am still working through it.  

 

 

Thank goodness he almost died.

Thank goodness he almost drown in front of me, at my hand.

For it propelled me to take action.

 

 

Enough was enough….but that story is for another day.

 

 

I tell these things because I feel strong.  I have come a long way and I am at a place that I feel that emotions like they were yesterday, but I can also hold him in my arms and thank Heavenly Father that somehow we made it through together.  It doesn’t tear me up like it used to and I know there are those that need to hear my story.  A story of a wife that loved a husband that was lost…and made it out together….alive.

 

 

I am closer to Jon than ever, and I love him more than I ever have.

It is possible to make it, with a lot of work and prayer.

That is my message to you.