Have a peek into my life

I know I have certain days set aside for certain topics, but, yeah. That really didn’t work out so well. Really it didn’t work out at all when I wasn’t blogging for the past month. But anyway, I guess it’s time to spill the beans about why I wasn’t blogging at all for a month, and not really so regularly over the past couple years or so.

The day after Labor Day, I drove my husband to a 65-day treatment facility for alcohol and drug abuse. He had started drinking again about 2 years ago, and it steadily progressed to the point where he was drinking heavily 5 or 6 days a week while denying it was heavy drinking and/or that he was really drunk. Also during this 2 year period I nagged him about it, fought with him over it, and threatened divorce. None of my tactics worked on him, and none of his denial and manipulation worked on me. All the while the kids retreated to their rooms attempting to block out the dysfunction around them.

In the meantime, we were all going through the motions, and putting on the masks of pretending nothing was wrong. He was leading a ministry and a small group at church, and I was standing up helping to lead singing every Sunday morning and many Sunday nights. Everything looked “normal” and “good” from the outside. But we were a mess.

I prayed and prayed, and was mostly left with silence and no change. I asked, “How much is enough?” The abbreviated answer was my wedding vow – “Til death.” Yet I still could not stop wanting a divorce, and finally had to share the full answer I got with 4 friends when I asked them to pray and hold me accountable. That’s when the voice telling me to push for divorce ceased. Not because of my prayer, but my friends’ prayers.

Gradually the fighting between us ceased, though each of us continued to hold our ground, and then the secret came out. He got drunk and took a sleeping pill and I couldn’t get him all the way awake so that he could make it to the Bible study he was leading. There I was left with spilling the beans to 2 couples why he wasn’t there, and what had been going on. I narc’ed him out, and it sucked. But, it didn’t suck near as bad as covering up the problem. He was confronted, held accountable, and rightly disciplined by being removed from leadership and teaching positions.

Still, he dug in, and finally decided he was going to confront back and argue his case. This put me in a very difficult spot as I neither agreed with nor supported his position, and prepared for opposing him publicly. But when we went to this meeting he called, instead of defending himself and fighting his position, he confessed everything and announced that he was going to rehab because he was not in control of his drinking. It was in control of him. We found a place, got him all set, and off he went. He only did about a month of the 65 days, but he came home a different man than I dropped off.

There will be more follow up to this, but in the meantime, here is the testimony the hubby gave at church this past Sunday. The audio is bad because he spoke without a mic and I recorded it with my iPhone, but I’m sharing it anyway.

12 Responses to 'Have a peek into my life'

  1. Petra says:

    awesome. still praying for you guys. and thrilled things are going well! 🙂

  2. MacBros says:

    Wow! You’re right when you said everything look fine on the outside.

    I grew up with an alcoholic in my family too and it nearly made us all go completely insane. It’s tough, so I can relate.

    Glad he got help.

    It’s to bad when people can’t control their drinking, and I’m OK with saying I’m a weekend drunk, cause that is as far as it goes for me. 1 night is enough for me after a long hard work week.

    Hopefully he can work it through with you all helping.

    • DragonLady says:

      Yeah, but one can only keep up the facade for so long. 😉

      I had to give up my weekend drinking. It was getting to be a problem, and wasn’t always confined to just the weekend. I guess I just got too old to binge? :drinkers2:

      • MacBros says:

        I’d love to be able to afford a daily buzz, but I’d never get anything done if I could. So being broke is Kinda Good I guess 😛

        You needed to give up the weekend thing you should say. Be kinda hard for somebody to stay sober if others weren’t.

        • DragonLady says:

          Yeah, a key factor in giving it up was, well, straight up hypocrisy – asking/telling him to give up something I was doing myself. But a lot also had to do with why I was drinking, and it was for many wrong reasons and entirely too excessively. :dunno:

  3. So good to hear that he’s admitted that it was a problem, it’s the first step to making a change. Regardless of how much we may want someone to change bad habits, they have to take the first step.

    Not sure if you’ve read it, but Stephen King wrote a book, On Writing. I really liked that book, not only does he talk about writing, he shares a bit about his personal life, such as his battle with alcoholism and drugs. I really appreciated his candor in talking about his addictions… and it made me like him (as a writer) even more than I already had.

    I was eight years old, when I read his first book, The Shining, but even at that age, I couldn’t help but think that some of ‘Jack Torrence’s’ addictive habits, were based on his own life, so I wasn’t surprised when King admitted that in his book.

    Alcoholism and drugs have never been an issue, but I’ve had my own issues, such as shutting people out. Oh the stories I could tell… 😉

    • I forgot to mention, I’ll keep your family in my prayers.

    • DragonLady says:

      It’s easy, even when we know it is or will be a problem to listen to the voice that tells us to lighten up and just have fun. That voice deceives us in so many ways to focus on self in an ungodly and often unhealthy way. His addictions/idols have ultimately exposed mine, so as bad as it sucked while it was happening, so much growth has happened and the beginning of healing of old wounds that go waaaayyyyy back before I even met him. 🙂

      I have not read that one, and really it has been years since I’ve read any of King’s books.