This is one of those stories. One i didn’t want to remember, but I want to tell it for the ones living in crazy, as I did. I lived crazy. Living with an addict is pure crazy. Loving an addict is an act of insanity. It is painful to remember, but it is dangerous to forget.
8am
Morning, probably around eight or nine . I dropped Jason off to see a friend in the hospital, left him with a bus pass. Then I went to work, he was supposed to meet me back at home that evening, he was maybe a mile away. We kissed goodbye, just a normal thing. Then I didn’t hear from him at all, all day, Nothing, no phone, no text.
6pm – nothing
7, 8 pm nothing
I put the kids to bed. His phone is off, I cant find him.
8, 10 midnight.
I’m up, trying every number I have, texting anyone he’s been in contact with. literally, nothing. No word. The fear and anxiety start to grip you, no longer a nagging feeling in your head but a full blown tidal wave of fear.
That pit in your stomach, that fear that your loved one is not OK. That maybe they wont make it home this time. This time. Because of course, this si not the first taste of insanity. Its just, you never get used to it. you never get used to your loved on disappearing.
Having been married to an addict for years, your fear is tempered with logic.
Logic: He has disappeared before, he could of just disappeared again. This really isn’t that unusual, you shouldn’t worry. He does this. Its OK
Still, you cant help but worry. I stayed up all night, all night looking out the window, trying to find him, trying to find someone who knew where he was.
3am. A text, FINALLY
Only, it just brings more confusion. I get a text from Jasons phone, saying that he’s dead, he messed with the wrong people, got left in the desert, and that he was gone. I could go pick up his phone at a Frys parking lot towards the Indian reservation. A long text saying how whoever was writing this was sorry for me, but he messed with the wrong people, and was dead in the desert. I broke down and cried. I called my brother, I didn’t know what to do, I didn’t know how to process. Pain and heartache, fear, anger worry. All tumbling over me like waves knocking me into the sand, one after another without a break to breathe.
First of all, after my initial pain and crying subsided, I knew it was not true. I did not know what WAS true, or why this was being sent to me, but it did not make any sense. If someone had just killed my husband, they would not be texting me from his phone. Nor would they be concerned about me getting it back.
However, If it was him, this was a mean, awful thing to do to me. (the theory I believe). I couldn’t imagine him doing such an aweful thing to me. I was tired, exhausted from being up all night, and worried, confused, angry. Just grasping at what could be reality and what was not.
More reality checks: I started doing my online stalking, and I found someone he had called from his google voice number.
I called the number. Those were always fun calls. “Hi this is Jason’s wife, i see he called, I got a text saying he was dead, and I need to know he’s OK. I found your number using xxxx and can you please let me know if he;’s OK:”
Thankfully this seemed to be a nice person, he verified he was OK but seemed messed up, and that Jason had called him for a ride, he was picking him up. Some cab driver, I don’t know. Anyway, they had him. He had his phone. Person picked him up, and then, said he took off. He was gone again. All day, I worried, now I knew he was alive, pretty sure he texted that to me, or someone he was with thought it was a funny joke. I don’t know. But the paralyzing fear that he was gone. It was as though I was turned into stone.
He eventually made it home, late late late, I think it was the next day. I’m finding these memories are being burred. Maybe I’m blocking them. I don’t want to remember them. Remembering is painful.
Its important that I remember. Its important because I want those hard times to mean something. If I forget, they were nothing. That pain and anguish, that heartache, it was for nothing. When he did come home, he was a mess, and he denied any knowledge of it. He, of course, had an elaborate story. He always had a story. One that twisted truth and lies into an elaborate pattern, tangling my mind, twisting the truth. He said he had been left in the desert and had to walk back. He claimed he did not have his phone, after he walked alone in the desert back, he also tracked down whoever had his phone and got it back. I don’t know whats true and whats not. I never will. I do know that he was gone, I had awful texts sent to me, and that no one should go through that, ever. Living with an addict. When you choose to use, its like “holding a burning coal on your loved ones body”
What I do know is that addiction permeates your life and a ll your loved ones, its poisoning you and all you touch. The pain, panic, fear confusion, all of it was because of addiction. I love him and I hate him all rolled into one. I wish with every fiber of my being that his story, his journey would of ended differently. Now I can only hope his story, our story, will maybe help another, before their story ends in tragedy.
ThE CLUB NONE WANT TO JOIN 