An Anonymous A

NAÏVETÉ

Wed, 09 Aug 2006 06:49:00 GMT

I go to my Nar-Anon group every week and I say that what brings me there is that the man I love is an addict, that I am there to learn about addiciton and face what is happening. But this confuses me, because on one hand, I feel like I know a lot about addiction, or I should know a lot about addiction, for he is not the only addict in my life.

I just wonder why he is the one that’s affected me the most. My mother is a recovering alcoholic, in fact, the entire maternal side of my family is either dead, dying, or recovering from an alcohol or drug addiction. Even my own sister, my very best friend in the whole world, has battled for four years between using, recovering and relapsing from a meth addiction.

So why have none of their addictions led me to a Nar-Anon meeting before? Why am I not scared and fearful for them? How come I could deal with it when it was my very own family members that these things were happening to, but I ran away with my tail between my legs when I found out he was using? Well, my mother was one of the lucky ones, who only had to recover once, and she’s made her sobriety last for over 18 years. My sister, she never shut me out. Even when she had spent nearly 3 years clean and relapsed, I can’t imagine how hard it must have been for her to admit that to me. But she did, and she said she felt a lot better once she did. The rest of my family, I never knew them because of their addictions.

I pray for my sister, but I do not fear for her in the same way I fear for him. Perhaps it’s because with each relapse she has had, that woman picks herself up, dusts herself off, and starts again. She has shown that she is determined to win her battle against this damn thing.

When I think of his addiction I am scared to death. Never have I felt so naïve about a thing in my life, like I'm just a scared and lost little girl. Heroin. What do I know about heroin? When I was younger it was just this big scary word to me, like it wasn’t even a real thing. It was this fairytale drug that you hear of legends like Sid Vicious dying from. I was a small town girl. Who did heroin? In fact, who the hell would even know where to get heroin?

Actually, I knew one guy when I was younger that started using. I dated him for a few weeks just before he started using. I was 15 at the time, and he was only 17. He was a really sweet boy. He took me to his house for dinner to meet his parents. He bought me strawberries because he knew it was my favourite fruit. He was really bright and smart and he could play the guitar. Then he dropped off the face of the earth. I was young then though, and I didn’t know why he stopped calling me. I figured, he’d just found some other girl, or there was something he didn’t like about me, or whatever. I found out a few months later he was using heroin. It didn’t really affect me that much though; we hadn’t known each other long enough to become close.

A few years later he came back to town though and I saw him around a couple times. He was off the heroin by then and trying to get clean, but it had really messed him up, and he wasn’t the same person. It had given him brain damage or something, because talking to him wasn’t the same. I always felt kind of sad for him though, cause he’d had so much potential. Even he became this kind of legend though. Don't do heroin, or you'll become fucked up like him.

So what do I know about heroin? Heroin kills. Heroin fucks people up. That’s about all I knew. Couple that with what I do know about meth addiction, and ladies and gentlemen, we have a whopper.

I supposed I’m scared because of what I don’t know. I feel like the people in my life, those that I love the most, have always sheltered me from this. I don’t know of the chaos of addiction; when the rent money goes missing, or the kids don’t get picked up from school, or your addict shows up where you work and causes a scene. I don’t know that chaos that other people in my NA group talk about, and I don’t want to, it scares me to death. It's part of the reason why I ran away; I knew that I could not risk living in that chaos.

But I also don’t want to be treated like I’m too fragile for this. I don’t want to not talk about it. I don’t want to be shut out. I suppose I’m afraid of being shut out again. I’m afraid of what I have to face, but I think I am more afraid of running away from it again. I am scared to death of living in the chaos of uncertainty again.

When I was a kid I had a book called “There’s No Such Thing as a Dragon.” It’s about a boy who finds this little dragon and he tries to show it to his parents, and they tell him, “Don’t be silly, there’s no such thing as a dragon.” And he keeps trying to show them, and they keep telling him the same thing, and the dragon just keeps getting bigger and bigger and bigger, until it fills up the whole house, and reeks havoc on the whole neighbourhood.

I don’t want to pretend there is no such thing as a dragon. I want to look into the faces of the monsters I have to fight so that I know what I am up against.

FAITH

Tue, 08 Aug 2006 06:05:42 GMT

NOTE: I do not believe or follow in any organized religion, but if you do and by doing so you believe it helps to make you a better person, bless you. I follow my own spiritual path, believing in god as I see him. As you read the following passage, keep in mind that when I refer to god as a him/he, I am using this article in the same way that I would refer to a ship as a she/her. The god-force that I know has no gender yet for some reason, it feels odd when I refer to him as an it.

I’ve heard of people turning away from God during traumatic times in life, saying, if there was a god, why would he bring such tragic events into our lives? But for me it was different, in fact, it led me to believe there had to be a god; for god was my only hope. God, was the only thing that could save him, and praying was the only thing that would give me hope and comfort me.

I have felt a deep and powerful force within me, felt it in the world all around me, and seen it radiating from other people, that I could only describe as a god-force. The first few times in my life that I have felt this were during times of deep meditation. God to me is the energy and balance of the universe present in all things; it’s what makes the trees grow, and the rivers flow, and the wind blow. And, it is the force defined in Desiderata that says – whether it is clear to you or not, the universe is unfolding as it should.

God has also shown himself to me in signs, symbols, realizations, and coincidences that inextricably give purpose and meaning to my life. For instance, why did I have the urge to come home back in October, just at the same time that he was starting his recovery?

It is a powerful feeling being in connection with that force. It can be a very overwhelming experience for the human heart. But with each experience, I have yearned for it more, for it brings me great peace and comfort.

During the deepest part of my pain I longed for that peace and comfort, that god feeling, and I could not connect. I yearned for it and I was in agony over my wanting. I felt absent in my connection to the earth. But a thought came to me.

“God is with you, even in your darkest hour.”

I thought about the old parable about Jesus carrying the man through his most troubled times:
One Night a man had a dream. He dreamed he was walking along the beach with the Lord. Across the sky flashed scenes from his life. For each scene, he noticed two sets of footprints in the sand; one belonged to him and the other to the Lord.
When the last scene of his life flashed before him, he looked back at the footprints in the sand. He noticed that many times along the path of his life there was only one set of footprints. He also noticed that it happened at the very lowest and saddest times in his life.
This really bothered him and he questioned the Lord about it. "Lord, you said that once I decided to follow you you'd walk with me all the way, but I have noticed that during the most troublesome times in my life, there is only one set of footprints. I don't understand why when I needed you most you would leave me." The Lord replied, "My precious, precious child, I love you and would never leave you. During your times of trial and suffering when you see only one set of footprints, it was then that I carried you."
God is there.

I knew that god was there, but it was not that he was not showing himself to me, but that I was not looking. I was in too much pain. But I took comfort in my thought.

God is with you; even in your darkest hour. Even if you cannot feel him, you need to know that he is there. Just remember the time when you did feel it. Keep praying and god will show himself.

So I prayed. I prayed to be able to feel god again, for god to reveal himself to me, to bring me relief and comfort from the misery I was experiencing. I prayed for the patience to be with myself again and for the guidance to be able to live a virtuous and just life. I prayed for resolution and conclusion, and I prayed for the salvation of my lover’s soul.

I prayed not for what I wanted but for what I needed; god gave me a miracle.

I still don’t know exactly what god is, but maybe I don’t need to know, maybe I’m not supposed to know. I know that I have felt a higher power, that there is some force guiding me to my destiny and shaping my soul. I know that the universe is unfolding as it should and whether I have the answers or not, everything is happening for a reason.
I know that I have experienced my own personal miracle and it has given me direction in my life. I am a part of that god-force; it is what connects me to the earth, to others, to nature, to my body, to everything. It has deepened my purpose and I know that I must lead my life in appreciation and gratification for the gifts that it brings me—both small and large—life, hope, faith and miracles.

“The love you take is equal to the love you make.”
~John Lennon & Paul McCartney

“The energy you put into the world is equal to the energy you receive.”

EMERGING FROM DENIAL

Fri, 04 Aug 2006 06:37:56 GMT

I knew from the beginning, that I could not rescue him from his addiction. I felt powerless, and indeed I was. I waited for a year and a half, hoping I would hear something, but the snippets of rumours that I heard just got worse. When I heard he had gone to Vancouver and was living in the Downtown Eastside, I was sent reeling. I wrote his parents and received no reply. I couldn’t believe it. Literally. I couldn’t picture him there. I just wanted to believe it was another rumour.

The misery that I was living in was tearing me apart. I had been without the man that I loved for five years, the first five years of my 20s. How could it be I kept asking myself, that I had wanted and waited for him, and just when it seemed like I would finally get to be with him again, the absolute worst thing in the world happened, and tore us apart. I had spent 5 years in misery, pining over the mistakes I had made, playing the what-if game, and being totally miserable.

I knew I couldn’t go on that way, so one day, I went to the library and I got a book out on coping with grief. I wanted to be happy so bad, that I whizzed through that book. And I whizzed through what I thought were the five stages of grief too.

The book said you didn’t have to go through them all in the exact order and that sometimes a person even skipped a stage, so I started by picking out which stages I thought I had already been through. Here are the conclusions I came up with:

Denial – Oh of course, I had been in denial about the issues in our relationship for a long time. My shame about all the mistakes I had made, led me to lie, and deny the truth of what really happened. Little did I know that I was already deep in denial about what was happening to him, so much so that I didn’t even contemplate this stage in regards to the current situation – the fact that the man I loved was a heroin addict – instead, I just related this stage to past events in our relationship and placed all the blame on myself. I thought that by “accepting responsibility” i.e. blaming myself, this could relieve me of denial.

Anger – who was I going to be angry at? Not him, that’s for sure. He didn’t do anything wrong. He has a disease and that is not his fault. It’s all my fault for not doing things differently and I’m the one to blame. Okay sure, I’ve been angry at myself for a long time. I’ve felt like a fool over this situation for so long. Of course I should be angry at myself and all the mistakes I made. Okay, on to the next stage.

Bargaining – what was there to bargain for? I had already tried to get him back. And I always said, with love there is no persuasion. You either love someone or you don’t, and if he didn’t love me, there was nothing I could say or do to change that. Okay, what was next?

Depression – ha! Been there. Done that. Next.

Acceptance – okay, so he is gone. I can’t find him, no one knows where he is. I am alone now, and this is my life, and I have to find a way to cope.

So you can see, that these stages of grief were not processes that I was trying to go through, but rather processes that I was trying to stop. I thought that in order to move past this, to find happiness and sanity and not days filled with misery, that I had to halt all of these processes. Don’t deny, don’t be angry, you can’t negotiate, don’t be depressed, just accept it and cope.

It was at that time I started making plans to leave. There was nothing for me where I was. I needed something new, I needed to make something of my life. My father lived down in Seattle, a place where I didn’t know anyone, and more importantly where no one knew me. I could go there and make a new life.

And I went there and that is exactly what I did. And the world that I created was this huge fantasy of denial.

I met a new man, and I found a reason to be with him. My new boyfriend was a very nice man, and he did love me. I felt no deep love for him though, but I thought it would be enough to let him love me, and I would do my best to appreciate him and show him I cared. He took great care of me in a time in my life when even though I didn’t know it, I was probably unable to take care of myself. But I was not in love with him.

There was no passion, and not for his lack of trying, but for my lack of seeing. The man I was truly in love with was the boy that threw cherry blossoms at my feet one spring as we walked through the park, the boy that was too shy to sing me the words of a song he had written for me but strummed it on his guitar, the boy who drew a picture of my heart, with the words “Handle with Care.” And the man who became the father of my child.

And now I found myself relegated to a life where romance consisted of pasta dinners at Olive Garden, and going out to see the latest blockbuster. I know that sounds terrible, and I don’t want to make my ex sound like a dud or discredit his love. The truth is he could probably show more romance than I could have ever seen at that point. He once called me his muse, and I could never figure out why, for I never thought that I could inspire anything, not even myself, at that time in my life. I feel awful sometimes about being in that relationship when my heart wasn’t in it, because in his own way he did try. I was just the wrong girl, I was just never his girl.

The world, the real world that I had known with the man that I was in love with, was so full of magic, the everyday kind of magic, that puts you in awe of the universe and beauty that is life. I can’t explain it, but I’m sure some of you have known it, and my mum always said, “Well, if you could explain it, then it wouldn’t be magic.”

Now that he was gone, my world felt dull and gray and empty. The world felt too real, too solid, and time made everything too permanent and unchangeable. So I retreated to the only place I knew where magic still existed, where there was no time, and nothing was permanent – into my own imagination, and my dreams.

I thought that my new boyfriend could be my life, and the man I was really in love with could be my dreams. So at night when I went to bed, I would dream of the man that I was in love with. Literally. I started to train myself to have lucid dreams, so that I could make him appear. There were several dreams when he came home to me, or we met in magical ethereal places and had the conversations we were never able to have, living the life that was just not possible in the ordinary, hard, material world.

I began writing faery-stories about us, about different scenarios of all the reasons why he was not in my life - magical beings that stole him away, or created illusions so that I could not see that he really was there all along. Anything that would keep me from seeing where he really was.

There was the real everyday part of my denial too. And for all I kept in touch with people, I might as well have been in China. As long as I didn’t go home, as long as I didn’t ask about him, or talk to anyone that knew him, I could believe that maybe he was okay. Maybe he really wasn’t in love with me, or maybe I had hurt him too much, and he had moved on and created a new life for himself.

I stayed there for almost two years, trying to make my life, trying to make things work. I kept myself busy during the day, consumed myself with things so that I could make excuses not to look within. The first 8 months were a difficult time for us because we were waiting to have my green card approved, and my boyfriend supported me during that time. So it was this big ordeal that I could focus on, whether we had enough money, how I could work hard enough at taking care of him so he wouldn’t think I was just mooching off him, working odd jobs when I could.

Once I got my green card, I focused on putting everything into place. I had started a great, well-paying and prestigious job, that any girl in the world would have loved to have. We moved into a big two-bedroom apartment, with 10-foot ceilings, an on-site gym, indoor/outdoor pool, even weekly yoga classes. We bought new furniture for the place. I thought I needed all these things to make me happy. The newer and better my things were, the harder I worked, the more times I went out with my boyfriend, the more money I had, the happier I would become.

I had spent the first year and a half down there focusing so much on daily life that I didn’t have time to look toward my future at all. Day to day was all I could plan for. But finally in my daily living, life was coming together. The apartment was set up, I was working steady at my job and I had plenty of extra money.

When day to day living finally became easy, there was nothing left to do but look at my future and decide what I was going to do next. I started thinking about going back to school or maybe starting a business. But starting either of those things down there didn’t feel right, I wanted to do it back in Canada. I didn’t want to start school, because it would take me two years to finish my degree, and I didn’t want to be there for another two years. I didn’t want to start a business down there, because I didn’t want to have to move it to Canada.

It was at that point I started to realize that I didn’t want to make my life there. I had decided I was going to plan to move back to Canada. This was just about 2 months after we had signed a one-year lease on our apartment. So I thought, I will save money and when our lease is up I will have plenty of money to move my life I’ve set up here back to Canada. I had planned to give my boyfriend an ultimatum as well – I’m going back to Canada, you can come with me, or stay here. Little did I know that it wasn’t just my country that was pulling at my heartstrings.

It was late October or early November when I had this terrible realization about my life. I was out at the shopping mall buying clothes or something, and I was heading home for the evening. It was about 9:00 at night. My car was parked outside, and I had to walk through the Pottery Barn store to get to it.

I had been to that mall many times, and always parked my car in the same spot. I had walked back and forth through that Pottery Barn god knows how many times. I’ve always had this slight hatred of Pottery Barn, with it’s overpriced, fancy on the outside, crap on the inside particle board furniture. I had never bought anything there and was just passing through as usual.

But I saw a dresser there that was on sale, and I had been wanting to buy a new dresser for my apartment for some time. I stopped and looked at the dresser and was considering buying it. All of a sudden, I stopped what I was doing, and I walked as fast as I could out of the store and ran to my car. I got in my car and sat down and all I could think was – What the fuck?! How did I find myself here? – 26 years old, in white middle-class American suburbia, buying a fucking dresser at Pottery Barn? I realized right there I had become so far removed from everything that I wanted my life to be. I realized that my life had no meaning, that I was filling it with superficial things to fill this hollow empty void that I felt.

What did I want though? What would give meaning to my life? It had been so long since I asked myself that, that I had no answer. All I knew was that I would rather die than buy that fucking dresser from Pottery Barn. I rolled down the window of my car. It was wintertime, but the air was warm and with just a cool breeze blowing. I tried to feel that breeze on my face and just appreciate the beauty of the night, but I felt so far removed from the earth, from god, from anything that felt truly worthwhile.

I suddenly knew that it didn’t matter how hard I worked, or whether I could buy anything I wanted, or whether I had the most fun. I knew that none of it would ever fill the empty space I was now feeling inside of me. I had a brand new bag of new clothes, and my huge new apartment with my nice boyfriend was waiting for me at home, and I knew that none of it would ever make me happy. I just sat in my car and all I could hear was my soul screaming.

I started to feel the pull more and more as the days went by, started wondering how I was ever going to make it to the end of that apartment lease, but something else happened soon after that, that helped me to make up my mind. I lost my job. The university where I was working was trying to balance the budget, and rather than lay off a lot of the lower paid employees, they decided to cut a few key positions in higher administration and reorganize at the top. My position happened to be one of them.

I was devastated at first. I had considered myself to be very lucky to get that job, and the pay for it was at about 25% more than the average pay range for my field of work. Not to mention they gave me my last paycheque on November 30 – less than a month before Christmas. Little did I know that losing the best job I ever had would be one of the best things that ever happened to me.

Once I found myself unemployed, and I knew I was not going to find another job like that one, it forced me to look at my life. I had let my job become a huge part of my life, because it kept me busy. I was very focused on it, and I didn’t mind working extra hours. Now, I had to look at who I was without the great job.

And I saw that I had no reason to be down there anymore and I needed to come home. I still hadn’t really told my boyfriend any of this. I had talked with him about wanting to move back to Canada, but he had no idea that I was considering doing it in the next year, and especially not in the next few months.

So my plan became to get a new job and save enough money to be able to come home. Once I started thinking about coming back to Canada, I finally saw what I was looking at coming home too.

I knew that there was no way I could live in Vancouver without trying to find him. My real vs. fantasy world was finally crashing together. I knew that I had to leave my boyfriend, that I would not be asking him to come back to Canada with me – there would be no ultimatum for him. I knew that it was not fair to him to only have a part of me, and that he deserved someone who would truly love him, and that the right thing to do was tell him I was going home without him.

And I did. Three months later, after I had saved up barely enough money, I packed up my art, books, and clothing into my car, and drove back home. I left everything else with my new ex-boyfriend, and when I was finished moving my stuff in the car, I left the car with him too. I didn’t want any of it. I just wanted myself back. I just wanted my life to have meaning again.

________________________________________

When I first came back to Vancouver, I knew that I needed to spend a lot of time with myself in order to learn who I was again. I knew I had to take my time to recognize the superficial things in my life and let them fall away, so that I could regain my true self.

I had finally been able to see what a powerful and strong force denial was. I could finally see that fantasy was not magic. I had been hiding from my pain and it was the reason why I could not make any friends while I was down in Seattle and why I could not sit and meditate for long periods like I used to. I was finally able to admit that I thought he was dying, and had mustered up the courage to finally ask someone about him. But even though I knew these things and I was making progress slowly, it was still too painful to be with myself. It was painful to be alone with my own thoughts, and I wanted to be out with my friends all the time or doing some kind of activity. I could be by myself for a little bit, but only short periods of time. I had torn off the wrapping of myself, but I was still too scared to open up the box.

Since I’ve come back from seeing him again, I have just wanted to be alone, to write, read, do yoga and be introspective, to slow down and not do so much doing. But even in these past two weeks I’ve still felt that unwillingness to be alone. I am living in a busy urban city and life just happens around me. I get invitations to go out, I had a mini-vacation planned in advance, summer events, a trip to the island for the long weekend planned, etc. And even though I feel it is necessary to be alone right now there is a still a part of me that has been fighting it.

But I am alone now, today, finally, and almost unexpectedly; half of my own doing, and half of fate’s. I feel as though god has been guiding me to this place where everything has been stripped down until there is nothing and no one left but myself. I am now being forced into solitude because I am finally going to let go of the denial that I have been in and see the truth.

All these little things have been happening, and the world is booming its big voice at me saying, now is the time for Solitude. The first sign was when I had my phone stolen last week, and I had to live without a cell phone for a week. Not having the ability to call people or have them call you at a moment’s notice makes it a hell of a lot easier to be by yourself.

The second sign though, was the big one. I was supposed to go and visit my sister on the island for the long weekend, but I talked with her last night, and she told me that she just has too much going on right now to have company over for the entire weekend.

I haven’t seen her, or even been able to have a real conversation with her since my reunion with him. My sister is my best friend, and she grounds me. When I talk to her, she has this way of listening, and making me feel at peace. She knows me, and I can tell her anything and I know that she will just listen and understand. I’ve tried talking to my mum about all of this, and some other friends, but they are not able to relate to me in the way I know that my sister can.

I really wanted to see her this weekend, but she is going through a tumultuous time in her life right now too. She is battling her own drug addiction and she is just at the beginning stages of recovering from a relapse, she is dealing with an inevitable breakdown of a relationship she’s been in for almost a decade, she’s trying finish school and cram for an upcoming exam, and all of this on top of two children she is raising.

When I was talking to her last night on MSN, and she was telling me she didn’t think she could have me stay, I started to cry. I wanted to say, but I need you right now, please could I just come and see you. But I couldn’t bring myself to do it, I couldn’t be one more thing piled on her plate.

And I came to see that all of this is directing me here to being alone. I thought about going out to shop for a bike after work today, and instead I just told myself no, you need to go home. I have been invited to go camping with some friends for the weekend instead, and I just told them no, I need to stay home.

Maybe I am longing for the comfort that my sister could bring me or the relief of the company that my friends could provide. But god is calling me, and I know that I can find more comfort and relief right now, if I just look inside.

Hello me. It’s been a long time.

TRUST

Wed, 02 Aug 2006 06:45:18 GMT

My mother, who is herself a recovering alcoholic, once told me, you can trust everyone to be true to their nature. Therefore you can trust that an alcoholic will drink, that a gambler will squander all the money, and that a liar will lie.

My reflection of this philosophy has led me to understand more about addiction as a disease, the separating of the person from the addiction. A woman in my NA group said that you can never trust an addict. I don’t know if that is the whole truth.

I know my addict, I know beyond a doubt that he has the purest heart I’ve ever known. But I do not trust his addiction. In fact I fear it more than anything I’ve ever known. The day I confronted him about his drug use I asked him point blank, and he stared me straight in the face and lied to me. He had never lied to me before in our whole relationship and we had been through many things. He had always told me the truth, even when it was hard.

And I think that was what scared me most about the whole situation. I always believed that trust was the foundation of a relationship, and here was this demon, ripping all the trust between us to shreds. But still I felt a separation between that lie, and the truth of him. It felt as though it was not him speaking to me. I felt as though he was calling for help from far away, but there was something standing between us and I could not save him. Underneath it all I was still able to see his intention.

Witnessing intention can give us hope, and it can also foster true trust. But we must set boundaries and protect ourselves from the chaos of addiction for it is something that we can never trust.

This is still something that I do not know the answer to. It is one of my greatest fears about my commitment to loving him. When the time comes to spend our lives together, how will I live with him, and trust him, knowing that there exists this addiction, and that at any moment, our lives could be catapulted into complete chaos. Something tells me that part of the answer is constant vigilance, recognizing the signs before everything comes crashing down, but I also know that I do not want to live on the edge of my seat all the time. Is that what I have to do though? I trust that he does not want to start using again and I know that it is his intention. But I also know that he is powerless over his addiction. He cannot tell me he will never use again, and be completely honest; no, for it is one day at a time.

HOPE

Sat, 29 Jul 2006 08:21:52 GMT

When I found out he was using it felt as though I had been hit in the head with something large and heavy and hard. I thought I knew him, and because of what I thought I knew about him, I thought it would kill him.

I became hopeless. Time passed and nothing changed, and I just dove further into my misery. My hopelessness drove me down into denial. I believed that his addiction would kill him, but I didn't want to look at that and instead I created diversions so that I didn't have to admit what was happening and I created this fantasy world where as long as I didn't know where he was I could pretend he was okay.

The problem with denial though, is that eventually your soul starts screaming and it keeps screaming until it gets so loud you can't ignore it and you can't ignore what it needs. When my soul was screaming loud enough, and I finally knew I had to listen, it was telling me to have hope.

It started with the courage to accept what was happening and to face it, to ask about him. It had been over three years since I had tried to contact him. No one had told me anything, no one had talked about him. I suspected certain people knew about him, or had maybe heard what he had been up to, but that he was a painful subject that no one wanted to bring up. The first thing I had to accept was that it was up to me to ask about him. When I finally asked one of my friends about him, I had hoped my friend would tell me that he was okay. What my friend said was that he was so far in, he would never get out. Those were his exact words. He also told me that he was HIV positive.

Part of me believed it. Part of me felt again like I was being dealt another hard heavy blow. The hopeless part of me was saying, there goes the future you wanted, no more babies together, no growing old together. But the hope in me said, he's still alive, it said, you still love him no matter what, and your love is stronger than addiction. It said even if he never gets clean, even if all you get to do is tell him one more time that you love him, it's worth it. And I was still driven to find him.

When I heard that he had gone home, and that he was in recovery, I didn't know what to expect. Five years is a long time and time is capable of changing a lot. But you know our addicts are stronger than we may think they are, and maybe we have to give them more credit than we do.

He told me his stories. Twice he had almost died from overdosing. His heart stopped. He had been stabbed in the leg and couldn't go to the hospital because he had a warrant for his arrest. He almost lost his leg. He went to prison for a year. Life kicked the shit out of him.

But when I saw him again, he was even more beautiful than I remembered. He still had that same innocent and beautiful smile and the same light in his eyes that I fell in love with. He was still whole and healthy and he too was being strong enough to face what life was throwing at him. It was as if nothing had changed except that he was stronger now.

So have hope, because underneath the addiction is the person that we love. And that person, struggles and suffers and fights with this just as much as we do. And even when we think that they are choosing to kill themselves, maybe inside they are hoping they can overcome this too.