• H&R Moderators: VerbalTruist | cdin | Lil'LinaptkSix

Recovery A new me.

Ween!! Nice. Maybe they'll play Roses are Free. I wish I was at Phish this weekend at The Mothership.
Nice to see someone who admires them for the music..

It was all about the drugs for a guy like me.

Call me a fake!
 
I get what you're saying about total abstinence, but I do believe that most people by far, have to keep away from their DOCs. I'll never be a moderate drinker. If I drink, I'm going to get drunk. And it might last until the next morning, or might last for weeks.

Our cases are similar, just our DOCs are different. You're taking methadone to keep you from getting high on H. I take benzos for panic attacks and acute anxiety, because if I didn't, I'd be at 7-Eleven buying their cheap $4 bottles of swill wine. When a substance is used for a medical reason to prevent you from doing something that would most definitely be bad for you, that does not disqualify you from being abstinent in my book.

Not at all. The girl who leads a self-help group I attend takes benzos for anxiety. She has been sober for over 4 years. Who has the right to say being prescribed a benzo disqualifies her from sobriety?
 
Ooh I'm def putting the K-safe on my xmas list this year! What a great idea! I knew such things existed but I had never really considered it before. I'm doing a lot better about not taking my Sun dose, but I could see myself becoming weak from time to time. This past Saturday, for example, I imbibed a bit watching football at a local bar. When I got home that evening I def had the urge to take my sun dose early...but I fought it and won! Boy was I happy to wake up yesterday to find a full methadone bottle in my lock-box. That's such a shitty feeling...getting up on Sunday about to dose and realizing your dumbass took your take home dose early and now you either have to score (which is pretty much pointless..sure it may make the very minor wds go away but it won't get you anywhere even close to "high" or even feeling good) or deal with it (which is what I usually do). It also feels like, when I do that, it takes me a couple of days to readjust to my regular dose...after taking a dose twice what I'm supposed to on Sat and then nothing Sun, my methadone levels are all out of whack in my body and usually I don't feel totally normal again for two or three days after. Glad I don't have to deal with that this week. Im starting to really get the message across to myself that early/double dosing is stupid and not worth it and I've done it hardly at all in recent times, but I still feel like the ksafe would be great for when I have those moments of weakness and say "fuck it, I'm just gonna take all of this shit right now!"...which I'm sure will pop up from time to time because I have terrible self control (but working on it!)

I did it..I officially joined the gym! I paid my activation fee and first and last months' payments and now I'm an official LA fitness member and can use any of their gyms within the US! I really really like this gym a lot and I'm excited to finally have bitten the bullet and joined. This LA fitness is brand new and a lot of really nice features for a gym at it's price. I've been a member of other gyms that were a lot more money a month than LA Fitness and, honestly, I don't see much of a difference between this LA fitness and some of the pricier gyms I've been a member of in the past. Everything is nice and new and clean, they have an abundance of cardio machines (and they're never so full you can't get the machine you want) and a great weight room. The part of town I live in has a pretty large gay population and it seems that a lot of the members of this gym belong to that population, which is REALLY nice because I don't feel like I'm being stared at by all the men there (which is a problem for me at some gyms...I'm well endowed in the upstairs region and no matter how many sports bras I wear, there's some jiggle and it can attract a bit of a crowd at some of the more "meat market" type gyms) and I've run into several of the gay men I'm friends with around town (i love gay guys, total "fag hag" over here). My bf joked that now that I officially signed up, I'm going to stop going..but naw I think I'm hooked now. I even got up this am at 6am (on my own...went to bed at 9pm last night for some reason), went to the clinic, then went to the gym to get a workout in before work, something I don't think I've EVER done. Seeing as I wake up in minor wd pretty much every morning until I get my methadone dose (and then still feel kinda shitty till it kicks in an hour later), I didn't really feel like going to the gym after dosing but i figured I'd feel better once my meds and my natural endoprhins from exercise started kicking in. Nope...not so much. I felt worse and worse as I kept working out. I usually start my cardio by walking for a min to warmup. then jogging at 5.2 mph for as long as I can keep it up to get myself sweating and my heartrate up, and then once I can't jog anymore (I am a smoker and out of shape right now, after all!), I usually spend the remainder of my 30 min walking at about 4-4.3 mph and usually at a 50% incline (so that even though I'm walking, I'm building muscle and still getting a pretty decent workout...similar to climbing a mountain). Today, on the other hand, I started jogging and immediately had to stop after about a min. I spent the rest of the workout walking at a 30% incline at about 4.1 mph and ended up cutting my workout 5 min short (normally I do 30 min and 5 of cool down, I did 22 today plus 5 min cool down). I still felt nauseous the whole way home and had to lay down in my bed for about 30 min to get myself to feel better before jumping in the shower and getting ready for work. I'm disappointed I didn't get a harder work out, but I know better than to push myself. Still, I hope this won't be a common thing when I work out early in the morning bc sometimes I'll need to do an early workout on days where I have events or other things happening during my normal work out time in the evening. That and I just like starting my day that way. We'll try again sometime.

I hope everyone's weekend was good! Mine was great! I finally caught up on all of the house work that had been piling up over the past two weeks. I got all of my laundry done...quite the accomplishment since I have an insane amount of clothes (leading to an insane amount of laundry needed to be done after not really doing it at all for almost three weeks), I got the whole house swept/dusted/cleaned/etc, and I got caught up on everything else (like paying pills, getting my oil changed, etc) that I'd been falling behind on. I'll tell ya, if feels so great today to have all of the things that were bugging me in the back of my mind the past week or two finally taken care of. The bf and I had a nice weekend too together...watched a lot of football Sat at a local bar. The place we went has a nice patio with tvs on it and the weather has been so nice this weekend...finally fall here in Atlanta! My team (tennessee) upset Auburn this weekend so I was pretty excited about that....bf had a bad football day though as UGA got beat by LSU. Falcons win yesterday was def needed...our birds haven't been having the best season thus far. Luckily we won yesterday...we're still in it it seems.

How's everyone doing this week?
I have been letting house work pile up. This must stop.
 
Hey, Save, I agree with you. I'll repost what I said in another thread:

I hate it when hardcore recovery people try to guilt others into thinking they've somehow "failed" if they take anything that makes them feel better. Using that rationale, you may as well give up fresh air. Until recently I had seriously devastating problems with alcohol and opiates. In the past I've also abused methamphetamine and cocaine. I smoked cigarettes for over 45 years. I don't do any of those things now and my life has improved dramatically. I smoke a little weed and drink a lot of coffee. I eat too many sweets. I chew nicotine gum constantly. Am I an active addict? Yes. Am I also in recovery? Yes.

Harm reduction is the key.

Peace&Love,
jasper
 
Wholeheartedly agree with all here. And, A, I definitely think one should be absolutely and completely abstinent from their DOC in order to find success in recovery, that wasn't what I was saying by not being completely abstinent. I know that, even 20+ years from now probably, if i were given a bottle of, say, 90 5mg oxy pills and told to take "as prescribed", I would take that whole damn bottle in 2 days...I will never ever ever be able to use opiates as prescribed or just "here and there"...even if I was successful in doing this before my addiction for years ...the game has changed officially forever (took many relapses, thinking I could successfully become just a "chipper", to realize this). What I meant was that I don't think people need to necessarily give up all "vices" because they have an addiction to a specific (or several specific) substances. My counselor keeps pushing that on me now, something he didn't before but I guess since I got to his goal of not using opiates at all anymore, he's pushing for more. I don't doubt I could find happiness in complete sobriety, I'm fortunate in that I don't have any major trauma or self esteem issues or anything that makes me hate myself or completely sober life...but things like marijuana and the occasional beer or two I have on the weekends are small things I look forward to to take the edge of a stressful week off and haven't, so far, caused my life to fall apart or become negative in any way (well alcohol did when I was younger, DUI, but I don't drink anywhere close to that much ever now). I am finding that I like alcohol less and less as I age..I just find it gets in the way of things for me (like the occasional hangover on a day I really can't afford to have one or feeling drug down during a workout due to alcohol consumption the night before) and I just skip it all together most nights now, save for special occasions (such as..this weekend, I'll probably have a few on Sat at the concert). For me. drinking is such a big part of my social life...whenever anyone I know wants to hang out, they want to meet at the bar. However, in my younger years a trip to the bar never happened without at least 3+ drinks and these days I usually keep it to one (mayyybe 2 if I'm caught up in a good time). Marijuana, as many of you know I'm sure, makes me introspective and guilty of my opiate use (keeping me from wanting to relapse) and keeps me from getting too stir crazy and getting into mischief. I also won't say that I'll never do the occasional cocaine bump on a trip to Las Vegas or something, and I might eat some mushrooms on a camping trip at some point or something....but you bet your ass I'll be staying away from opiates completely. My whole thing is, we're human beings and we literally thrive on substances and chemicals...that's what makes the world go round...I just don't think it's right for us to deem some substances "good" and others "bad". Like, why is nicotine ok and ppl who smoke aren't bad people, but people who smoke weed are bad? Who determines which chemicals are morally ok and which aren't? If you research a lot of prohibition laws, you'll notice a lot of racial and classist reasons behind these laws...not the desire to actually help the community. Society is starting to see this, but we have a long ways to go (and an entire generation that needs to die off...sorry, that sounds terrible but it's true haha)

HEY KAT! I was just thinking about you this morning and wondering how you had been..hadn't seen you in a while. Honestly, Kat, you are right in that the drinking causes way more damage to your body than the oxys do and I've seen many times on this site where people have suggested to poly addicts, like you, to quit the drinking first since it does the most damage to your body. But, tbh, I don't think it's a matter of you being addicted to one substance over another...I think you're addicted to being not sober. I mean, we all are, but I see that you enjoy feeling different than sober, no matter what drug you need to get there vs being addicted to the feeling a specific substance gives you, ya know? I have several friends who are the same...booze one day, pain pills the next, cocaine the next, and so on..anything to not feel the realness. I think, in these kind of cases in particular, the most important thing you should do, Kat, is try and identify exactly why you feel you need to be on some kind of substance every day. You probably are depressed, that wouldn't be a surprise...most of us addicts have depression and is the main reason most of us are the way we are. Have you considered maybe finding a therapist? It probably wouldn't be too expensive, esp if you can find somewhere with a sliding pay scale, and it might help you work out exactly why you need to use. You're a lot like me, Kat, you have the appearance of having it all together (job, family, house, etc), but you're struggling behind the scenes and I think you'd really benefit from someone to talk to about this besides us (not that I don't love seeing your posts, keep em up ;D ). Just a thought.

Oh, and back to the using your DOC topic...ya know, this is gonna sound weird/silly but...the thought of never using opiates (well ya know, using them and enjoying them..i use methadone daily but it isn't exactly euphoric at all..) again really makes me sad sometimes. It feels like losing a friend almost...similar feelings inside as a bad breakup almost...I have "memories" of our "time together" when I pass places i used to score or get high...even the smell of the shitty Shell station bathroom next door to my house that I would sneak over to to break up/snort lines in when the bf was at my house brings back nostalgia....so what makes me feel better? I have decided that if I live to 90, I'm gonna use opiates again..probably daily...and probably till I die. I'm gonna get fucked up off my ass...and ya know what, I'll be fucking old and retired and everyone who cares about this addiction of mine will probably be dead and soon I will be too so why not?

*Note: i may not actually do this when i turn 90, but the thought gives me odd comfort

I'm fucking weird, sorry yall HAHA

YES KAT! Roses are Free is a great song! I like Ween despite the drugs. The drugs made me a permanent weirdo so I'm down with the boognish regardless haha

HAVE A GOOD WEEKEND GUYS. Y'all know I rarely pop in on sat/sun so I will see you guys Mon prob! <3 much love to all
 
I nurture the same fantasy except the age for my guilt-free hard drug use was 70. 90 seems a little late, no? but yeah, once I'm old enough that I won't achieve much more then instead of withering away in pains and decrepitude, why not go out with a bag fucked up on all the drugs you've denied yourself over the years? To quote the wolf of wall street - "I WILL NOT DIE SOBER!" (fucking love that movie)

Good to see you've made it stick this time ladyh. How long is it now? Do you attribute it to the methadone?
 
OMG!!! This is too funny...or just incredibly sad! Guess I should not kid myself into thinking that my thoughts are so original.:) I have also reserved old age (or rather, OLDER age, haha) for another round of opiate abuse. The only problem I see with this plan is that I need to get clean FIRST, so that I can relapse later, when I am in my 80's or 90's. In MY twisted thought process, I wanted to wait until my parents were both deceased. I did not want to burden them yet again with the stress of dealing with their fucked up daughter. Since they are both into their 80's now, that really isn't long. But I also have a daughter to consider. And I know she is waiting for her mother to get her shit together. I bet the ironic part comes when I've cleaned up and actually decide in my ripe old age, that I REALLY DON'T WANT TO USE DRUGS ANYMORE!!! Like, EVER! How sweet that would be. That being said, I wouldn't mind being on my death bed with a big shot to send me straight to heaven. And I know its heaven, because I have already spent time in hell.
 
Yep, I would def go out with opiates, not a bad way to go at all. That's about the only good thing about someone dying of a opiate OD, you know they went out feeling great. As a child/teenager/young adult, I had this notion that a heroin OD was a violent, painful death, but I know now that that's the farthest from the truth. Rio, yeah 90 might be pushing it. Maybe 80? 75? I'll know when it feels right.

I had an absolutely TERRIBLE weekend.

Sigh, well the bf and I...he and I are not in a great place after the weekend. He and I had a VERY bad fight sat night...the worst we've ever had. And I won't lie, it was alcohol fueled for sure. After a long day of drinking at the Halloween parade and the concert, I lost my wallet which turned into a major fight in the parking lot of the concert and I stormed off. After 5 min of calming myself down, I tried to find him bc I was drunk and in the middle of downtown alone and lost but he wouldn't come find me. I dropped my phone, shattering the screen so I couldn't call anyone or an uber or anything. He ended up getting an uber back to my home and leaving me. Luckily I found one of my friends (who was so high on acid he barely knew what was going on) and he helped me get home. I was so mad at him for leaving me downtown in that condition, I was seeing red and came back screaming at him. It proceeded to get worse back at my house after the show. He tried to break up with me and leave (driving drunk as shit, mind you) and I hid his keys to prevent that from happening which really set him off. He tossed my house looking for them and called the cops on me for taking his stuff. It was absolutely ridiculous. I will admit that I started the fight, but he got angry and out of control in response to me and I think that calling the police was incredibly overreacting. I gave him his keys back before the police even showed up but, as predicted, they still butted their heads in our business and took his side. One of the officers threatened to take me to jail for felony theft (stealing his car keys= stealing his car he insisted) and even though my bf asked them not to and said he wouldn't press charges, he almost took me in anyways (claims him making the call was enough for an arrest and we could "work it out in the courts"). I had bowls and bong in my house (and weed, which was bfs..and he hid it before the cops came thankfully) and I could've been taken in for paraphernalia and/or drugs. Even though he and I were clearly fighting outrageously, the police still didn't make him leave or make sure he left...he ended up sleeping in his car till 5am and going home. Also, my best guy friend was there through the whole thing (and defending me bc my bf was so angry he was scaring both of us...we thought he would hurt me) so now, I'm sure, he's probably going to tell everyone in our friend group what happened. My neighbors also saw the cops and came out stuck their noses in our business too, so I'm like so embarrassed even in my own home now. When I called him yesterday (I had another old phone at home and stuck my sim in), he didn't think he did anything wrong. He blamed everything on me. I was so upset...here I was in a tossed home, almost arrested, and heartbroken but I was to blame? I will admit I lost my temper horribly, but I was drunk (not to excuse anything) and I definitely apologized for it and the part I played in our fight, like hiding his keys (he was drunk and I didn't want him to drive 45 min in his sports car that wasted and that angry)and coming back so mad at him, but I thought being left downtown was grounds for such anger. I overreatced to the situation, apparently he found out my friend had found me before he officially hopped n the uber, but I didn't know that...i thought he had left. Anyways, it was bad. The angriest he and I have ever been to one another and, with the cops being called, def the most amount of drama. He didn't lay a hand on me, but he throughly verbally abused me and even threw a drink (coca cola) on me at one point when I refused to give him his keys back. It was shockingly ridiculous.

I'm not, and we're not, the kind of people who get into fights like that. Police, tearing my home apart, throwing drinks on me...all of this was a first. He and I do not fight everytime we drink, but everytime we fight like that, alcohol is a factor...and not a small amount. It's really making me rethink our drinking, mine is particular, because when I'm that drunk, I get absolutely irrational. I'm generally a happy, fun drunk, but I become even more sensitive and "triggered" (I hate that word) by certain things a lot easier than I would sober. He's not a mean drunk, but alcohol amplifies his personalty as well...he likes to argue (he calls it "debating) and he is stubborn and he is incredibly blunt and he becomes even more so when drunk and says things to me that hurt my feelings and i get way more upset than I probably should which leads to a fight over dumb shit. Since getting back together in July, we've only had one other fight similar (but not even close to as bad) to this, but I thought we were doing well. He and I talked for a long time yesterday, especially after the initial anger both of us had towards one another (still in the morning) had subsided. Like I said, he's stubborn, and for awhile yesterday I kept getting "I'm sorry, but"'s. I did apologize for my role in everything and told him I wasn't blaming him for everything, but he needed to apologize for throwing a drink on me, on losing his shit in anger, and for calling the cops/tossing my house. He still refuses to apologize for the police/house tossing bc he thinks me hiding his keys made it justified...we agreed to disagree there (With how police are, especially in this day and age, I don't think it's right to call the police on ANYONE for ANYTHING unless they are physically hurting someone or actively robbing/raping me or something, people get killed and locked up for nothing these days...its a good thing I'm white). But, he did eventually say he was sorry for a lot of the things he did (as did I, as I've already said). I have no problem admitting I did things wrong, but he did too and it's not fair for him to blame me for the entire encounter...we both played a role in escalating it to the point it got to. I told him, "look, you may be mad at me for what I did, and I'm sorry for it. But I am angry for what you did too and I also deserve an apology. My bad behavior doesn't make yours ok!". That was the rationale that made him finally apologize sincerely.

Despite us calming down and apologizing, I don't know where that leaves us. We love each other dearly, but that kind of fighting is NOT ok. I'm not the kind of girl who gets into "white trash lawn fights" (as I call them) where the neighbors are woken up and cops are called...that really just isn't my style...but he and I are NOT great when we both get worked up. We're both stubborn as shit and neither of us will back down during a fight and admit defeat. We just get each other more and more worked up. His solution is to always leave, which I hate...I hate being left (i have abandonment issues and him threatening to leave, always with a "we're done" thrown on top of it, to make me feel even more scared about him leaving) and then I get desperate to make him stay and work things out with me so I don't have to be left broken hearted, alone, and so upset I'm beside myself in my home. The only solution I can see to this not happening again is to just let him leave when he gets that mad and let him deal with the consequences of driving drunk and livid 45 miles back to his home. I told him he needed to stop threatening to break up with me whenever he was mad at me. I have abandonment issues and that's a major trigger for me to start acting desperate and borderline "crazy". But, we don't know. He's acting like everything is fine and back to normal today, woke up to a bunch of hearts and a "i love you" in my texts this morning, but I'm still pretty upset about how everything went down. This can't happen again. He scared me for the first time in our entire relationship. I told him that and he assured me he would never ever lay a hand on me and that it bothered him I would even think that about him, but I was scared and that feeling still really really bothers me today. It also breaks my heart because my family all lives so far away and I feel like he's all I have here in the city, and now I feel like he's not the safe, supportive man I thought he was. He assures me he is, he just lost his temper, but I'm still feeling bothered. I was so upset and exhausted yesterday, I barely left the bed so my home is still all torn up. Waking up today and seeing the huge mess (a mess made after i woke up extra early sat morning and spent 4 hours cleaning bc messes stress me out and i knew we'd be busy all weekend so I wanted to get everything taken care of before the festivities) just brought all then negative feelings back. He claims we played equal parts in the shit storm of sat night but I'M the one with the trashed house, I'M the one who's gonna have to feel judged by my neighbors, and I'M the one who was *this close* to going to jail for nothing (and for a felony meaning I would've been in there for weeks and in horrible methadone withdrawal). And he STILL says all of those things are MY FAULT, that I "forced his hand" in trashing my house, calling the cops, etc bc I hid his keys from him. I told him his actions were his decision, not mine. At one point, I locked myself in my roommates room (he wasn't home this night), told him to leave me alone and go to bed. He could've just layed down and tried to work things out with me rationally in the am, but he threw a tantrum bc he wasn't getting his way.

Anyways, sorry for the novel today, guys, this just was a pretty bad thing to have happen. I know I played a large role in how everything went down, but I'm still so hurt from everything that happened. I'll type more later, I'm exhausted and have a lot of emails to catch up on at work from the weekend. YAY!

Hope all are well and I hope I will be too, soon.
 
and for awhile yesterday I kept getting "I'm sorry, but"'s. I did apologize for my role in everything and told him I wasn't blaming him for everything, but he needed

Looks like you were both as bad as each other, though you may have had a little more justification. Why did you apologise for hiding his keys? If he was trying to drive back plastered and you hid his keys you may have just saved his or other's lives. In another timeline you may have let him go and he could have been killed and taken out innocent people with him. You shouldn't have to apologise for that. It sounds to me like you drastically need to re-evaluate your relationship with alcohol, with him or with both. However, it's a testament to your newfound strength that this didn't drive you to relapse, so honestly, good job! This sounds like it was a real test yet you're still clean. You should take pride in that if nothing else.
 
Sorry to hear about all the drama. Involving cops is never a good idea, especially when you're compromised on a substance. They seem to always find a way to pin stuff on you when that happens, whether it's justified or not. I understand where you're coming from with the abandonment issues. My mother was always threatening to leave when I was a little kid, which caused me to beg her not to leave, sometimes for hours. So while I was married and my ex was constantly getting pissed over something and threatening to file for divorce, I finally told her to stop saying it unless she meant it, which she eventually did [mean it]. I shouldn't bitch too much about her though since she was nice enough to take me out to brunch for my birthday yesterday.

I had a decent birthday weekend. The horrible 32 pt blowout the Hornets won against the Magic was balanced by the Florida State win against Wake Forest on Saturday, which brings them to 4-3 (2-3 in the ACC) but I'm not optimistic about them ending with a winning season. Next week is a certain loss to Clemson, even if defensive end Josh Kaindoh hadn't gotten ejected, and I can't picture them beating NC State at this point either.

I also went to see Lewis Black on Saturday night, and he was hilarious as ever. I bought a Lewis Black bobblehead that bellows some choice phrases like "GOOOOOO FUCK YOURSELF," "NOBODY GIVES A SHIT" and "TOUGHSKI SHITSKI," and a t shirt for "Lewis Black's Nervous Pills - cures nervousness, irritability of temper, want of strength and energy, fear, dread, neuralgia, hysteria, palpitations, melancholy, insomnia and all nerve pains and diseases." I have my own nervous pills, though. They're called gabapentin and Ativan. The guy who opened for him was hilarious too.

LHL, just play it by ear and let whatever will be happen. Ideally, the two of you would be able to work things out, but if things are not working out, staying in it out of a fear of being alone isn't healthy either. It took me a loooooong time to figure that one out.
 
I am. And, honestly, relapsing wasn't even on my mind.

And yes, I am evaluating my relationship with alcohol, he and I both are. I'm not one to usually drink to excess very often, but I can lose all rationale when I'm at point. Usually, I'm not in a situation where losing my rationale happens..I'm usually just like drunk and go to bed, but not Sat. He has a temper, I know that, but it's not something I see often but alcohol is a trigger for him. He's been in literally a fist fight with his best friend once when they were both drunk. This happened a long time ago but another example of how he doesn't have a great track record himself. Like I said, it's not something that happens everytime we drink, but its happened more than once in our relationship and this was too traumatic for me (and pron him as well, but I can only speak for myself) to have happen again.

I have always said that I wouldn't put down alcohol unless it began causing problems in my life and, well, I can honestly say after Sat that it has. I told him this morning that I wanted to take a long break from drinking. Like a month at minimum, probably longer. I don't even really enjoy drinking anymore, I just do it to fit in in social situations these days, but he and I both obviously have a lack of self control when we're that drunk. He thinks the solution is "don't get that drunk" (himself included) but I think I want to just take a break for awhile. I've done a week or two weeks in the past, but I think this calls for a longer period of time to evaluate a lot of things, including he and I.

Thanks for pointing out my own I'm sorry but, lol. I apologized because I effectively kept him in my home. His phone was dead and he had no charger (he called 911 from my friends phone) and he had no way into his home even if he had ubered the nearly 50 miles home (not to mention it prob would've been a $100+ uber ride). We gave him options, like my friend Trey offered to uber him to his home and let him sleep it off there if he wanted to be away from me so bad, he wanted his way or nothing at all. I apologized for trying to make him stay, I know that when he's that angry I need to just let him leave, but I was desperate to keep him there in my state. Apology maybe isn't the best word, I told him "your'e right, I should've just let you leave". He's an adult, and if that's what happened to him (the other timeline, as you say), that would've been on him not me. I just love him and def didn't want that to happen. It was a mixture of trying to prevent him from making a dumb decision and me desperately trying to keep him there so he wouldn't break up with me. He pointed out yesterday that when we fight, it's like, to me, yelling and fighting is still communication to me and still me not being left, so I prefer it over him leaving which prob would keep the situation from getting out of hand.

This whole thing is frustrating because we both love each other so dearly and we've both been working so hard on ourselves and our relationship and, before sat night, we were doing really really well. I told him last night that it didn't seem fair...we've worked so hard and have come so far for one night to ruin everything we've spent so long and so much effort building, but the fight and what happened was just too intense to just forget about and move on from at this moment. He's trying to..I awoke to a bunch of "i love you" texts and hearts and whatnot, but I'm still really hurt and a bit angry. I don't feel like any of that was ok.

We left it yesterday at "we don't know" and he said, as of right now, we were on a break..but his behavior towards me this morning to me seems like anything but..he's over it and moving on...but I'm not. I haven't. I need to clean up the mess he made in my home tonight, because looking around at a trashed house keeps me still so upset. I'm still kind of in shock...like I said, he never put his hands on me but he scared me and I don't like feeling that way about someone so close to me.

I probably just need some time to heal. Ugh.
 
I'm glad you had a good weekend, A. And happy birthday to you, as well! Sounds like a nice weekend and very nice of your ex to take you out. Glad to hear you guys are back in each other's good graces (i remember you weren't for a min there with the whole dog situation). I get it though, I had an ex with a similar relationship to (before he got married), we were still involved in each others lives but we still pissed each other off from time to time like no one else can. Funny how those closest to you can push your buttons worse than anyone sometimes.

I definitely don't want to remain in a relationship for fear of being alone. I have codependency issues, but I will not tolerate abuse. I have had an abusive bf (back in high school) and that and infidelity are my DEFINITE deal breakers. We definitely love each other, and it's frustrating because, as I've said, we've been doing really well. I'm not just saying that. i think you guys have seen how happy I've been lately and how wonderful he and I's relationship has become is one of the reasons for it. I do want to work things out because I love him, but I don't want to stay with someone who may possibly abuse me in the future. He swears to me that he never ever would and that sat night was proof that he wouldn't (bc he was as mad as he could possibly get and still didn't hit me), but he still scared me, and I can't shake how bad that felt to have someone who i love and trust so much treat me like that and make me feel that way. I'm still pretty shaken up. The whole thing was incredibly traumatic.
 
Thank you, LHL! I'm glad it was good weekend because this one was kind of a big one - 45. We got our first cold front of the season so FINALLY the weather is tolerable. It was 57 when I took the dog out this morning. I had all the windows open and it was a pleasant 72 inside. I was never able to sleep with open windows while I was married b/c the ex was convinced someone would come in while we were asleep and cut our throats or something. I can't wait for the end of daylight saving, though. I use a sleep monitoring app and it chooses the best time to wake you up within a certain window, so it woke me up at 6:39am and it looked like it was fucking 2am outside.

I'm glad to hear such strong resolve on your part. My first psycho gf after the divorce was psychologically abusive, leading me on and letting me pine for her (which ultimately ended up causing me to drink heavily again) after she "ended" it. For all her shortcomings, the second psycho gf and I made a clean break, which I think was ultimately a lot healthier.
 
I'm a big fan of the clean break. The only relationship that I had the happen with was the one with the least amount of pain still attached to. I hated it at first, I wanted to cry and yell and drag on the breakup as long as I could..but he just stopped responding to me. It bothered me, at first, but looking back it helped me to NOT do things I regretted (in the moment when upset) and helped me to move on quicker (and not get upset when he moved onto another relationship down the road). I really think a clean break is what I need if a relationship is truly over. At least for awhile, months at minimum. I'm a big fan of no contact.

That's the problem with my current bf...he can't do a clean break, at least from me, because he claims to love me too much and never wants me out of his life, even if we don't work out romantically...but that's just not how i roll. I've told him that it's whats best for me, from prior experience...but he's got a lot less relationship experience than me (or most 32 year olds, only one long term relationship in high school besides ours) so he doesn't realize how difficult it can be trying to "remain friends" immediately after a breakup. I mean, look at us for example: we "broke up" for 6 months, but still stayed in contact pretty much staying together, but that's what I wanted..to stay together. Had I been ready to end it, I def would need to ignore him. He told me, if that happened, he couldn't make me talk to him. He's right about that.

Anyways, I'm gonna go home and pick up the pieces from my destroyed home and try to move on from this awful weekend.
 
That's the problem with my current bf...he can't do a clean break, at least from me, because he claims to love me too much and never wants me out of his life, even if we don't work out romantically...but that's just not how i roll. I've told him that it's whats best for me, from prior experience...but he's got a lot less relationship experience than me (or most 32 year olds, only one long term relationship in high school besides ours) so he doesn't realize how difficult it can be trying to "remain friends" immediately after a breakup. I mean, look at us for example: we "broke up" for 6 months, but still stayed in contact pretty much staying together, but that's what I wanted..to stay together. Had I been ready to end it, I def would need to ignore him. He told me, if that happened, he couldn't make me talk to him. He's right about that.
I'm almost certain that's not going to work for him either, because he's always going to be thinking that the two of you will get back together. You haven't mentioned that substance abuse is a major issue for him, but for me, the frustration of that possibility never happening led me right back to heavy drinking.
 
Substance abuse really isn't a huge issue for him. He doesn't do drugs, minus smoking weed here and there. He's never even tried cocaine before (which i think is crazy considering he was in the restaurant industry almost as long as I was..a decade or more). I know the story I'm telling here probably paints him as having a problem with alcohol, but honestly he's not a huge drinker. He likes beer, but isn't someone who can't stop after one or two. Usually a night of "drinking" for us is us each having like 1-2 really good IPAs on my front porch. Him getting drunk like that is pretty rare, maybe two times a year. It was a long day full of festivities, parades, day parties, and concerts all with heavy drinking encouraged and things got out of hand for both of us. I knew we'd be drinking a lot, for weeks having known this day would be full of so many drinking-related events I had been saying that "Saturday will be an exercise in pacing ourselves". We did a good job of drinking a lot of water, eating, sticking to lite beer...until the concert, which was the last event on our itinerary so we just kind of let ourselves go at that point when we def should've stopped long before that. It was actually a great, very fun day up until about midnight (the fight after the concert), but the awfulness of the night kind of overshadowed all the good parts of the day.

I hope I'm not trying to sound like I'm defending his behavior, because I'm not..he definitely crossed the line, especially pouring that soda on my head while I was in bed. The guy friend of mine who was there and I met up at mutual friend of ours band's show last night (i went out to it for a min...no drinking, but ate some wings) and he commented that he could forgive the yelling and the name calling, even the cop calling, but that soda over my head really crossed the line and he considered it abuse. We looked it up...it is battery in the state of GA and he's lucky that even in my drunken state, I knew I didn't want him to go to jail so my friend I both didn't tell the cops that he did that. They were on his side anyways, so I don't think it would've mattered. I was mouthing off to the cops pretty bad (I hate cops and I was drunk and angry already), so they reeeeally didn't like me.

Anyways, last night my boyfriend showed up to my house unannounced. He wanted to hug me and help me pick up my home, which i appreciated. He cleaned up the mess he made when he literally pulled everything out of every drawer in my home and he washed the sheets/pillowcases that he covered in coca cola when he poured the soda on me while I was trying to ignore him and go to sleep. He is very sorry for what happened (as am I), and we don't want to keep dwelling on it but we don't know what to do to prevent this from happening in the future. I'm a sensitive, emotional person naturally and I can get really defensive when I feel like someone is picking apart my bad qualities...and he is someone who is blunt, stubborn, and can be quite argumentative (he's a smart guy...a chemist...but he thinks he knows EVERYTHING sometimes and is very hard to get to admit that he's wrong). We know how to communicate when sober and we know which buttons NOT to push on each other when we disagree on something. We might get into a small bickering match here and there that resolves within 5 min, but fights like Saturdays have only happened when an extreme amount of alcohol is added to the mix. I know that isn't uncommon, alcohol is a factor in a lot of domestic issues (not always, but a lot of the time) but neither of us want to blow this off as a "oh well, we were drunk, let's let it go". We love each other dearly and we don't want to lose each other, but that experience was so traumatic for the both of us, it cannot happen again. I have already promised myself that if anything like that happens again, it has to be done. Clean break. As much as it'll hurt, I cannot risk my happiness (not to mention my SOBRIETY) on such a volatile relationship. He said it himself last night, "we are sunshine and roses 95% of the time, Kate, but that 5% can get really really bad". We understand that all couples fight and we aren't unrealistic...we know we'll fight again...but it can't get anywhere CLOSE to Saturday. Ever.

Like I said, we want to prevent this from occurring ever again, but the only solution I can think of is cutting alcohol out of our relationship..because, like I said, these kind of issues are easily worked through with us in sobriety, but being drunk makes us forget how to communicate healthily with one another. During our first go round (before breaking up due to my drug use), fights like this occurred with more frequency (esp in the first year because we were still learning how to communicate with each other), but we hadn't had anything like this happen since getting back together so I thought we were past it. Guess not. I do know that I love him dearly and we've put so much work into getting to where we are and it feels unfair that one night had to ruin all this work we've put in.

As stated previously, I went to a friend's bands show just up the road from my house last night to grab some food and to see friends and maybe get my mind of things a bit. I decided to tell all my girlfriends what happened (the guy friend who witnessed the whole thing is also really close with all of my female friends and he already told me he wouldn't be able to keep such a dramatic night to himself, so I decided to control the narrative). I was actually really surprised at how understanding some of my female friends were, like they didn't say "Fuck him. leave him now!". One of my female friends even told me that fight was typical of her and her bf's weekly fights (she dates a legit abuser, which we've all had issues with for years, but that's another story for another time....). A few people in the group, all people who don't know my bf, thought I should end the relationship..esp after I told them about the soda pouring and the cops being called. Honestly, I'd probably say the same thing if someone told me a story like that...I don't think relationships like that are ok and fights like that should NOT be commonplace. My guy friend eventually came up (the one who witnessed all this drama) later and he's still really mad at my bf. I told my bf he needed to call him and apologize (and i told him he needed to really emphasize how sorry he was for pouring that drink on my head bc that's what my guy friend was most upset about). I told my mom about everything too and she's not particularly happy with him, either. He told me that was fair and that maybe he'd find out what I had been going through with his parents hating me this whole time...though my mom would never interfere in our relationship like his parents have...my mom respects my decisions as an adult, even if she doesn't agree with them.

I'm feeling a lot better today. Still not really sure what's in the future for he and I, but we're not done yet. We held each other and bawled our eyes out like babies for the first 30 min he got there last night. We do love each other so much and we are both truthfully very sorry for treating each other like that. We just need to remember these things in the heat of the moment. Ugh. Love sucks.

Edit: I'm gonna edit and add something I forgot, properly, instead of adding a new post so I don't have to make A fix my shit lol. I got a K-Safe delivered to my home from a very very sweet fellow BLer who offered to buy me one bc they were proud of how well I've been doing. I don't know if the BLer wants me to announce their name (so yall aren't hitting them up for free shit, haha), but I'll let you guys take a wild guess and I will confirm if you're right or wrong ;)

ANYWAYS. How's everyone's week going so far? I'll stop talking about all this shit soon, I promise.
 
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You both lucked out with the cops, as bad as it was. The ex-wife and I got into once when she was pissed I was drunk and she threw a can of beer of at me, and I retaliated by breaking some of her stuff. She called the cops and we both got arrested. Some good lawyering prevented the prosecutor from filing charges, but it cost us.
 
Yep. That's what I've told him since, A. We are both INCREDIBLY LUCKY that neither of us went to jail. At one point the officer said "I'm about to lock both of you guys up!" as we continued to sling nasty insults at each other despite two officers being between us. I was, in particular, a real fucking asshole during all that. It's no wonder the cops took his side...I was acting like an all out bitch. In hindsight, bad idea, but hindsight is always 20/20.

I think because no physical abuse (besides the coke incident, but it wasn't like that left a mark on me) occurred and because no property was destroyed we got off. Not to say the police couldn't have not arrested one or both of us for something (especially after the police went around my house and SURELY saw at least one of my four weed pipes or my 3 FOOT BONG). Weed is decriminalized (officer's discretion) in the city of Atlanta, and the city of Clarkston which is right next to where I live, but I technically live in "Dekalb County Unincorporated" which doesn't have that in the law books yet. The county I live in is one of the main counties in the metro area and, fortunately, the police generally have bigger fish to fry than a couple who are drunk fighting and have a little bit of weed in their home. In fact, they ended up leaving without even making him actually leave (which, in my opinion, was a bad call...I would think law enforcement 101 would teach that in that kind of situation you HAVE to get the two people apart, no matter what..they should've driven him to a hotel or something) because there was a shooting at a wing place a few miles away. I'm on probation for those traffic tickets I couldn't afford to pay in entirety (getting off next week when I make the final payment), so it could've been real real real bad. I'm thanking my lucky stars that picking up my home/washing my sheets, apologizing to my friend Trey, and maybe needing to apologize to a few of my neighbors is the extent of the damage control I had to do.

I didn't mention one of the worst parts! When the police showed up, my bf yelled to them that he needed to put my dog up (a 120 lb rottweiler for those of you who haven't read my whole thread..I don't blame you, its long as shit at this point lol) but that he was friendly. Well, he put him in my room but my room has two entrances, one main door to the rest of the house and another that goes to a bathroom that has ANOTHER door that you can access from the rest of the house too (it's a 2br 1 bathroom home...basically I have my own private entrance to the bathroom and my roommate has to use a different entrance to the same bathroom, get it?) and Herschel ran through my closet to the bathroom and out that door into the house. When we opened the door to talk to the police, he came bounding out full speed right at the officers. Now, H is a lover and loves making new friends and gets very excited about people coming over to my house so him running full speed off my porch at them was him trying to go meet his new friends, but they didn't know that. They started pulling out their guns when he came charging at them (I don't even blame them, he's a scary looking dog, esp to someone who's scared of dogs...which both officers claimed to be). Luckily my bf grabbed him just in time and stuck him in the back seat of my car so that he wouldn't keep escaping. If my dog had gotten shot, I def would've never forgiven him.
 
ladyhlove said:
I would think law enforcement 101 would teach that in that kind of situation you HAVE to get the two people apart

Yeah, that is a little odd. One of the conditions of our bond when we were arrested was no contact, which wasn't realistic and wasn't a problem as long as we didn't call the cops on each other. I think one of the reasons we were arrested was because we lived in a pretty quiet suburb, Winter Park, and the cops didn't have bigger fish to fry like they would in Orlando or unincorporated Orange Co. Weed is decriminalized in Orlando itself, but not in the rest of Orange County and Orlando proper is pretty small (about 280,000 people) compared to the rest of Orange County (1.3 million). I'm relieved that Herschel didn't come to any harm. I imagine cops encounter vicious dogs pretty frequently on these types of calls.

The speaker at Refuge Recovery last night was a nice change of pace. He's been sober 32 years and has practiced Zen meditation for the last 20. He said 20 years ago, he was sharing at an AA meeting and realized that he didn't believe a single word he was saying and started looking for alternatives to the Judeo-Christian tilt of AA and that's when he found a Buddhist temple and started practicing Zen. There's also a therapist that comes to RR who's agreed to help me find someone who's suited to help me with my issues. The clinical psychologist I had been seeing, and who did the neuro-psych testing over the summer, recommended that I steer clear of addiction specialists, since alcoholism and prescription drug abuse were only symptoms of much deeper psychological issues.
 
Yeah, the no contact rule is pretty common. A girlfriend of mine and her ex bf got into a similar drunk fight (except they actually did get physical, both of them, but only he ended up in jail) and they couldn't talk to one another either. They ended up downloading a secret messaging app and using fake names to get around it (they didn't get back together, but they did want to calmly discuss what happened and end their relationship in a civil, peaceful manner). I remember my first boyfriend got a restraining order from my next door neighbor when I was in high school (long story, but my neighbor's son was our age and an enemy of my bfs and they would constantly do things like turf each other's yards, key each others cars, etc.) and he was like "um, my girlfriend lives within 100 ft., how the fuck am i supposed to follow this?!". But he never ended up calling the cops on him, fortunately, when he was over. Restraining orders are a wonderful thing (when the person they're put on actually follow it, and it isn't just another catalyst to make them angry), but they can be abused sometimes. I worked at a bar and one of my regulars got a restraining order on another one of our regulars because he constantly called her fat , not cool of him but def not a reason to file a restraining order. She got some of her friends to lie and tell the police he had threatened her in order for her to get it. And it was just because she didn't want him in the same bar as her. He lived upstairs from the bar (within 100 ft of it) so everytime she was there, he worried he would get arrested for being in his own damn home. Crazy.

That's great you're going to find someone perfect for you, therapy-wise. I use the counselor that the clinic provides me, and I really like him a lot fortunately, and vice versa (he tell me constantly that I'm one of his favorite patients). At my clinic, some of the patients have the mindset of: "just want my methadone, dude, there's nothing wrong with me" so my counselor appreciates that I actually try to use our sessions to work on things about myself. After the fiasco Saturday (which I can't waiiiiiit to tell him about tomorrow for our weekly session, sarcasm obvs), it's clear to me that I still have a lot of work to do on my codependency. I thought I had made a lot of progress during the 6 mos my bf and I were broken up and, while it definitely helped me to be ok with being alone sometimes and not be so dependent on my bf, I obviously still freak the fuck out at the thought of being left, still. I do know that my counselor is going to suggest I stop drinking. And he won't be wrong. I don't know if I'll give it up forever, but it's going to be a long while.

I need to start going to RR again and I'd like to begin yoga officially as well...need to check those class times at LA Fitness. I've lost 3 lbs in 2 weeks since starting exercising! I did 4 days the first week, and 5 last week. I skipped yesterday...didn't mean to, I even got my clothes out and started getting ready but then the bf came over and whatnot and it was too late when he left. As much as I needed to get those endorphins pumping again, my body was still recovering from the all the abuse I did to it on Saturday with alcohol. Today, however, I shall return. I can't wait to see how badass my body's gonna look in a couple of months! I've been lifting weights and everything (usually i just do cardio and end up a skinny, curveless rail) so I'm building muscle. Basically my goal is to get so jacked that if the bf tries shit with me again, I can beat him up (OMG THAT WAS SUCH A JOKE!!)

I'm feeling a lot better today. My home is clean, my hangover from Sat. is pretty much gone (minus a little weakness which I attribute to not eating much the past few days more than from the alcohol, I suspect), I'm not in jail (or with charges hanging over my head), and the boyfriend and I are in a much more peaceful place than we had been. I wouldn't say "life is good", but it's better than it was yesterday and WAY better than it was Sunday. I told the bf that I was done talking about this situation anymore (we talked 4 hours sunday, and quite a bit yesterday as well)...I'm pretty sure we've beat the topic into the ground at this point. I'm forgiving, but certainly not forgetting. And if anything like this happens again, I am walking away because I don't need this to become my life..way too stressful for a drug addict like me.
 
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