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Methamphetamine: Stories and Letters of the Hidden Costs
by Users, Loved Ones, and Parents

Wife gone Numb of Husbands Addiction
   I wish i could use this time to praise you with sympathy, however i will use this moment instead to tell you a truth. A truth about Meth Addicts. My husband is one. He is also a Meth Dealer. His teeth are rotten, he smells and looks of death, and he is a walking time bomb for not only himself but for me as well. I have given up all hope that he will ever be more then what he is today, but more likely to be less with every passing day. In November a week before thanksgiving he was pulled over for speeding and was taken down and arrested for trafficing 180 grams of ice. 180 grams of ice, you would think he was a wealthy king pin drug dealer. Make no mistake, he was far from wealthy, in fact our home was in the process of forclosure. The money that he made off of making and trafficing these drugs was mearly a means to support his horrific habit. Money mind you by the thousands every week. If you can imagine then the state he was in with every second of every day. Every spoon and glass bowl and jars were tarnished and turned from the cooking, and the smell of my household oven would make you puke. I could not even use my stove anymore, for the smell of amonia such as cat piss would make your eyes water. For the last 3 years i have left 7 times, but only to be drug back into the same old rut as the time before. Now i dont have to worry about it. He is facing 75 years of federal time. And he doesnt even know the Feds are getting a warrant as we speak and coming to pick him up. And why do i know all this, because i became the rat. Yes the Rat. When he was arrested, they came to my house and serched too and found alot of stuff out back in his shop. Being Married to him i could have been facing much jail time myself. I dont do drugs i dont sell drugs hell i dont even drink...I work i sleep i work and i sleep some more...i cut grass i clean i pay bills and exhaust myself with everything i can not to have to put myself (eventhough living around it) in the middle of this life style which is not even mine. Its like sitting on the sofa and watching a movie, this is not my life. But it is. Well the DEA knew that i didnt have any dealings with this life, and more then that i didnt know alot that obviously was going on right before me, so they only held me for 22 hours and didnt end up with anything to charge me with. Since then now i have had to supply them with information about my husband to insure my safety and freedom. This is how i know they are coming to pick him up. Just a word to all of you out there...Im tired..im Numb, im sick to death of this excuse of this being a sickness, im tired of seeing it in people every day of my life and hearing the excuses over and over and over...let me tell you something, i used too years ago. There comes a time in our lives that you wake the hell up. If you dont, your gonna kill yourself, and most often if you continue your dead anyway. Life is not walking around every single day with a glass eyed fog over your face, i hate it. I hate what it does to you, I hate your for letting it do this to you. You do have a choice...get some fricken help. Or DIE ! its as simple as that. I myself have already morned my husbands death thousands of times, and you know what, the devil himself is laughing outloud right down on me, cause it was me he was killing not himself, and i was allowing him to.. Well not no more, He is going to jail....maybe there he will have to get the help he needs, but hummmm damn alittle too late hah.
--NumbToDrugAddicts

Thank God i didnt have an addictive personality!
   I am now 16 years old and have been clean now for about 6 months. I started using meth at the age of 11 with my great aunt. I lived with my aunt my cousin and my G-ma. my cousin was also a tweeker. I didn't live with my mom because ever since she married this 50 year old she was not the same. well come to find out she was also hooked on meth. plus her husband and four of his kids. well I was living with my aunt smoking ice and looking great. (I thought) I was using meth every day. I thought meth was good for me cause I kept the house clean worked a job at age 11 and 12 and taking care of my grand mother. I was also going to school. I was dating a 24 year old who also did meth. well this here life went on till I was 14 meth and more meth. well me and my aunt just could not get along all we ever did was argue about the dope. I finally got tired of it and went to back to my mom who had done got busted for meth and was still doing it. well I was drug free with my mom for about a month then she started giving it to me to pick at her head. she would get so tweeked out that she would sware up and down that she had in grown hairs all in her head. but she didn't she was just geeked out like me and done been up for about a week or so.well I looked awful and so did my mom and her husband. all we did was smoke dope and they sold it to make a living. then my mom got caught again and she had 2 slow down. so she got and I got a job at a bar. well I finally got tired of everything her staying geeked up and beating me. what made me want to quite was when I looked at her and saw all of those scabs and sores it made me sick to my stomach. well I had done quit and I was going to leave I was 14 then so I left went to about 6 different places I am now with my cousins and they are the best things that have ever happen to me I don't even think about the drug no more my mom is still doing it and my step dad is very sick my mom has disowned me and wont talk to me because I want her to go to rehab. I just don't understand why people cant quite I was never hooked yeah bi liked the feeling but I didn't never have to have it but my mom cant live without it. I hope she will soon stop and look what is doing to her she still has my bother there who is 13. I just hope he don't never get messed up with the drug. please be smart don't mess with meth it has killed my family I guess I was just a little stronger.
--Cassie

   I am 52 years old and have been on meth for almost 20 years. I have not had a clean day for at least 5 years. I have ruined my health. I have been diagnosed with severe osteoarthritis in my hands and I need joint replacement surgery. Most people requiring this surgery are 65 or 70 years old. This drug has taken 15 years off of my life. I literally have worked my hands to death. I remodeled my home and when my hands starting hurting I just took more dope to stave off the pain. I justified my use because I was getting work done. I worked too hard, ate too little and never slept enough. I can no longer play the piano, I can barely type and I'm in constant pain. My lover has dumped me (he's not an addict), my friends aren't friends, they're customers, my family is afraid of me and I can't stand myself. I am at a time in my life where I should be enjoying middle age, my grandkids and an active lifestyle. Instead I am pretending everything is fine, lying about my use, alienating my children and all work has stopped completely. I am terrified of becoming helpless and sick from withdrawals, yet I know I absolutely have to stop killing myself with this shit. I am a good person. I didn't mean for this to happen to me. It becomes a way of life and I don't know any other way. If I only knew what I know now, I would have never touched this stuff. I have wasted my life and I am so ashamed of myself. Speed kills, it really does, in more ways than one. Thanks for listening.
--betty

My husband left me for meth
   I had been married to a man for 22 years - he was like 2 different people. He drives a truck so he is gone all the time. I have raised my son for 20 years all alone he never showed any interest in our family life or our home. It was always his friends because they are all a bunch of meth heads - selling and dealing and stealing anything to buy more. After of living with this monster for 22 years - his physical abuse and mental abuse to me he finally walked out in August. He left for a week didn't have a clue where he was. This was normal happens all the time to be gone for days and not know where he was. He has had 10 jobs in 10 years failed drug test always late with loads never calling his company. So he finally showed back up a week later - decided I WAS A BITCH needed to find his self. Kept paying the bills for 3 months - then lost another job. I found out he is living with a lot lizard from a truckstop who is a meth head herself. Cancelled his cellphone bill - got copies of his calls over the past 4 months - 325 calls a month to meth dealers. Glad this monster is out of my life - left me with a house payment and other bills to pay. Working 2 jobs - soon as i get time I will be going to see a lawyer and hoping to talk to a DEA agent to get these drug dealers off the street. I can only hope that he will be arrested and put in prison for 20 years. I can not believe there are people walking around and dealing drugs everyday. Check your truckstops there is a danger on the roads with these freaks behind the wheel of these trucks. He thinks he has gotten by with screwing me he will find out one day when I look at him behind prison bars. are i hope he has one last breath left in him for me him for me to spit in his face. I know it will be better without this monster I just hate I have wasted 22 years and my life and my son had such a dope head as a father he did not deserve this.
--ba

Shock
   I started having problems with my husband about three years ago. He became increasingly paranoid, erratic, and suspicious of everything I did. He accused me of having an affair with a co-worker which blew my mind. All I did was work, take care of our kids, and go out with my friends once in a while, and he treated me like I was some devil woman out to ruin his life. He was a real estate agent, but he had stopped selling anything for a couple of years even though he pretended to work. He was angry all the time, and always told me it was my fault. I tried to reconcile with him, but after a while I could tell he was only nice to me when he wanted money or sex. I went to counseling to learn how this could happen to a person, and they told me that he had a personality disorder, which seemed to fit, but there always seemed to be a piece of the puzzle missing. Just last week, one of his cousins said he thinks that he is a meth user because he looks and acts just like one. I didn't know anything about meth, or even that it was available in this area(NY), but after doing some research, the signs fit him to a tee. Now, I'm just shocked and appalled that this could have been going on for a long time and I never knew. I guess it was easier to accept that he had mental problems that he had no control over, but now to think it could have been drugs really tears me up. We were together for nearly 20 years and have two great kids, but he even acts paranoid with them too.I wish I had known more about this a long time ago. We have to stop thinking of this as a 'rural' problem and better inform people everywhere of the devastating effects of this drug.
--CB

Recovring Addict
   HI I am Candice I am a addict. I sixteen years old I was brought up by both my parents, went to good schools and had a good family when I was 13 tears old I started using meth then it went on to dope, crack and ecstasy pills but my drug of choice was Meth at 15 I had a using boyfriend and our relationship was serious. We used everyday and everyday that I was using, I was drawn away from my family and at the time I did not care and all the extra time I had I spend it with my boyfriend, I didn't mind I was getting my shit and I had someone who cared for me, loved me and looked after me in 2006 my parents found out I was using and that I was using with him, and then my dad abuse my boyfriend and on that same day I ran away from home for 3 days with this guy and we didn't know where we were headed too, but we kept on running. soon I called my parents and they picked me up by the police station and from there I was sent to Rehab, my boyfriend went home and from there everything came crashing down in my life, Rehab for me was almost like a holiday inn, from there things started to patch up in my life, I started to see the damage that I caused and the pain that I put my family and friends through.I wasn't allowed contact with my boyfriend and that whole subject brought me down completely until I was depressed and no knew how actually depressed I was. Beside my personal problem I adore recovery and meeting new people through recovery and working the steps.It helps and I made a decision to stay in recovery and help my self for a future and a better life concerning my family and friends and most importantly my self, there is only one problem with that is that, if you are unhappy being in recovery then there is something you not doing right, maybe I in Dinal and people pleasing to show everyone that I am happy but deep down I am depressed and moody so much that my parents think I back on Meth. I trying to make the best of it, what so surprising to me is that I still clean and I didn't relapse and spiritually that's all in the grace of my higher power.
   To those who are still suffering, the recovering addicts are still praying for you and there is hope out there. and to those who are in recovery, keep strong! thank you.
--Confused.

   My mom and dad have been on meth ever since I was born and I’m 12 years old now. I know my life is very complicated and hard for me to explain but I‘d like to say that everyone will at one time be asked to try meth and they need to be educated now before they end up like my mom and dad and many other moms and dads like mine.
   I watched my dad try and drown my baby sister in the bathtub and strangled my older sister with his hands. I’d heard them screaming and then my mom left us for good. It didn’t get better after that until my papa came to took us away that night.
   They practically ruined my life and everybody else’s because they just didn’t seem to care about us. They only cared about themselves. It was like we weren’t there and now that we live with gram and papa, my mom went off and started a new family so now the last thread we had with her is gone and not only that, I worry about what’s going to happen to the new baby that’s gonna come into this world. I mean, where’s it gonna be when it grows up and will it have to go through what my sisters had to go through first?
--Stephanie, Nevada

A Train Wreck called meth
   Like so many stories about meth users this one leaves a path of broken lives and destruction. Watching someone you love destroy themselves and the lives around them is like watching a train wreck in slow motion. You know the outcome is terrible but you hang in there watching hoping that a miracle will happen and stop the train. In this case it hasn't. I am a forty-seven year old man in Tulsa Oklahoma. My ex-fiancé is a chronic meth user. I finally left her after three years of hell. The bad part is we have a two year old son who is still with her mother. She was in the middle of a divorce when I met her and as of today she is still in the middle of it. She claimed spousal abuse from her husband, little did I know this was part of her addiction. She abandoned her daughter with her husband and went on a spending spree with $50,000.00 from a medical settlement.Most of that money went for the purchase of meth and other drugs. She went through it in less than six months. She was also arrested for possession of metheinphedimine, possession of marijuana and attempted transportation of meth into a prison during this time. Her brother has been a meth junkie since the age of fourteen. He was in the prison she tried to get the drugs into. He was serving seven years for distribution of a controlled substance. His son is currently adopted by her mother. He was three years old and weighed twenty-two pounds when they finally rescued him. He is twelve years old today and suffers permanent damage from his fathers abuse. I only found these things out after getting involved with her,this would be the biggest mistake of my life. Meth users I have found are pretty good about hiding things for awhile. My first experience with the violence that meth users can deal out was when she broke my finger. She had come to my office very pissed off because I had not returned her phone calls. she started yelling and calling me names. when I told her she would have to leave and picked up my keys she grabbed my pinky finger and broke it. The sound was like a dry chicken bone snapping. After she saw what she had done she started crying and apologizing. It was crazy, like two different people in the same body. At this point there is no doubt I should have ran like hell, but when you love someone you can do some pretty stupid things. Throughout our relationship I would leave after these violent episodes she would have. I knew she had to be using some drug, I just didn't know what. Then one day as I was doing laundry I found two glass pipes wrapped in tissue paper in her pants pocket. I confronted her with these. At first she denied they were hers blaming them on her brother. A funny thing about that she was always so down on her brothers drug use but I found out they were doing meth together. He would shoot it and she would smoke it. she finally admitted the pipes were hers and she used them to smoke meth. Well that explained a lot of things. The two hour showers, the violence, the missing money. And one thing in particular she would do is alienate me from everyone she could. I know now that it was to hide her addiction. Of course she said she would stop and get help. She didn't. Before it was all said and done with I had a car destroyed by her and her brother and the mental and physical abuse I suffered will take years to get over. One of her favorite things to do was to physically abuse me, then when I would start to call the police she would hit herself with a phone, or other object and tell me if I called the police or tried to leave her she would tell the police I hit her, send me to jail cost me my job, and I would never see my son again. In the same breath she would tell me how horrible I was and she hated me, hated my kids and on and on. Crazy at best. Well about four months ago I again found one of her pipe. I believe when she was pregnant with our son and a few months after his birth she really did quit but soon after the same crazy behavior started again. The violence the missing money, blaming everyone else the, suicide attempts, the I hate you but you'll never leave me...nuts. On Halloween of 2005 we took the kids trick or treating I knew she was spun, over the last few years I had learned to read the signs. We got home and she started a fight, tried to cut her wrists with a butcher knife and then tried to stab me. I got the knife away from her and tried to talk her down..knowing it was no use. She always had a way of escalating her anger no matter what. It was like an unstoppable juggernaut. You could never find the right words of actions to calm her down when she was that high. she then grabbed some Flexural and took about ten of them then she took some loritab she had. When I went to call EMSA she grabbed the candy bowl off of the counter and hit herself in the forehead leaving a large bump. Of course she said if I called EMSA she would say I beat her and put me in jail...same old threats. Well I didn't call EMSA and the next hour was spent trying to calm her down and keep the kids out of harms way. Finally the pills she took settled her down and she passed out. The next day she awoke about noon. I asked if she was okay and she responded "Yeah but now I know I can take a hell of a lot of drugs and not kill myself"......crazy. Now I knew I had to get my son and myself out of there, even her friends encouraged me to do so. She was not going to stop using meth. Before I could get things in order to get her out of the house she would make good the threat she had held over me for so long. On Nov. 15th I came home and the electricity was off. She was standing in the driveway raising hell about it. I asked why it was off and she didn't know. But I did. I had just caught up the bill because she hadn't paid them for two months and she did it again. Choosing instead to spend the money on meth. I asked her to go to her moms and I would stay at the house. She left and came back about thirty minutes latter leaving the kids at her moms. I could see she was high and very agitated. I said lets go to dinner and not worry about any of this. I knew that I was going to leave that night and I didn't want any trouble. I thought we could go to dinner and she would calm down and go back to her moms and I could pack some things and be gone in the morning. I just wasn't going to live like that anymore. Well we got back from dinner and she didn't want to leave I think she knew it was over. I was sitting on the couch and it just came out after so many years of lies and abuse and heartbreak I couldn't stand it any more. I said " I am not living like this anymore its over, you are a drug addict and I will not let you ruin the rest of our lives because of your selfishness." "You should get some of your things and leave, I will have the rest of your stuff packed for you." she jumped up and came over to the couch where I was sitting and slapped me several times, she then punched me in the groin and tried to kick me, all the time yelling "YOU'LL NEVER FUCKING LEAVE ME." I got up while she had the front of my shirt twisted up in her hand while she was trying to hit me with the other hand. We fell to the ground with her on top. I knew I was in trouble I had never seen her so angry. I turned over underneath of her and tried to get away. I slipped away a little but she wrapped her arms around both of my legs in a bear hug. Still screaming at me, what she was saying I don't know I just knew I had to get away. I kicked my legs free and ran for the door. She yelled "I'M CALLING THE POLICE YOU HIT AND CHOKED ME." I stopped and turned around and said calmly. "You do whatever it is you want but I am through being bullied." She called the police claimed I hit her and choked her. I was sitting outside when they came. Of course they believed her, didn't even ask me what happened. I went to jail. After getting booked in I was put in a cell and got the best three hours sleep I have had in over a year. She would always be up all night cleaning the kitchen...hours at a time. funny the rest of the house was always a mess. I saw her in court the other day she looks like hell. She has that rasp in her voice. I guess she has a job at the local treaker bar. Some friends have seen her buying drugs at a trailer park across the street. All I can do now is fight for custody of my son. I fear for him daily. I am taking the domestic assault charge to jury trial and will fight the protective order. All of these lies she has told, the lives she is damaging just because of the meth. This is just a fraction of the hell I have lived with. I got to see my son for the first time in four months today. It was supervised visitation. Another consequence of her meth use. Even with all of the pain and court and financial drain now my life is many times better than living with a meth addict. All the family and friends she alienated me from because of her paranoia are still here. I have a lot of rebuilding to do. But as I sit and write this I remember what a friend told me when I confided in him about her drug use a couple of years ago. He said " All I can tell you is that you can't beat the pipe, that's what she is truly in love with." I should have listened.
--Michael

Co-Star of His Drama
   When i confronted my son about his meth addiction, he said, "mind your business, you snitch! This is my drama!" i informed him that i was a co-star in his drama, and that his drug usage, was my problem, too. I remembered carroll o'conner saying on that anti-drug commercial, "get between your kids and drugs, any way you can!" and i made that my motto.
   I don' t know when my son started doing meth, but i remember writing to him when he was in prison, that "any time i believe you are on drugs, i am either going to turn you in, or get you in rehab. If you come around me while you are on drugs, i will take that as a cry for help, and i will do something. So, if you don't want me to "snitch", then don't come around me on drugs." some time after his release from prison, he began coming to my home on drugs. He was awake all hours of the night, and watching out a crack in the curtains (watching a yard full of f.b.i. agents that weren't really there). Soon, he was tearing up my television and radio, claiming that he knew they were "bugged". Then, he started carrying a gun everywhere he went. He would get in my face and tell me what a low-life i was, and that people wanted to cut my tongue out, etc..... Finally, one night, i had had enough. I was ready to keep my promise to take this as a cry for help. I called the law. Now, he is in prison again.
   He says he is not an addict. He hangs with the same people as always. I do not know how much longer he will be alive. Although he had an experience with the lord, and reads the word all the time, i can't help but believe that if he doesn't admit he has a problem with meth, that he will fall back in to it. Truthfully, if he gets back into it, i don't want him around me because i don't know that person. That fellow on meth is not the son i raised. I simply don't know that guy, and i don't want to know him. I don't want to call the law. I don't want to go to court hearings anymore. I don' t want to be near the danger he puts his family members in. I don't want to watch him fail at what he thinks he is accomplishing. I don' t want anything to do with meth users, and i don't want to take all my time to clean up his problems and messes. I want to watch him succeed in whatever he takes on. I want him to fall in love one day, and give me some healthy grandchildren. I want him to see how important it is to get away from anyone who uses meth, or even talks about their meth days(and laughs while telling their meth stories). I want him to continue in this relationship with the heavenly father, and put all his cares and troubles into the lord's hands. Until he admits his problem, then i look for him to get into the drugs again. He says he is done with it, but he won't admit there ever was a problem. So, that only tells me that more troubles lay ahead. I am afraid for him. So very, very afraid for him. And i am sick and tired of the greediness of this drug. Don't these meth heads know that they are making their momma's cry out to god every night? I have laid on the floor, spread eagle, crying and begging god to save my child. I have grabbed my chest, and felt that i was literally dying of a broken heart. His usage is killing me.
--A Mother

This is for "I AM BATMAN"
   I too was once a user, I read your article and I know how you feel it's the hardest thing to give up, but you have too. That stuff is evil, it distroys everything around you, including you.
   I moved from the area I lived in to start all over and have been clean for two years now, maybe thats what you need to do, change your surroundings and the people you hang with, it work for me. Set some goals - job - find something your interested in and spend your money on that instead. I love flea markets, I go to those alot, I have a great job now. I am very happy and have no desire to do that crap ever again. Wish you all the luck
--Happy in Florida!!

Wife of Meth Addict
   I'm a 24 yr old female with 2 children i am married to an addict "recovering" my husband enrolled himself into an inhouse rehab to avoid going to prison. This all started when my son then 6 mos! now 5 years we lost our house moved into a little apt got 2 cars repoed one 2x one wrecked and imounded 2x he lost his job and stayed home for a year everyday getting high! He stayed in the garage not coming inthe house except to shower or ask me for money! i ended up losing my job because i wasn't able to juggle a job kids and the stress of his addiction trying to pay bills but the bank account was always negative he was stealing from his family icried i begged i pleaded i yelled ithreatened i talked i left i did everything i could think of but nothing seemed to help thats all that would run through his head is "i need to smoke a bowl" finally i gave up stood at the side lines and decided to let him find out for himself FINALLY!!!!!!!! court cases fines prison felony probation he got caught selling and found out the guy he was selling with set him up!
   He sat down looked at his life lost our house our boat our cars and most important our family my babies crying wanting daddy but he's not here! but not cause he's high in the garage it's because he is getting better hes home now and i've never seen our kids happier he's got 90 days clean and he's taking it one day at time thats the only way don't plan to far ahead because you/they may set expectations to high and let theirselves down because the didn't reach their goals100%! Look i thought there was no hope at first but sometimes as much as it does hurt, you gotta back off let them know you still care but let them do it on their own their gonna fall a few times but if they want it bad enough they'll get back up!!!! and maybe they'll finally reach out their hand for the help youve been trying to give them ! Good luck to all mothers fathers wifes husbands sons daughters sisters brothers and friends.
--dls

   I have been living with a meth user for the past 15 years. This person is my husband, who has been using off and on. Fortunately mostly "off", but is still a user. I searched for a website, because he has started using again. I myself am not a user, and am not able to fully understand why he is doing this. Your site has been helpful, and is giving me a better understanding of what is happening.
   I was inspired to write a poem to my husband, with hopes that it would let him know how his addiction has affected me. I gave it to him, and think it's made a little difference. I told him about your site, and he asked that I send it to you. It's not titled, because I couldn't think of one.
--Naive About Meth

   Meth ruined my marriage and turned the man I thought was my soul mate into someone I do not recognize. And to find more than one soul mate was especially dear to me because I was a widow before I met my current husband. My 1st soul mate died and made me a widow when I was just 26. Nearly 10 years later I met my current husband, which I write of here.
   I was raised in a small town in the midwest, in the same state I was born in. I now live in a decent sized city in that same state. I moved around with my career in my 20's and 30's, but came back to my home-state because I wanted to find and settle down with a home-state guy. This city I live in has been known for the pervasiveness of methamphetamines. However, I personally had no experience with meth - until 2005. I know it is out there, around; but I am a recovering alcoholic, involved in a 12 step program and I know no one who uses meth personally.
   I am not a brain-iac, but I have always been driven. I am almost 40 but am mistaken for late 20's or early 30's, and I am the same size I was in college. In high school I was known for my contagious laugh and my tendency to have fender benders, because I had my "head in the clouds" according to my dad. I earned a graduate degree along with my many fond nicknames from friends along the way in the four states I lived in. I have climbed the corporate ladder from the bottom up, in my professional life. I am still and will always be known for my twisted sense of humor. I have seen and done a lot for a small town country girl from a blue collar family in the midwest.
   But meth has taken as much from me as it has from my husband, from his mom and dad, from his friends and his beautiful children and from him. I used to have equity in my house, money in the bank, zero credit card debt, three beautiful cars, closets full of clothes and jewelry that women envied. My school loans were paid off and I had a good paying job with a Fortune 500 company that I worked 60 hours a week for, for nearly 15 years, and the security of a nest-egg 401(k). My future looked great, especially my career future. I just wanted a family, especially after my mom died. So after 911 I moved home in search of someone to share my life with.
   Then I let my recovery program slip and became involved with a man with a wonderful personality, a beautiful smile and a wry sense of humor. He also had, I would later learn, chemical dependency and I think a porn dependancy. I had no idea that some casual pot use and healthy sexual appetite would turn out to be a glimpse into a dark world that I never should have been exposed to and from which I will never completely escape memories of. I think it can be overcome if my husband would have a higherpower in his life, and I mean a personal day-to-day relationship with God. Not just some Sundays, when his kids were born and on Christmas and Easter. I mean day-to-day, get on your knees and pray to God to help us the morning and Thank Him every night.
   I have used so-called recreational drugs (especially prescription drugs) in the past and many people I know use marijuana, so I did not think pot was a big deal. I knew my husband smoked when I met him, I just did not know how much. I was happy he was not a drinker. I overlooked cigarettes too, which was probably worse in my eyes, because my mom died of lung cancer. But because I loved him so much and was excited to be a part of my own family, and because he was so courteous about his second-hand smoke, I tried to overlook it. I would have never tolerated the porn, that showed up later. I was stupid enough to let my husband influence my own return to marijuana maintenance for a while and I started drinking again for a year, after being sober a couple of years. Which I take full responsibility for. I have been sober again for 2 years next month. Our sex life was good until I got 2 promotions in quick succession, worked under high stress and we went through infertility treatment to try and have a baby. Then things started to get distorted and priorities blurred. I was overwhelmed at work, had a long commute and my husband evidently escaped with drugs and got sexually involved with a woman he would not otherwise have even looked at, if not for the drugs. More specifically meth, so I am learning to understand. Meth and sex somehow are related.
   I never tried meth. I was ashamed enough that I tried ecstacy. The anxiety marriage and work issues took its toll on me. My helplessness of what was happening caused me to begin to have panic attacks, insomnia and depression. Plus, I was working 60 hours a week and commuting 1.5-2 hours a day. I experienced sexual harrassment at work and was passed over for a promotion because I was going through fertility treatment (I lost 2 pregnancies before our marriage began to be in trouble). As things went south at work, at home I found out we owed the IRS thousands of dollars, and learned of my husband's affair and then drug use (in that order). I learned months later that the affair was with my husband's 'friend' who introduced him to meth. I was so neurotic about what he was doing while I was at work, and started hating my job anyway, that I took a double-demotion at work and got behind bills for medical problems I was having and started shopping and spending money myself as a way of acting out and trying to feel better. I was seeing counselors and a psychiatrist and taking more and more prescription medication, including klonipan and xanax, which are no-no's for an addict like myself. I learned later that his drug dealer friend who sold him the pot and X eventually became his meth dealer and meth whore. I learned in the most horrific way possible not only that he was addicted to meth, but that he was having an ongoing affair. Possibly for a year or so while I slaved at work, he was never going in to his office. Having sex with her for hours while I was at work or out of town. We were going our separate ways. I even helped his dealer's children with odd jobs/money and gave one of them a coat, thinking they were kids of his 'single-mom-friend' and trying to help. Not knowing that my husband was giving them rides and money because he was doing their mother and getting his drugs from her.
   To this day I am unable to talk about it. I found out that not only did my husband bring her to our house and that he did not use condoms, but I found out that they actually used our bed! Now I have an STD from him that I have to disclose to anyone I am involved with in the future. I learned about my husband's affair in a way that was worse than walking in on them - I cannot even verbalize how I learned of his sexual escapades nor what I saw. Before I learned of this, I allowed myself to do some things which I will never forgive myself for and was subjected to some things I did not consent to. Violation on many levels. For months I had images in my head of what I saw and experienced so vivid and consuming, that I wanted to poke my "mental-eye" out and contemplated dying. One night he did not come home and I drove around for hours looking for his drug dealer's apartment. All I knew what what kind of car her daughter's boyfriend drove, I had no idea where the apartment was. After I did not find him and worked myself into an emotional frenzy, I took several sleeping pills so I could go to sleep. When I partially woke up, I called a friend crying hysterically and asked her to come stay with me because I was scared. I am so ashamed that I needed to talk so bad, that in my sleeping pill-stupor, I actually told her some of what had been happening. She was so horrified, that she stopped talking to us and told some of our friends our sordid dark secrets that I blurted out in a drug-induced haze. She went to work the next morning and I took more pills and went back to sleep. I was so drugged up on klonipan and xanax and ambien, that my speech was slurred, even when I woke up 17 hours later. My husband said it scared him when he came home and found me so out of it, but he was too concerned about his own drugs to call an ambulance or a doctor. Things have become violent more than once. I keep trying to forgive him (and even still do), and I have figured out why - if I forgave him, I would not have to come to terms with the abuse and what happened to me that he did that was inexcusable; and I could move past it - I thought.
   I starting researching meth to understand this dark sexual side and try to be able to understand and forgive. My husband even went away to rehab, but was so focused on whether I would be home when he came back, that he missed out on his own treatment opportunity. I did stay and tried to pick up the pieces, but found out that he rented 3 porno's the week he came home. I just gave up because he will not embrace the 12 step program or do any of the things we agreed on before he came home. He eventually relapsed and to this day is either nice and loving, crying to the point of hysteria or so angry that he has become violent. I just cannot care anymore. If I went one more week wondering if he would not come home and be "with" her, I was afraid for my own sanity, let alone my own sobriety.
   Now, I don't care anymore. I dislike him for what he has put me through. I just want to move on with my life. I have filed for divorce and have been unable to completely sever all contact with my soon-to-be-ex, but am learning that for both of our sanity sakes, I am going to have to enforce the boundaries. I am just so sad because we both had so much hope for this marriage. Now I am going to turn 40 and my dreams of having a baby myself are all but completely gone. I was excited to have step children, but now I am going to have to life with the fact that while neither my husband nor his exwife made the decision to tell the kids, I did. In anger and in defense of my own self, as my husband was verbally berating me, I told the kids what was happening and why we were getting a divorce. I did it out of desperation, mostly because I was tired of him yelling at me in front of them and telling me in front of them that I did not want to be around them and that was why I was gone all the time. Not that I was gone because I found drugs and a bag of urine taped to the inside of the toilet tank in our house less than a month after my husband got home from rehab. I was not able to take the pressure of worrying about their safety, while he relapsed and his exwife did nothing but use me as a "temperature" gage of the situation at our house - and I quote her.
   Now, I have no job, no savings, the one car I have left has mechanical issues, my credit card is maxed out and I have loans out on my 401(k) that I will loose if I cannot find a way to pay it back. And the mental medical issues are still there - I have been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress. I have a good education and a graduate degree, but I cannot hardly work because I have anxiety which has lead to physical health issues, lack of concentration and loss of memory. Not to mention I have no drive left. ...And I never touched meth.
--SH

Reflections: II
   My Reflections left off last time with.."I was breathless, having just lost my job, standing in the soiled kitchen with crap piled everywhere like the lies of my life."
   How I got into the mess of my life is an epic tale in itself, but to shorten the yarn considerably I was there because I needed and wanted and craved and wasted considerable amounts of money and life on blow. And blow was to be found there in that miserable house of flushed chanced.
   Those inhabitants were all lost or in the process of becoming lost. The collection of fools included Brandi and Amil in the first bedroom, Melissa-the owner of the house-who later loses the house to foreclosure, Jen and her two kids, me, who is the late-comer and obvious target, and the various multitudes of through-passers needing the too-nuked-to-notice-the-grime folks couch or floor for a crash pad.
   It was teeth-gritting horrible the health and general sanitation of this place. Dogs crapped freely inside the house and the waste was routinely ignored, the laundry room was an encapsulating mass of discarded clothes that became home to frequently urinating/spraying cats, mice, and a host of other scary bacteria that would frighten me to see with the naked eye.
   The interior of the place was piled trash. Some were organized into large, burdensome piles of bags, and then there was the loose, foot-crunching trash that usually started with one of the dogs chewing or cats scratching into the bag in pursuit of some old, rotten food. The contents of the bag would spill into the careful footpaths between the rooms and become trampled underfoot in the ceaseless movements of the hapless and wired dwellers.
   Room 1 sold. Room 2 and 3 bought. The kids were gone on the weekends and everyone tried desperately, venomously to make the horror of the week disappear and embrace life...usually involving incredible amounts of drugs, money, cigarettes, beer, and bullshit words.
   The looming foreclosure became the day of moving and those piles of filth and garbage crowded our security and fears of changing more and more as each day turned. The usage accelerated until we were all either completely gone or totally broke, oh, or waiting to resupply. Those stretched-out, sinister days of waiting...
   It was do or die time: I, in my many hours of unemployment pondering, decided I needed to rescue my girlfriend and her two children by marrying her and getting out own place.
   The scary thing is...that is almost exactly what happened. I took my severance package and spent it all on her ring and $100 of ice. I figured we'd need to save now, no more of this short-lived blow, we'd need stuff with kick. On to ice...
   We moved out two days before the foreclosure, finding an awesome townhouse in a very nice neighborhood complex. The townhouse was a great price with an excellent view of the local mountain. It was idyllic.
   We snorted a line of coke at the shithole and then a line of ice at the townhouse. We broke free of the shithole and coke and doodoo everywhere; we were now engaged to one another; and the kids...oh, they were so happy to have their own room and peace.
   This is called Reflections. I can't say my whole story at once, I just can't. I'll write to this Letters page from time to time and try to tell it all for those that keep up; just look for Reflections in the heading. I do want to say that I've made it out, barely. And I will never lie or embellish my story; all of it is true including my name. And all the other names of f-ups will be true as well. Please tune in, I won't keep you waiting long.
--m

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