Well, hello there!
Let's just catch up, shall we?
I'm not sure what I’m doing with this blog now. I know I’ve gotten way off track. I mean...I was completely insane, really, from the beginning. I was so obsessed with meeting "him," and I thought writing about it would help, would stop me, from acting out on my sex and love addiction.
It never did. As recovered alcoholics and addicts know, self-knowledge, and half-measures, avail us nothing. "[...T]he actual or potential alcoholic, with hardly an exception, will be absolutely unable to stop drinking on the basis of self-knowledge," (Alcoholics Anonymous, 39). Unable to stop drinking, stop pursuing men, stop smoking weed, stop mismanaging money, stop being resentful at him for drinking - I have as many addictions as there are weekdays (and actually more, as it turns out).
Despite not having drank since my first AA meeting on January 19, 2012 - that's my one win - I definitely kept acting out those other addictions. Do I have to go to a different 12-step program for every single one to achieve complete sobriety / sanity? I wonder.
Well, on April 6, 2019, I decided that I was tired of being powerless over weed, and I was able to finally quit with the help of a sponsor in Narcotics Anonymous. I'm now over 9 months clean - it was impossible to do on my own.
And on December 23, 2019, I finally called the cops on "Bernard," and the relationship ended for real. Lots to catch up on - I took him hostage and he moved in with me in August 2015, we visited my sister in Northern CA over Christmas Break and he suggested we just stay, my son Lucas' dad died January 22, 2016, we were homeless for a long time in motel-to-motel until we found a crappy place to rent, we bought a house with my late husband's life insurance, his son came to live with us, we had another kid, I got fired, I started a photography business (and a new addiction), and his drinking got worse (than it all ready was when I was chasing him down at bars trying to make him mine).
That night, on December 23, I had finally decided it was insane to let him keep getting away with taking my car without asking, with no driver's license (multiple DUI's), with no cell phone (would never pay his bill), with our almost 3 year-old daughter in the car (I was working the steps again, and I really wanted to become sane this time). We had all ready been fighting every day and breaking up like every week. That night, he was gone for two hours before I knew he had left (I was downstairs working - my new escape from reality). I thought about calling the police before he got home, but then he showed up, and he started screaming when I set the boundary. Olivia started crying; he was screaming and throwing things. rampaging, yelling that he was done with me, and I needed to leave "his" house right now (the house I bought with Lucas' dad's life insurance - at least, the $20,000 down - but put in Bernard's name, since his credit was better than mine after I got us both out of debt with said life insurance money). I took her downstairs, locked the bedroom door, and went into the walk-in closet in the bathroom, and locked the bathroom door, too.
Olivia told me she was scared, so that was it. I decided to just do it. I was terrified of doing it, but I did it - I dialed 9-1-1. When the police arrived, Bernard was actually screaming outside by the street, so they were able to arrest him for "public" intoxication. They told me he would only be in the drunk tank for 6-12 hours, so since the house was in his name, despite us living there for over three years, I should get what I needed, and get out before he gets out.
It has not been an easy 26 days since then, of course. After staying with my sister (who was drinking all day around the holidays, and I had to get out), a friend, a stranger, and a friend of a friend, I'm now finally in a studio apartment with my two kids (Lucas is now 10; Olivia turns 3 in a little over a week).
There's more I'd like to write, but I'm going to head out and go to an AA meeting that starts in 15 minutes after microwaving Lucas a quesadilla. The Cup O' Noodles didn't quite fill him up. Olivia is with dad for the night. We're meeting with CPS next week to come up with a safety plan, but she'll be okay for tonight, any way.
To be continued...
