You Can't Love Them Into Sobriety and You Can't Give Them Everything and Hope

I have been married for almost four years to an alcoholic and drug addict. He is sweet, gentle and loving, not violent but a master emotional manipulator.

He was a musician when we met, living with another woman he called his room-mate (which I found out later was really his fiancé). Lie #1 that got him booted the first time.

I told him to call me when he was actually single. Which about 6 weeks later he did. Three in the morning telling me he spoke with God and he knows what he needs to do to have it work out with us.

He said he had gotten his own apartment and was going to tell the woman he was living with that it was over. We started dating again but were not intimate until he actually moved into his own apartment. (Which was his best friend's basement).

Well at least he wasn't living with another woman. Being a musician he drank heavily every night but told me his only drug use was marijuana. Huge lie!

He was addicted to painkillers and would use pretty much anything that was there or offered: coke, pills, pcp, didn't really matter. I tried to tell myself that this was only occasionally and that he wasn't an addict.

After all there wasn't one person in the band who wasn't abusing something this is the way it was. Well, he called me in a panic one day saying there was a repossession order on his car and could I go the western union and pay the three months of arrears ($1250.00) so he didn't have to hide from the repo men.

I told him I would after he begged and pleaded for half an hour but he would have to pay me back or work it off. So the next day I told him to be at my store that I ran at 11:00am and he could work with me and learn another skill, since he worked nights he could do this.

He showed up at 1:00pm high. By 5:00pm he was getting agitated and said wow it's been four hours since I smoked. This seemed so foreign to me, I asked him if that was a problem? He nervously answered no, of course not.

But we had to go on a drive in search of marijuana as soon as I was done work. I was the supreme enabler I protected him, supported him and his habit and kept him safe. He lived in his friends basement for about six weeks before he moved in with me.

Here I had this 34 year old man who could not take care of himself or refused to. Why would he - I did everything as did so many before me. We were married 3 months later and when I was drinking with him and not questioning any of his behavior things were fine.

Then I woke up, I had three children what was I doing on this joyride? He decided he was going to quit playing in cover bands because he knew that life style did not fit into mine and felt he didn't want to live that way anymore.

His whole life was band, alcohol and drugs. Now he had minimal income since he was only playing solo. He came to work with me in my business. Always late, taking advantage and reminding me that it was 1pm and he hadn't smoked (pot) since 8am, he needed a break.

Every fight we had would lead to him modifying his behavior just enough so I wouldn't throw him out. Then he bought pills from a 19 year old pregnant junkie who used to come to our store regularly. How I got past that I'll never know. Oh wait, yes I do I loved him.

Eventually, he managed to stop the pills, but of course there were a few set backs. So now he smoked and drank more to compensate for the lack of opiate. Another fight and the pot went down to once a day, unless of course it was Sunday his day off then it was all day. I mean he needed to relax right? After all he was working so hard.

He went from his friends basement, a 480 credit score, driving a p.o.s. car, sleeping with a bunch of gross women to a $1,000,000 home in the suburbs, his own $80,000 car, every musical instrument his heart desired, a business that let him come and go as he pleased, a credit score of 710 and ex-model wife and three great kids.

You'd think why would he want to continue to abuse himself. His life was perfect! Such is the disease, now all of his short comings and drinking are my fault. He finally came to me just two short months ago, which feel like years to me as I write this, and said he needed help and was ready to go into treatment.

Well the sky cleared, the sun shined, the angels sang and my heart flew! He went into a treatment center for a week, they wanted him to stay 30 days he refused, he went to two outpatient appointments and called me, under the influence of course, and said if I want to divorce him fine but treatment wasn't for him.

That he wasn't an alcoholic or an addict and I was controlling him. I went from 10 days of the most bliss that I had experienced in the last 5 years to right back at square one.

Now I am getting ready to file for a separation, he has been in a hotel three times this week because I've been questioning his drinking and caught him smoking marijuana again.

He has been drinking daily, telling me that treatment was a mistake and he only did it to show me how much he loved me and to save our marriage.

He is in total denial stating he is not an alcoholic or addict and one day I'll realize that and it will be too late, and that I better realize what I'm doing. And for the first time in five years I do realize what I'm doing.

I'm loving him enough to set him free to take responsibility for his disease and taking back my self esteem and my life. He is almost 40, sitting in a hotel somewhere, probably wasted, no job, no house, no wife, no kids, but hey maybe he'll look on the bright side and he can drink and smoke to his hearts content and no one will make him feel bad for his choices.