I want to share my story. It's not over yet! But! I am hoping someone can relate or get something from my story and KNOW that there is ALWAYS HOPE and HELP!

wow, I have made it 26 days now, I am very thankful for Gods strength, subs and support and determination. I am down to 2 mg of the subs, I do see how this med could be VERY abused and I am SO glad I really want to be clean and have made some smart choices to NOT take more then I need. I am suppose to be on 20 mg right now for the rest of the month. I told my dr it was to much and she would not listen and wanted to keep me on the high amount, I dont want another addiction and slowly took myself down which works for ME. I'm NOT recomending this to anyone but if it feels like to much please go to your dr. I was sleeping CONSTANTLY and had NO energy to get anithing done, I was kind of spaced out and did feel a different type of high, thats when I new I had to start taking the dose down. I really could have gotten used to this med and stayed doing nothing and feeling good but I did what was RIGHT. Anyway .... slowly I keep seeing traces of the old me, the REAL me, you have no clue how much this means to me, I thought the old me DIED and was never to return. I gave up on love even though I had many interests I wanted no part of it, I gave up all my hobbies, didnt open mail and just basically threw in the towel on life. so for me to finally see traces of me and get some interest in my old paranormal research hobbie, opening mail etc ... this makes me cry, I have cried because I am so thankful I was not completely DEAD inside. This is what addiction does to us, it kills who we really are, nothing matters but the addiction anymore and we truly lose ourselves. 2 years I do NOT no where they went, they vanished and someone else was walking around in my body. that is how I feel. NOW, WOW WOW WOW, I cannot believe I am starting too SEE and feel me again, it is tearful, it is joyous, it is a miracle!!!!!!

I liked who I was before, I really did, I had many hobbies and interest, I was inlove and married, I ran a self group for people with anxiety/depression, I helped do many animal rescues and I truly felt good about myself. As soon as I returned to college to work on an English degree, my wife felt jealous, she had a drinking problem, was very emotionally abusive but everything got worse. She made fun of my hobbies, cristisized everything I did, would not allow people from my group to call the house anymore and just did everything to make my life miserable, But I had married her, I REALLY loved her and was bent on making things work. And then she cheated on me. I saw signs and I confronted her and she tried to make me feel like I was losing my mind, telling me I needed mental help for thinking things etc ... had me convinced I was mental. So then I knew I had to get Proof, I got the proof she could not denigh, love letters. IM's etc ... everything but pictures of her affair. This killed me, It hurt me so bad and I didnt even get an apology, I was told I was wrong to have been snooping if you can believe that.

She packed her bags and left me thinking she could have a life with this new woman half our age (22) (a year younger than her own son) and this woman was married to a man.

Anyway, We had a morgage on the house my parents left me and I am on disability because of lung disease, I knew I couldnt pay the morgage along with utilities etc ... by myself and was losing the one thing I had left from my dead parents.

Something in me snapped and died. I just didnt want to even live. I had started taking some percocet on and off for some major teeth problems, the first time in my 42 years I ever took anything stronger than tylonal 3. I liked them, I noticed they made my mood better and after she left she then decides she made a mistake, wants to date me while she lives in another house letting me lose my house, My mind was so twisted at this point I said OK, even though this whole thing was killing me, I did everything she wanted me to do but I had to keep myself drugged to get through it. I felt the perks made it not feel so bad, it helped me bluff my way through feeling so hurt and destroyed and yes I still loved her, only God knows why. She toyed with my heart on and off for TWO YEARS, her drinking got worse and my popping pills escolated, this was not me, I have never been a druggie and did not even drink (which she also made fun of) telling me I didnt know how to have fun.

Anyway before I knew it I started HAVING to have those pills each day and the amount I needed went up. I tried to stop a few times cold turkey and could not get through the with draw. I tried weaning which always ended up in me taking MORE. I was doomed, I truly felt stuck. By this point I couldnt and didnt want to even be around her with out the pills in my system, I couldnt handle it. I was already losing everything and now with the pill addiction I had no choice but to start scheming and even stealing at times to get money for the pills. I have never been a dishonest person and this was a major LOW for me to stoop to these things just to get the pills so I wouldn't feel sick and so I could feel numb enough to deal with her. I feel awful about these things I did and being dishonest.

I felt there was no way to stop taking them either. I met several other woman and I dated a few, all wanted relationships with me and I just couldn't, I still loved her and I was not even interested in sex or anything other then the PILLS.

My debt increased and my utilities started being shut off. My WIFE would have me clean her house to LOAN me money I always had to pay back when I got my small disability check each month. She rarely helped me with anything. she did pay half the morgage on and off for a while when she Said she had the money but I was working my ass off in her house and caring for her animals etc ... she said I had to EARN her half of the morgage even though the morgage was mostly spent on paying off her old college debts for becomming a nurse and loans she had before we even met. I couldnt even pay my half with the utilities she stuick me with all behind. I had no notice of her leaving to save any money. she rented the house behind my back before I even had the proof of the affair. I feel and felt so stupid, so used.

anyway, I was just her maid, she had me where she wanted me for sure. I had to beg to borrow money for animal food if i ran short and these were OUR animals we got together that she didnt feel she had to help care for lol.

I look at all this now and cannot believe I let this go on and that i stayed in it, the only explanation I have is that i had the PILLS, nice how they make you and help you live in a terrible way and your too high to realize your whole life is a mess.

I do take responsibility for my own addiction, I chose to take them but I do CLEARLY see what lead me there and what kept me there. She had beat down my selfesteam so low while we were together its sick. I didnt see it at the time.

She was always accusing me of cheating even though she knew where I was all the time and she new I loved her, well I guess the saying that the one who is accusing is the real cheater is true after all because it was in this case.

I was not even allowed to have dinner with my best friend who came in town that I had not seen in a couple years alone. This is crazy, I see that now but she really had me. I have to say also that I am not sure I could have stopped the pills had I not also stopped COMPLETE contact with her at the same time, well, about a week before I cut the contact and she took revenge, I told her I did not want one more cent from her, I would not ask to borrow anything and to leave me alone, she made phone calls to people I knew bashing me and trying to start fights because I told her I was changing my number and didnt want contact. She is very vengeful. She didnt want me, didnt love me, but sure didnt want anyone else to have me and she new I had a very good new friend who I might be getting involved with. You know I look at all this now, all the chaos, all the things that happened and this woman needs some serious help and I knew I did also to have been involved with her. I got my help, infact I am still in counseling and now with 26 days clean I still do not have contact with her because I do NOT want to jeapordize my sobriety.

2 years she has lived in another house and still has stuff at my house. I am going to put it in a storage unit and pay one month and mail her the keys because I do not feel I can even SEE her just for a second, she had to much control over me, new how to push my emotional buttons and has a way with words to make me crumble. I want the rest her stuff out of my house, she makes excuses and I have taken several loads of her stuff and drove it to her house and I am not doing that anymore. its not my responsibility. I am standing up for myself now unlike I did for 5 years.

Do I still love her? I cant lie, love dont just die and the fact we were legally married in Canada at a chapel before God has always pulled strings in my heart, I never loved anyone enough to do that with before but i do now truly see what a sick, manipulative, demanding, abusive person she is and she is an alcaholic. she needs a lot of help and will not admit any problems or flaws so it dont look like she will ever get the help but I have to let that go and concentrate on my own issues and problems and put her in the past. The more I am away from her the more the old love, the old attachment is dying and I am glad. I pray I can love again, I pray I can trust again, I pray I never fall so low in life again that I stoop to a drug or booze to cope. I just still cannot believe that happened to me. I was very ANTI drug.

I am aware of a lot more now than I was before, there would be no excuse for me to get involved with her knowing what I know now, seeing things for how they really were. and you know, I am not a bad looking female and never have had problems getting dates or relationships and I dont know why I settled for someone who was that awful to me. Well you know in the beginning its not like that, time slowly revealed who she was. she is a good nurse, an RN and seems very caring to pacients etc ... many would have a hard time even believing how screwed up she is inside. But, I have to say talking and becomming friends with her ex, really gave me a lot of closure and its amazing how many of the same things she did to me she had done to the ex, its like a pattern with her, so this gave me validity that I was not crazy, that everything was not all my fault, that I was not a horrible person, and that she was playing mind games with me. Nobody has ever had that kind of control over me and it scares me. the only thing that ever had that much control besides her was the pills. I dont want anything controlling me anymore accept GOD, I lean on him a lot. I am thankful for my faith because I wouldnt be here with out it. And I am very thankful to a caring counselor and Dr that I went to and ask for help and they helped me. Also a very caring person in my life who I opened up to and told everything too that is paciently waiting for the time that I may be able to be in a relationship again and she remains to be a very good friend.

I am also thankful for the suboxone because for me it was my only way out, I could never get past 3 days of withdraw and I did not ever succeed at weaning. This drug has really helped me, it helped me get off of a drug that was killing me, the goal for me now is to get off this drug because I dont want another addiction. I also take an antidepressant and meds for my lungs which I will probably always have to. I want to learn from what I have been through, I really hope to help someone else some day with what I have been through. There has to be a reason for what happened to me and I can tell you that many people that know me would never believe that I got addicted to pain meds and was buying them off the street, they would not believe it, they knew me, they know my character but they had not seen me much in two years because I hid. I hid in my addiction from anyone and anything that was healthy. They would never believe that I stooped to dishonesty and illegal activity and that at one point I even stood in a room with a dealer and his g/f laying naked in a bed just to get my pills at 3 am in the morning. this is only after two years of addiction, what would have come after 5 years? or 10? if i even made it that far.

I was surely headed for an accidental over dose or something bad happening to me while around drug dealers or being out late at night etc ... Many times I lost count how many pills I took. many times i woke the next day thinkig I should have about ten pills left to only find one or two. its a very dangerous game when you are messing with drugs, drugs that impair you, your thinking, your driving, your choices etc ...

nobody can control a drug problem, you cant manage it and you cant control it, you have to STOP it in its tracks before it stops you completely.

God it feels good to finally start thinking right, getting interests back that I had long ago abandoned. I feel I am waking up from a long coma.

Ok, this is my story and I hope that someone can get some help from it, or maybe relate and not feel so alone. This stuff was very hard to write and to admit, it's shameful for me, it's unreal but it is what happened and one cannot ever heal until they admit their story and share it with others. we also have to forgive ourselves. I am just at the very beginning but look at how far I have already come just at the starting point. Imagine how you can feel.

Thank you for reading. Blessings, Rose