It’s Happening: I’m Going to Rehab

Fuck. This is a hard post to write.

The cursor is blinking at me.

What next?

This blank screen is sitting across from me, like a cynical friend, eyebrow raised, waiting for me to tell them the truth. Wanting the whole story.

And….?

Fuck it.

I’m going to rehab. 

There. I said it. I’m doing it. I’m going.

February 21. A week from tomorrow.

I chatted with the intake specialist last night. I’m calling her at noon to complete the registration, put in my deposit, and make it real.

I fell asleep crying last night. Damn Adele on the Grammy’s pushed me over the edge. Hubs and I were having a rare talk, and he wants me to go. He prefaced it with “Please, don’t misinterpret this, but we need some time apart. To figure out who we are and what we want.”

So I’m going to rehab. For a month.

I can’t blame him. It’s been 16 years and we’ve both changed. This addiction and disease has changed me. It has made me do things that aren’t me, and in turn, have changed us.

It broke my heart. Mostly because I knew it was coming, especially because I’ve thought the same. That we need time apart. That I need to unload this truckload of baggage.

Thinking it and hearing it from someone else though, those are two entirely different things.

I’m absolutely, fucking terrified. 

Sorry for all the ‘fucks’ this morning, but it’s seated in my gut. One huge, ever-growing FUCK, ready to be released after not giving any for so long.

This has been me for the last 5 years.

I’m terrified of leaving. Of leaving hubs and the dogs for 4 weeks. Of trying to manage 3 businesses while away. Of what he’ll go through while I’m not here. Of the prospect that he’ll realize he’s better off without me. That it could be the best 4 weeks of his life. That he can’t forgive me, after all, and that the damage I’ve done is too much to carry.

I’m terrified of confronting whatever is going to break through while I break down. Of going without while I detox, getting it all out of my system first, then my soul. Of changing. Of making the wrong choice, of going in the first place, or going to the wrong place.

I’m terrified at the prospect of not drinking all day, every single day. Of not smoking. Of having to redefine myself without those two things that have become the very essence of who I am and what I do.

I’m terrified of meeting myself again.

I’m terrified of losing more than I can gain.

How the fuck have I fucked up this much.

I made a deal, that when I’m gone, he’ll talk to someone, too. A professional. I’ve hurt him so much and despite his valiant attempts and dedication to putting it behind him, he has wounds that need to heal and I’m the worst kind of bandaid.

Me trying to help him is like using the same knife that stabbed you to sew up the stitches.

So many apologies need to happen.

To each other, to him, to my friends and family.

He said when I came back from my trip last April (when the Horrible-Awful happened) we did a good job of reconnecting. Of connecting, period. We made changes. We fell in love again.

We realized that all we ever wanted was each other. That we missed laying together. That we missed each other. Talking. Being friends, instead of colleagues. That the line between our marriage and our business needed better definition.

And we worked on it.

Then, like all good things around here, it faded back to where things were before I left.

Both of us sad and lonely.

Totally out of control. My drinking, my behaviour, my indifference to everything.

Sleeping alone. Drinking alone. Thinking alone.

Thinking too much.

Working side by side, day in and day out, yet we’re totally alone all the time, pouring companionship out of a bottle.

I can’t even try to fix us, until I work on fixing myself.

A broken vase can’t hold any flowers.

I’m lucky that he sees that. And oh, does he ever see it. He sees it to the point that he is wishing I’d just leave already and go do it.

Do anything.

I brought up last night that people always used to ask what “our secret” was. What the trick was to how happy we were, and how successful we were in love and everything we put our minds to accomplishing.

We would tell people the secret was that we never expected anything from each other. That we never asked for something from the other, and that we always supported the other in whatever they wanted to do, think or say.

To just keep being the person the other fell in love with.

When the hell did that stop.

Oh, right. When I became an alcoholic.

It’s interesting that I sat to write this morning with very little intention, other than to share that I am finally going to rehab, and make it real. That I’ve set a date.

That it’s 8 days away.

And here I am, hungover from last nights conversation. Terrified, heart broken and sad.

I sat there crying and he told me to stop, to be happy about this. To look forward to the transformation, to the journey, to be grateful for the opportunity.

And all I could hear is “I want you to leave.”

Sort of how I feel about the alcohol.

I have a disease, and he has one, too. ME.

I’ll write more later today, when I’ve wrapped my head around this hot mess.

I’ll write more when I’m a little less terrified.