I've thought about doing this for months now. Well, at least since your relapse. I still hate that I can say that. Your relapse. Years ago, when you cleaned up the first time, I had my doubts that you'd be able to stay clean, but that was only because of the several times we'd tried getting you clean before. But it was different. You were clean for good, and with each passing year, it was proof that you were (are) stronger than your addiction. 7 years, right? 7 clean years. And now you are back at the bottom, only you're worse than you've ever been before. I look at you, and I see a shadow of the man that my Danny is. A skinny, shaggy, disheveled shadow. In October, when you moved back in with mom and the family, we were all ready to clean you up again. How is it that you've managed to be worse off NOW than you were when you moved in?
I know that getting clean is supposed to just be about you. Doing it for yourself, and not for anyone else. But, holy crap, Danny. You come to us, wanting our help, MAKING us a part of your sad and pathetic life, and it's only supposed to be about you? What about how we feel? You may be the one abusing the drugs. You may be the one who is dying. But you're killing us with you. Every day that you get closer and closer to being dead, we die more and more inside. How do we just turn that off? Why do you feel like you have any room to expect us to NOT ask you questions? To just give you the freedom to do what you want, when you want, how you want, with no questions asked? You're a drug addict, you're killing yourself, and you've chained us to the bumper of your car and are dragging us through hell with you. You feel alone? You feel miserable? You feel despair and self loathing and crazy and deathly? WE FEEL IT ALL WITH YOU. Me and mom can do nothing to help you. You really have to do it on your own. We all three know that. So, we are left to ourselves, especially in the darker moments, just living and feeling the pain. No where to hide from it. No where to go. We space out, we cry, and we cry, and we cry, and we wonder when the day will come when you will actually die. Because at this point, it's not really a matter of whether or not you're going to die. It's when you're going to die. We all go back and forth about how you've been delt an awful lot to deal with in this life. And that is certainly the truth. Your demons and your trials are your own, and I certainly couldn't handle them for even a moment in my own life. That said, you're one of the most selfish people I know. Shame on you for choosing yourself. And by that, I mean shame on you for choosing your precious drugs. Your drugs love you so much? Your drugs make you feel that good? Don't try and tell me that you're powerless to them so far that when you're detoxed they control you then, too. You've detoxed (completely) three times since October. The first two times, you became happy, normal, functional, and relapsed at 30 days. This third time, you were so near death, so far gone from your drug abuse, that you checked in to inpatient rehab. DO YOU KNOW WHAT A RELIEF THIS WAS FOR US? Someone was going to help save you from yourself, and it wasn't going to be mom or me. It was going to be people that you wouldn't feel judged by. Wouldn't feel misunderstood by. People who know how you feel and have stood where you're standing. So why, then, did you run from it after just 14 days? Why shun the opportunity to have your life back, in all it's wholeness, just to go and take care of things on your own? You're a drug addict. This is an impossibility. And obviously, you're just out there using. And it is shredding me to pieces inside, yet again. The two weeks of peace was a blessing. I didn't wake 5 times through the night, wondering if you were alone and dead in your car or in a dirty motel room. I wasn't wondering what was going through your mind, or letting myself feel the depths of loneliness and despair that I believe you feel every day. I wasn't imagining the worst. I wasn't fighting urges to text you, call you, check in on you, question you, make sure you're alive (for now), and the list goes on and on. So, thank you for checking yourself into phoenix house for the last two weeks. The peace and the hope that it gave me for you was relieving and wonderful and lovely all the same. When I got the text that you were checking out (of what could have been a 6 month inpatient program) I felt like I'd been hit by a semi truck. And lived through it. You have always been good at being selfish in the worst kind of way. Someday, I hope that you can be selfish in the best kind of way. Where you TAKE CARE OF YOURSELF and LOVE YOURSELF despite how it might inconvenience or hurt anyone around you. Someday, I hope that you won't look to your next fix for solace, but that instead, you can turn to Heavenly Father and beg him to wrap you in His loving arms. That you'll understand the peace that comes from acknowledging the Savior and a loving Father in Heaven. I've done well at forgetting them myself, and it's been a long time that I've turned myself away from them. It was just easy to forget. I've felt the pain of that in my own life, because of the neglect, but I've never stopped understanding that my true happiness is tied to my relationships with God and Christ. I guess I can thank you for helping to strip me of my pride. Heavenly Father hears our prayers. I poured my heart out to God on thursday, when I found out you were leaving Phoenix house. He listened to me. He let me weep. He let me cry out and plea to Him to make you brave and to help you feel His love. If you don't feel love, and if you don't feel brave, at least He helped me feel more at peace about you being you. You're in God's hands. I can not do anything to save you from yourself. I can not make you whole. I can not make you well. There is no miracle that I can perform to snap you into "my" Danny. Heavenly Father is the miracle maker, and you will just need to acknowledge Him for any miracles in your own life. He has heard our prayers, obviously, because it's no small miracle that you are still alive. Am I right?
You are with Bj. You are using. You are not happy. You are a shell of a man. And I desperately love you. Hurt for you. Yearn for you to be whole again. Yearn for you to want nothing more than to be whole again. Shame on you for your lack of willpower. Shame on you for buying drugs, using drugs, wanting drugs, loving drugs. You love your drugs more than you love yourself, and things will not change until you find a way to love yourself more. Obviously me and mom aren't enough to help you change. Losing Kim isn't enough either. I hope that you do something different sometime soon. My spare thoughts are now comitted to you again, and it's quite a burden thinking of you using, or you dying, 50 times in any given day. It's not fair. My spare mind space should be allowed to go to my sweet 5 month old baby boy, or my energetic and ever-so-spunky 2 year old daughter...instead, I miss certain moments or milestones because Im SO DISTRACTED by their uncle that is literally killing himself. Do you know how many times I've imagined Diesel as a 5 year old boy, looking at a picture of his Uncle Danny, and asking me who is in the picture? The conversation goes something like this:
Diesel: "Mommy, who is this picture of?"
Me: "It's my big brother, Danny. You're Uncle."
Diesel: "Why have I never met him?"
Me: "Actually honey, you have met him. When you were first born, Uncle Danny was going through one of the hardest times of his life. And unfortunately, soon after you were born, he lost his battle with drugs."
Diesel: "He looks really nice."
Me (quietly crying): "He was one of the sweetest boys I knew, in his wholeness. And he loved you and your sister so very much. I'm sure that you will get to meet him again one day, when he's the best version of himself."
Diesel: "I can't wait to meet my Uncle Danny!"
Me: Crying and crying and crying and crying while Diesel trots off to play with some legos or something.
I just imagined you reading this post, and getting mad at the things I've said. Well you know what, you're not entitled to your anger. What you're doing to yourself is awful. It's a disease, but there are ways to control diseases, and you're not doing anything to help yourself. You're hurting you. You're hurting me. And someday again you will either snap out of it for real, or you'll die. Each day you stay alive is a miracle, if you ask me. I don't want to go to your funeral. I don't want to go to the hospital to identify your body with the authorities. I don't want to have bail you out of jail, or ask my husband to pull some strings at the department for you. I don't want to have to worry about my kids being around you, and whether or not they'll have access to your stash(es) at any given time. I don't want to imagine myself going down to your drug dealers and screaming profanities at them, shooting them in the face, and then bombing their smoke shop as I walk out the front door with flames and smoke bursting behind me as I go (like in the movies). Please conquer this soon. I can only avoid you for so long. I can only not be codependent for so long. I can only blog here for so long before it's just not enough anymore, and I have to lay it all out on you, only for you to not absorb anything at all and just get mad at me and shake your head like IM THE ONE WITH THE PROBLEM. Get a hold of yourself, soon, please.
Love, Wendy
Remembering some better times. Look how handsome you are. These pictures shouldn't break my heart, but they do.
Sweet, shy little Danny. Melts me:
On my wedding day. We're both a little fat. I love seeing you so FULL:
Our disfunctional family that we've spent plenty of time hating, and not enough time loving:
Holding one of my two children that are most precious to me, Mckenzi. You do love her, I know you do:
The dynamic duo. I followed you everywhere, and cared about no one more than YOU. Things just don't ever really change. You are my special Danny:
I love you.
