Part 4: Detox
de·tox
(noun): “A process or period of time in which one abstains from or rids the body of toxic or unhealthy substances; detoxification.”
The days and weeks following my husbands eviction were a blur. I couldn’t fully process or accept that this is what it had come to. It couldn’t be real. This kind of stuff happened to other people, or in the plot of a dramatic movie, it couldn’t be happening to us. We had been so in love just a few years prior. How had it eroded into what it was now? I was so sure when we got married that we would handle all of life’s challenges with ease, grace, and dignity because we loved each other that much. I really thought our love could conquer it all. But I was wrong. And now I felt like a joke. I was ashamed and embarrassed and confused. I didn’t tell many people what was going on out of fear of judgement and criticism. I thought, if my other mom friends knew what was going on in our home, would they still let their kids play with mine? I was incredibly self conscious and fragile. I withdrew from previous commitments. I deleted all social media apps from my phone and I went to every Al-Anon meeting that I could find to try to figure out how I was going to handle life on my own. I didn’t know how I’d do that, but I knew I needed help navigating this rocky road because my anger was back. In full force. I was angry at him, I was angry at God and I was angry at myself. I felt like I had been tricked and cheated of the promises that had been presented to me in the form of a diamond ring years before.
Now every morning started by opening my red, puffy eyes, wondering where my husband was, wondering if he went into work, what he was doing, if we’d run out of money living separately the way we were…but mostly, wondering if he’d ever be able to stop drinking. Why had he lied to me again? Why couldn’t he see that he was destroying our family? Why hadn’t he fought harder to keep us? To fix it? To give up alcohol and just come home? It seemed so simple to me. These were questions I couldn’t answer, but ones I repeatedly asked myself until either my anger or my despair consumed me.
Through God’s divine intervention, I happened to attend a conference in town that next weekend where a friend introduced me to the keynote speaker afterwards. She became my counselor that very next week and it was such an answer to prayer. She helped me find my footing and stand my ground in the most difficult months of my life. She helped me process my anger and gave me full permission to feel it in whatever ways it came. I’d never even given myself permission to do that before! It was freeing and liberating. I will forever be thankful to that woman and the wisdom she’s given me still to this day.
But the road to that liberation and freedom was no walk in the park. I had years of anger and resentment that were threatening to boil over at any given moment.
I bought a punching bag that November off of Craigslist to help me deal with my anger after I threw a glass cup at the wall and smashed it into a million pieces. I knelt there crying and picking shards of glass out of the carpet while my kids stared at me wide-eyed from the other room and I knew something had to change. The man I bought it from assumed that it was a Christmas gift for my husband and I didn’t correct him even though I knew it was solely for me. I got home, drug all 75 pounds of it down the stairs to the basement, and screamed and beat that thing until my knuckles were bloody and my throat was raw. I laid there on the floor, gloves still on, breathing heavy, with tears streaming down my face. I’d never felt this way before. I felt a little unhinged, a lot exhausted, but I don’t know if I've ever felt more alive. For the first time in a long time I felt free. Free of my anger, free of convincing myself I wasn’t angry, and free of my need to pretend I was holding it all together. All that anger and pain finally had a place for me to let it go.
I did that every night for a few weeks and something started to happen. I woke up one day and realized I wasn’t getting migraines any more. I wasn’t crying myself to sleep and I was even starting to feel a little peaceful. Heartbroken, but calm in the midst of an emotional storm. I knew God was carrying me. I didn’t know what was going to happen, but I knew that I was going to be okay. I wasn’t consumed with thoughts of my husband’s drinking any longer and I could actually think about what I wanted for the first time in a long time. Maybe for the first time ever. I didn’t care what people thought of me, my choices, my actions as a wife, mother, or person…any of it. I wasn’t playing that game any more. I knew I couldn’t play it if I was going to survive the turmoil of the disease. I could only listen to one voice: God’s.
I knew that I was being led by Him and that He had a Plan I couldn’t see, but He was asking me to trust Him yet again. I still didn’t know if that would mean we’d end up together, and for the first time, I was okay with that outcome.
One cold November day, as I leaned down to turn off the water hose outside, I had a vision of my husband walking into A.A. and breaking down into tears as the men of the group put their hands on his shoulders and told him it would be okay, he was in the right place. It caught me so off guard and stopped me dead in my tracks. For a moment I questioned whether I had imagined it all or if it was real. I would later come to find out that that’s exactly what happened, on the day I envisioned it, and I know without a shadow of a doubt that it was a gift from The Lord to remind me that He was in control and my husband was in His hands, not mine. I still get goosebumps when I think about that day and that memory. I felt a sense of peace and surrender wash over me in that moment like I had never experienced before. It was as if I was finally clean of all the toxic emotions I had been storing up all these years living with the disease and not even knowing it. I had surrendered. I had given up my fight, waived my white flag, and handed it over to Him. And now He was cleansing me of the things that I had wanted to hold on to that were only making me sick. I was so afraid for so long at the thought of separating from my husband, yet it would be the key to my (and his) survival in the end.
Go to Part 5.