Protection

I am now fully protected. Or, at least that's what my ADT installer said before he left. So, yay for protection.

My stress level increased threefold after becoming a homeowner. I'm sure there were several contributing factors for that like, oh, my husband being addicted to cocaine and alcohol and the fact that my bank account seemed to have a leak in it somewhere. But what I found is that as soon as you own a home, all you do is worry about that home when you're not at home. My home is located in an extremely good neighborhood. We have little to no crime, and no violent crimes. If I call our city police, someone is at my house in less than 3 minutes. Those're the perks of living in a town smaller than most shopping malls.

I have always had a massive amount of firepower within reach since the first time I moved out. The first piece of home protection I had was a 12-gauge Remington pump shotgun. It was a really bad idea to leave it out when I wasn't home. I lived in a terrible neighborhood and the last thing I wanted to do was arm the criminal that broke into my apartment while I wasn't home. I was lucky to get out of there before anything major happened. Unless you consider getting shot at on Thanksgiving while carrying a huge platter of deviled eggs 'major.' Because that did happen, and it sucked. And I was gone before Christmas.

I keep a Kimber .45 by my bed and there's a little 410 Snakecharmer in another part of the house. I have 2 gun safes that are smashed full of guns and that's where the other two go when I leave the house. If anybody breaks in my home while I'm there, I will not become a victim. Not only do I have the right equipment, but I have a lifetime of firearms training under my belt. I am not going to miss.

Many people keep dogs for security. I feel like it's wrong to train a dog for protection, because criminals in the 'big city' carry weapons that will easily dispatch your family pet/protector if they try to attack. I have 3 dogs: a 15 year old, 7 pound terrier that sleeps so hard you can shake her and she won't wake; an 11 year old Australian Shepherd who had laryngeal surgery and doesn't have a voice anymore but still gets on high alert when she hears something outside; a 3-year old double-merle Australian Shepherd who is as deaf as a stone but has a bark that can scare the shit out of just about anyone. If the two Aussies could work together, they'd be one complete burgler-foiling machine. But these dogs aren't meant to be protection, they're meant to be pets. That's why they live in the house and get better health care than I do. I pray that if anyone ever does happen to break into this house while I'm gone, the dogs will run and hide and save themselves from any potential harm.

Of course, the deaf Aussie has bitten my cousin's boyfriend's peter - through his jeans - and almost caused an ER visit, and also attacked the satellite installer, who had left his cordless drill behind and came back unannounced to retrieve it. Oops. But I still hope he runs with the other two.

The main thing about the guns, however, is that they're ineffective if you're not home. So I had the ADT people come out and give me an estimate. A few days later, my home phone quit working. I had to call AT&T to come out to repair it and said that someone had crossed the wires inside the box mounted on the side of the house. Like, it was intentional or something. I keep big padlocks on all 3 gates into my backyard so, short of jumping the fence, no one can get in. I thought the little snippy-snippy was a little strange, so when they came to install the alarm, I made sure they used the cellular uplink dealie just in case I get a smart thief who cuts the outside phone lines.

The hardest part about this whole situation is trying to come up with a 4-digit master code memorable enough for 2 people with horrible memories to remember it. We have to have a master code, and then I already programmed in 3 user codes: mine, The Boy's, and my parents'. But I just can't figure out 4 digits meaningful enough to us that we can remember it. Gah.

I have this horrible fear that I'm going to forget to set the alarm. I've lived so many years without one and I leave for work so exhausted in the mornings...Or that someone who has had an ADT system installed will break in and use the factory default master code, on the off-chance that I am too forgetful to come up with a different master code, which is my current dilemma! Does anybody else get Alarm Anxiety? If it's not a real thing, it should be.

Now...I just need to figure out how to get this stupid thing to quit chiming every fricking time I open the door to let my geriatric dogs outside!

Is This a Joke?

I'm waiting for that one punch to just take me down. I've been teetering on the edge of sobriety for several weeks now, trying to plot some way to go out and get drunk and yet still make it home in time to shower and sober up before The Boy gets home. Then, they put him back on the day shift, so that sort of helped keep me from making stupid decisions. But he was still working 12-hour shifts for 7 days a week, so I was alone more often than not.

I had to go away for 5 days. For as many summers as I can remember, I've been a camp counselor. As an adult, I've shifted into being a group leader, but all that really means is that I try to break up all the hi jinks the counselors enable. It's a specialized camp - not just a fun-in-the-sun kind of camp - and so the schedule is a bit more rigorous than your leisure kind. I don't mind the hours; I truly believe in the camp program and we always have fun.

The problem came in right around Day 2, when I took a break to call The Boy. He was panicky and nervous and very angry. Apparently, the dogs don't do too well when I'm gone for too many nights. I didn't know that. The last time I left, they were just fine. It seemed to me that The Boy contributed greatly to the canine unrest because he just couldn't stick to the routines we've had in place for years. The dogs were freaked out because of the break in schedule, and made The Boy's life a living hell. But being 5 hours away doesn't give me much pull, and talking to the dogs over the phone didn't seem to help.

The last day of camp was excruciating. The kids were keyed up that night, so I got 3 hours of sleep. We had a formal awards ceremony where all the parents attended this banquet, and I had to meet with each set of parents...it was exhausting. Typically, the staff and counselors and everyone stays that final night after the kids are gone. We clean up camp, tidy up, maybe a few people get shitty drunk and we play cards, and then we all wake up at 8 and leave to go home on that Sunday.

The Boy wasn't having any of it. When I talked to him on Saturday after the ceremony, he was almost in tears. He was begging me to come home. I explained that it was too dangerous; I hadn't had enough sleep and I wouldn't be getting on the road until about 9pm, which would put me at home at 1:30 or so, if I didn't wreck and kill myself. He continued to beg. So, against my better judgment and the protests of all the staff, I took off Saturday night to go home and fix all the unnecessary BS that had been occurring in my absence.

Everything seemed to be fine until the middle of Sunday. The Boy had decided to go to work anyway, and I went off with my Dad to do some stuff. Then The Boy called, screaming and crying, telling me he was moving out, that he just couldn't take it any more.

Needless to say, I was confused, befuddled, and slightly annoyed. How dare he completely mismanage a household of ONLY 3 dogs for 5 days and 4 nights, and then make it sound like it was all my fault and freak the fuck out and walk out on me!

It didn't take a genius to figure out he was having a nervous breakdown.

When he finally decided to talk to me - only in the presence of my parents, if you believe that one - he threw a lot of accusations at me. Mostly about my irresponsibility and depression. I will totally take ownership of the depression, but I've been holding the home together for months while he abandoned me for voluntary work hours, so that thing about irresponsibility isn't even remotely true - I've been doing everything by myself. He put a lot of the blame on me, and requested some pretty unreasonable things in order for him to stay around.

I didn't give in to him, though. He was being unreasonable, I told him so, and I told him that if he didn't feel like I was being fair, he was more than welcome to walk out. But he didn't.

There was no way I could resist from mentioning the long list of things he said he was going to do help his wellbeing. He was diagnosed with PTSD and anxiety and depression. He was taking a medication that was ineffective and causing nasty side effects. He simply wouldn't ask his doctor for new meds. He refused to get counseling or even attend a support group, even though he told me he would. There were many gross inactions on his part that led up to his breakdown and, in turn, caused my parents and me ridiculous amounts of stress and heartache.

Things have gotten better in a little less than this week's time. His medication change has begun to take effect and he's pleasant, calm, and reasonable. His libido has returned and I have actually had sex twice. Yes, with HIM! He's helped me around the house as much as he can between work and the AA meetings he's decided he must attend. He agreed to cut down to 10-hour days and 6-day work weeks. He's willing to give me one whole day - just us and the dogs - and I guess I'm happy with that.

I can't say what the future holds. I am assuming that he's got this under control. He promises me that after he gets this one credit card paid off, he will begin attending regular counseling sessions. If so, then I guess things will stay fairly manageable. His biggest thing is that he needs some serious stress management skills and he needs to quit trying to do it all. The Marines made him believe he's a machine. Machines are almost flawless. Machines never quit. Machines can do all things to perfection, every time, and have no problems. (of course, we know even machines need maintenance and do break down on occasion, but try convincing The Boy of that...) I think once he realizes that he simply cannot do it all, he'll be fine.

For awhile, there, I was beginning to think that my life was just one big joke. The Universe was throwing all these horrible things at me, laughing about it, watching me and my failed attempts at management. I felt like I couldn't catch a break. For me, that's where the desire to get drunk and high was coming from. Has it disappeared completely? Nope. But I'm still working on that part.

I never really expected my blog title to become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

I'm Safe Up High...Nothing Can Touch Me

I've been absent for a variety of reasons. I've been focusing on my photography. There have been a few lingering projects around the house that needed to be reevaluated, reorganized, and completed. I wish I could say I succeeded at that!

But mostly, I've been dealing with an inner struggle that only seems to come back and bite me when I think it's gone forever: my ongoing sobriety and struggle to stay clean.

As a teen, I hung out with drug users. I didn't do it at first, partially because I was scared, and partially because I'm cheap and didn't want to pay for it. I'd tried smoking weed before but didn't like it, so that left only harder stuff for me - which is expensive. Unfortunately, my behavior and habit of sleeping away from home made my parents think something worse was going on than it really was. At that point, I was still a virgin, had tried and shunned pot, and nothing more. I guess I was endangering myself with some of the things I was doing (hanging out with a much older crowd, going to bars and nightclubs, stealing cars), but for the most part I was careful.

They didn't see it that way, and threw me into a rehab for damn-near 6 months. Whatever chances I had at reclaiming my freshman year was obliterated, seeing as how I missed most of it, and when I was released (only due to insurance coverage coming to an end), I was miraculously cured. Mind you, I had spent almost half a year with people who had legitimate reason to be locked up and hopped up on meds. My first roommate had been admitted 2 days earlier for trying to kill her parents in their sleep - and I was put in a room with her. I became friends - forced, in some cases, through group therapy and trust-building exercises (chokes) - with people who had serious, serious addictions.

It was a joke - all of it. None of them truly wanted to get clean, and I could see why. They explained every drug and what it did and how it made them feel. What they didn't tell me, we learned through our drug education and PDAP meetings. I was being armed with all the information I ever needed to quell that voice of fear that had always prevented me from using in the past. I mean, honestly...if my roommates had abused drugs to that severity and they were still okay, surely it wouldn't kill me if I did it a few times, right?

When I was released, I began dating the drug dealer at school. I learned more about drugs (and sex, truly) from him and his friends than I did before. And I started doing them. For free, of course. After all, my parents had already done the worst to me. The insurance coverage was for a one-time lifetime thing, so they couldn't send me back, even if they wanted to. There was nothing they could do to me! And as long as I didn't get popped by the cops and had the courts order something, I was home free to do what I wanted to.

"What I wanted to" ended up being years of excessive drug abuse. It started out with LSD, to the point of doing multiple hits every day (i couldn't cope with life if i wasn't tripping, apparently). I was able to get just enough to maintain a certain level of weirdness, although it took significantly more to make me feel crazy effects. I was never a big hallucinator, anyway, so that was one thing that allowed me to maintain that lifestyle. It's not like I was seeing blue rabbits on my parents' heads or anything.

Then I started mixing LSD with Ecstasy, which I learned pretty quickly was a bad, bad, bad idea. And honestly, I didn't really like Ecstasy anyway, because I always threw up at least once. Vomiting is my least favorite activity and was why I had stayed alcohol-free up to this point in life. My silly little teenage mind didn't realize that you didn't have to go balls-to-the-wall with everything, and I didn't know that you didn't vomit every time you drank! LOL! I mean, all my friends sure did!

After some time, I began to meet people who could indeed hold their liquor, and I began drinking every night. Not always to the point of falling down drunk, but you wouldn't see me without something alcoholic in my hand. I remember the first thing that came out of this guy's mouth upon meeting me: "Are you always drunk?" He'd heard about me from some mutual friends. We ended up being very close later in life.

In amongst all of this, I got thrown out of school for a multitude of reasons, took my GED, tried to go to community college, moved into an apartment with my best girlfriend, got knocked up by a guy who broke up with me before I even found out I was pregnant, had an abortion, stayed drunk and high all the time, acquired two stalkers at the same time, and was basically throwing my life away. I realized something had to change...I needed to...move out of the suburbs, into a part of town where all of this was more acceptable! Brilliant!

When I was 17, I met a tattoo artist and we moved in together. I was in love. I thought I was going to get married. I had quit school again and was playing housewife. He worked late hours and did coke. I was scared to, so I just did copious amounts of MiniThins (they contained a ton of ephedra) and lost weight and stayed up all night. One night, I almost overdosed on it and I literally thought I was going to die. But that didn't stop me. I kept doing it. Eventually, TattooGuy and I broke up, and I was living in my truck. I didn't stop partying, though. I crashed at people's houses, sometimes went to my parents' house...I had ways of survival.

And then one of my best friends died from a cocaine overdose. I'd been kinda smitten with him, and we were supposed to go on our first date two days later.

Eventually, I let the partying lifestyle dictate my life's path - if you can call it that - and I began working the circuit of upscale nightclubs downtown. I had managed to hook up with a man nearly twice my age - I was 18 and he was 34 - and we worked in different clubs together. Our clientele would tip me not only with cash - or their phone numbers (blech!) - but that was how I got started with cocaine. I had tons of it after each night. I didn't know what to do with it - I'd planned on selling it. But then, one time, I decided to try it. And it was all over from there.

I became addicted to coke and lived that way for years, on top of my alcoholism. One night, I was pulled over for a burned-out taillight. The cops searched my truck. I went to jail. But being young, innocent-looking, and from a good family can get you out of tight spots. I convinced the judge that someone had left it in my truck and that it wasn't mine. I bleached and dyed my hair the day before the drug test and it came back clean. I lied my way out of serious trouble and into a year's probation. But I still didn't stop.

And then, the love of my life, whom I had dated on and off, depending on where we lived in relation to each other, died of a heroin overdose. He was in a coma for days before finally dying. I went into a depression that ended up lasting for 10 years - but that depression isn't what's important here. I was told he died while I was a mile high and it wasn't until I came down several days later that it really sunk in. While he was in the hospital, I'd been so high and out of pocket that no one could get ahold of me. And when I did call, his housemates lied to me about what was going on - because it was their fault it happened, which is another incredibly long story I won't get into here. But I still didn't stop.

One night, when my 35-year old boyfriend was cheating on me with another girl - well, a woman - I was sitting on the windowsill of our 4th story apartment, higher than a fucking kite, thinking to myself that everything would be a lot better if I would just jump. It was the dead of winter, freezing temps, but I was in underwear, with my legs hanging out the window, sweating my ass off. A cop drove by and saw me and, before I knew what was happening, there were cops trying to break in the door. They were 4 stories down and I couldn't really hear them (i came in as soon as i saw the cruiser stop), got dressed, and when I answered the door, I managed to somehow convince them that everything was fine.

That was when I realized that my life was not normal. That this was not acceptable. I looked at my face in the mirror and didn't recognize the ex-model staring back at her. Yes, I was skinny, but I'd become ugly - not just the hollow, vacant eyes and pallid skin, but on the inside as well. I was empty.

So, then and there, I decided to stop using drugs. I had to break up with "The Old Guy," as my best friend called him, get rid of most of my friends, quit my job, and find a new place to live. It sucked. It was lonely. It was hell. But I stuck with it.

For awhile. (you knew that was coming, didn't you?)

But I only slipped up one time. I don't know if it was a test on myself, to see if I could do it once and not fall back in, or if it was my 'last hurrah' or what. It was horribly self-destructive and terrible but, at the same time, it was one of the best nights of my life. I remembered all at once why I loved and hated cocaine so desperately much.

And that, my dear readers, was the honest-to-god end of my drug use. But not the alcohol.

And then, my then-boyfriend died after a night of partying. The alcohol and drugs reacted with his blood pressure medication and who knows what else and he died. And we were supposed to get married someday.

No. My alcohol use didn't stop. Not after losing jobs to truancy, not after ruining relationships. Not after trying to drink away the pain of losing so many people I loved to drugs and alcohol. Not after my then-boyfriend and I literally beat each other into unconsciousness. Not after the open container tickets, not after the bloody vomit, not after the wrecking of cars. I gave up alcohol only in an attempt to save my marriage, which didn't work, because my husband wasn't willing to give up addictions. We sobered up - no alcohol or drugs for him, no alcohol for me - and he began to overeat. Then he began to work out obsessively. Then, he picked drugs back up again. I threw him out, started drinking again, and filed for divorce.

I don't need to explain what happened next. Newly-single woman hits the club scene again with vodka in-hand. You can fill in the blanks. It's a sheer miracle I didn't start using coke again, because my next two boyfriends had serious habits. But no, I managed to stick to drinking and highly-self-destructive behavior. How I avoided a DWI or killing someone, I'll never know. It must have been some kind of divine intervention, because Lord knows I wasn't trying to be careful.

Eventually, I met a good man whose only flaw was that he was an alcoholic. Of course. Because people like me attract people like me. 'Opposites attract' only refers to genitalia. Before it ruined us, we both decided to sober up and stop the drinking. While I can go to a bar and not drink, he can't. So we became homebodies. That stuck, until my grandmother died. It was...traumatic and tragic and a horrible strain on me, and he gave me a free pass for one night. I freaked out in the worst kind of way and although I don't remember any of it, The Boy swears he'd never been more frightened in his life. And this man's been to war, y'all.

At that point, he told me in no uncertain terms that I had to promise that I would not drink anymore. And, like a true alcoholic, I slipped up again. But just that once. I've managed to stay sober since then.

The problem is, I've come to realize that it's a painful, internal battle that rages on daily. Not because I want 'just one drink.' It's not that. I want to drink all night, do a few lines, dance, socialize, see a good band, and fuck somebody in the bathroom of the bar.

Seriously. That's what I want to do. I can't tell you why. I can't explain why I feel like that's a good way to live my life. I know that's what I used to do. I felt happy then. I had a lot of friends and I felt like I was living life - even as I was destroying it - but at least I wasn't squandering it. And I feel like I am presently wasting my fucking life by sitting here, reading, editing photos, cleaning house, and not being *out there* doing stuff.

Every day I have to struggle with whether or not I'm just going to bust out of my home wearing some skanky boots, tight jeans, and a vintage tee and rock and roll myself to the mother of all hangovers, leaving The Boy to stand in the doorway, wondering if I'll make it home alive and realizing that he won't know, because he's not going to wait around to find out.

He'd leave me. I know that. I'd lose my house. I know that, because I'm barely making the payment now without buying extra stuff like $300 worth of cocaine and $100 worth of vodka a week. I'd probably manage to keep my vehicle and my job - hell, half the people I work with are either alcoholics or drug users, and another quarter are both - but I wouldn't be good at my job anymore. I could probably cope with it better, though. I'd be just maintaining the career to make money to pay for my addictions.

My rational, sober brain can see the consequences of the actions before I commit them. My rational, sober brain knows I would lose all I've worked to earn.

So, can someone please explain to me why, on a daily basis, I find myself yearning for that dead-end lifestyle? Can somebody please tell me why, after being drug free for 10 years, I still go through the motions in my mind of setting up lines on a mirror, and the rush of the first one? Why can I still taste it in the back of my throat and feel the ache of my joints after being up for 3 days? Why - someone please tell me - can't I just let this go and stop thinking about it?

Right about here is where somebody would say something like, 'Dammit! I wish I could go back in time...I'd NEVER touch any of it!' But I'm not going to say that. It would be a lie if I did.