Two steps forward, one step back..

Nothing is ever easy. I am still trying to work my way through the red tape and get the Prince admitted to a short term stay at a residential facility. I am close. I was told today that a bed will be available on Tuesday. I am hopeful. I also received a phone call from his old program today. They have heard from some very reliable sources that he is actively using. PCP this time. I don't understand it. Where is he getting it? Where is he getting the money? I guess he really does need to go away for awhile and get his head on straight. I spoke to his grandmother and told her to make sure she is keeping a close eye on him and not to let her guard down for a minute. He must be sneaking out of there or stealing from them, or something. I just don't know anymore.

Let go, kel; let go.

I'm a loser baby.....

I have been tagged!!! I love it when I get tagged... it makes me feel... loved, accepted..... I know, I know, Can you say Pathetic-Loser-Co-Dependent???

List 7 songs you are currently really into and then tag 7 people.

1- Hurt- Johnny Cash or Nine Inch Nails

2- Dear Lover- Social Distortion

3- Walk it Out- DJ Unk

4- Glamorous- Fergie

5- This aint a scene, it's an arms race - FallOut Boy

6- I Miss You - Blink 182

7- It's Not a Habit - K's Choice

My musical tastes are influenced by a combination of my mood and whatever music La Petit Prince is into. (Can you tell which songs he turned me on to?)

Let me see who is left that hasn't been tagged???

I tag: Vicarious Rising, Working Mom NYC , Dr. Jeckyll vs. Mr. Hyde, Trudge, and RedHead Gal. Have fun kids.

So on to other things. The Prince came over for a visit last night. He brought the puppy. She is so cute and fun. He threw up when they got there. He said he was car sick. He made a HUGE mess all over my bathroom, of course yesterday my cleaning lady was there. He said he had thrown up earlier in the day also. My mom-in-law is a southern lady who cooks with lots of butter and fat and fries EVERYTHING. I need to call the doc this morning and have it looked into. I worry he could have an ulcer. He had gotten a haircut and he was showered and clean shaven and he looked good, he looked young. He is still SO heavy, he talked about losing some weight and then did some push ups. He is strong. He challenged me to see who could do more. I am too embarrassed to say how few I was capable of doing. I have absolutely ZERO upper body strength.

I am still in limbo as to his placement for his short term residential stay. They are now waiting on a bed for him. It is getting ridiculous. I am tempted to say F- it. Get him into an alternative HS setting, there is a program close to my job that has a great reputation, and they have a real small staff to student ratio, and I believe they can get him out of HS. They also have a zero tolerance policy as far as drugs and alcohol are concerned. They do not drug test, but if he is caught with anything on him, or if they suspect he is high, he will immediately be thrown out of the program. I am just not sure he is ready for that yet. I don't want to give him enough rope to hang himself, but I would like to see him start to acclimate himself back into the real world.

It is just hard to know what the right decision is to make and I hate that I am so on my own when it comes to making these decisions. AH is still giving me the silent treatment and it is just so sad that he is not concerned about what is going on with the Prince.

On a lighter note, it is a beautiful spring day here on in the Northeast. I am meeting some great old friends in Manhattan for dinner after work. These are my "gurlies", the ones who love me unconditionally, for all of my flaws and issues, who can laugh with and at me and I feel the safest when I am with them. This will be a good day.

I will let you down, I will make you hurt

Things at home aren't good. It is downright HOSTILE there right now. I guess AH was ticked that I stayed at a friends on Thursday night. When I got home from work Friday afternoon, he announced shortly thereafter that he "was going out". I asked where, he ignored me and stormed out of the house. Whatever. I guess this was retaliation. I was happy he was gone. It was quiet, La Petit Prince had a friend spending the night, so I ordered them a pizza and caught up my shows that I had DVR'ed. I was happily asleep by 10 p.m.

He worked Saturday so me and the little guy went to spend the day and night with my parents. We stayed until this morning. AH is not too happy. Making him happy has long ago stopped being a priority of mine. He has not even bothered to inquire as to what is going on with the Prince. Where he is going, when he is going, etc. And I am not going to offer him up the info either. La Petit Prince is going to California this Friday to spend some time with my cousins. He is really excited. I am going to miss him terribly. I have never been away from him for more than a few days.

So things are still in limbo with the Princes placement. Last I heard, his file was on the docs desk to be reviewed, then we have to hope there is a bed available. It occurred to me over the weekend that I am severely depressed. This is not a great news flash, I have been taking anti-depressants for approx 6 or 7 months. But this is bigger than that. It is deep within me. Down to bone depressed. I am stuck in this incredible dark and bad place and know that I must make change and move on with our lives but for the life of me I am just STUCK. Cant fish or cut bait. The way that we live is so incredibly unhealthy. Dysfunctional doesn't begin to describe it. I feel physically sick when I think if the pain and damage that this has done to my kids.

I am hoping to use the time alone next week to do some long hard thinking and planning, get my house on the market, actively look for a place to live. When both of my kids come home, I want to be able to present a new life plan for us. To start healing as a family. To start trusting each other again and to let go some of the pain.

Fire woman your to blame.....

Last week I posted about the Prince being thrown out of his program. They will take him back if he goes to a short term residential facility for a few weeks. AH was off last Wednesday so I asked him to make the initial call to the place I decided on and to get the ball rolling. You know, I thought it would be nice for him to act like a f-ing father for a change, to MAYBE take just a little pressure off of me for once. So he actually made the calls. He told me they accept my insurance and they had to speak to the Prince to do an intake over the phone, and they needed to get some information from his day program and they would let us know.

The Prince readily agreed and called the place and did the intake. I asked AH if he had called the day program to get the info. He said No. Not yet. This was now Friday. It is sometimes hard for me to not be a spiteful b*tch and say F- it. I wont do it either, let him handle it. But of course, my maternal instinct thankfully always takes control and I do what needs to be done for my Prince.

So Monday morning, almost a full week later, I make a million phone calls, get the release forms faxed to me, get them notarized, have my son sign them and finally get them all back to his day treatment and they go about getting the psych evals, his records, etc. It takes them some time and they finally fa them to the residential place late Tuesday night. I call to follow up with the new place and they dont have them. Fifteen phone calls later and his program refaxes them Wednesday morning. A committee must now review his case and decide if he is a good fit for their program. In the meantime, anticipating needing it, I get his immunization records, get him to the doctor for a physical, etc. When the Prince was a little boy, he was exposed to tuberculosiss and will now always test positive on a PPD so he must go for a chest X-ray once a year. I had this done on Wednesday also. Well guess what, the lungs were clear for TB, but he has pneumonia!! Who knew?

So yesterday the residential place calls me and tells me after careful consideration, the committee has decided that based on the Princes history of family violence and aggression, plus his firestarting tendencies, they do not think his is a good fit for their program and they will not except him, and they recommend a long term psychiatric residential facility for him. I was floored. Family violence?? Firestarting? Are you sure you have the right Prince? Perhaps you have mixed up his file with another Prince? No, they are sure. Turns out the AH I am married to told them this!! Can you imagine? I mean, seriously... what was he thinking?? They had a fight a year ago that got physical when the AH came home drunk from work, and attacked the Prince. I had to throw myself between the two of to get the AH off of him. He left a mark on his neck and the school called CPS the next day. He neglected to mention these little details to these people on the phone. The firestarting was when the Prince and his friends made a molotov cocktail when he was at the height of his using. They never did anything with it thank G-d. Now I am not defending my son, he has alot of problems, substance abuse, depression, a possible mood disorder. But he is not a threat. When he was using, he was unpredictable and I didn't feel safe around him, but when he is clean, he is harmless.

So now I am back to the drawing board. I have to find a new place. Had AH done what was expected last week, he would have been rejected by last Friday and I would have had him placed by now. Or had he used his brain he would have been admitted this morning to my first choice place. I never thought I could be capable of feeling such hate and disgust for another human being.

I kiss and tell all my fears....

I went to a surprise 40th Birthday party yesterday for one of "our" old friends. The man of the hour went to HS with AH and was in our wedding party. I was friendly with his wife back then and we were also in their wedding party. We saw alot of old friends that we hadn't seen in awhile. AH doesn't keep in touch with any of his friends and doesn't make much of an effort to make new ones, and I long ago stopped making the effort for him. It was interesting. Mostly everyone got fat. Don't know why that is always what I notice, but I noticed it.

I spent the afternoon talking to the wife of one of his old friends, who I always got on well enough with over the years, although there would never be a great friendship between us. About an hour into the party, and she was half way through a "box", (yes they served wine from a box) of Zinfandel wine, I was ready to choke this women who conversation skills do not go any further than how trendy her daughter dresses and about how perfect her parenting skills are. This is when I usually bring up the Prince and his issues. She was flabbergasted, and you could see that look on her face that you have seen a thousand times before, thank god this will never happen to HER child.

At least this provoked a change in the conversation. Now do not get me wrong, addiction is normally my favorite topic of conversation, but this woman was so ignorant it went beyond scary. She wanted to know every detail, like did I know his friends, (yes) their parents (yes) did I spend enough time with him, did I check his room, was I on the PTA, was he involved in sports, (yes a million times over). She was looking for what WE did wrong. because, clearly, kids from good families with a solid support system and involved parents, do NOT turn to drugs. I tried to be nice, and explain the disease aspect, the hereditary/genetic connection, (her husband had always been a heavy drinker, and I knew him to abuse drugs back in the day, and from what I could see of her pounding down the wine at 2 in the afternoon, this is something she needs to be aware of) but she wasn't having any of it. I sort of kind of yelled at her at this point, that perhaps she is putting way too much emphasis on her children's clothing and not being aware of the bigger picture out there in the real world, where kids get addicted to drugs and alcohol and have sex and get pregnant. I am fairly confident I wont be invited back to another party anytime soon.

So last night I caught a bunch of the Addiction project short films on HBO. Good stuff. One of the shorts told the story of a woman and her seven year battle with her daughters heroin addiction. This was a beautiful young women, high honor roll, cheerleader, popular, musically gifted, the perfect child. Except that she was filled with self hate and only found relief when she was chasing the dragon. The mom articulated how I felt at the party. She spoke of the stigma attached to having an addicted child and how people looked for what she had done wrong, etc. I respect these families for putting themselves out there for the world to see (and judge) to help educate. These little film shorts, or something like them, should be mandatory viewing for parents when their kids enter middle school. Something has to change to help pull these peoples heads out of their asses. It can happen to your kid too. I promise!

The exodus is here....

First off, I want to thank all of my blogger buddies for your words of encouragement and support on my last post. And especially to you Tab, for sending all the love. You are the best girlie!!!

So the Prince was thrown out of his program last night. After his little temper tantrum Friday morning, they sent him home for the day so as for him to not disrupt the rest of the kids. They called me later in the afternoon telling me that his latest urine came back dirty, again, and to not bother sending him in on Monday as they had to have a crisis meeting to determine what his status in the program was.

We met with them last night and they had decided to release him, as he was no longer making progress, and they would rather give his spot to someone who is actually interested in helping himself. It was sad and upsetting. The Prince was visibly upset. I don't think he saw it coming. They really like him there and he gets away with alot because of it. At the end of the meeting it was decided if he was willing to do a short term residential program, they would consider having him back when he was released. He called me last night and seemed interested in doing that and we spent some time on the phone researching the various suggested places online.

This morning, all hell broke loose. The Prince called and told me he was going out today. He was officially "free" and he was going out with his friends. Yeah, over my dead body. He is for all intents and purposes an unemployed high school drop out on drugs. I argued for a while and am actually too drained to even get into the long gory details of it all here right now. It led to an argument with the AH. He needs to sit down with his parents and set up some guidelines and boundaries for this kid. I can not do it anymore. It is just too hard. This kid acts like a spoiled 13 year old. The perpetual victim. Its never his fault. WE did this to him. He is 17 he deserves his freedom. He cant even buy his own cigarettes. It is just ridiculous. He is ridiculous.

So now I need to find a place that will take him. I am just so tired.

There are too many questions....

I had a really dream filled sleep last night. So many of my dreams were so clear and vivid. I always dream a lot and I usually remember them, but last night I actually SAW my blog in my dream and myself posting to it. Do you think that means I feel guilty for not having posted and that maybe its time to post again??

Sometimes I really feel that me, and my family get so much shit in this life. Yes, I know we aren't perfect and a lot of the crap we are forced to endure could have been avoided with better lifestyle choices and better choices in general. But still. Do you think everyone feels that way?

At the moment, my father who is currently receiving chemo for a recurrence of his pancreatic cancer, who had a massive paralyzing stroke at age 49, has been in the hospital for the last 2 weeks and has just been diagnosed with parkinsens disease as well as being an insulin dependents diabetic. He is so weak he can not walk, support his weight or even sit up in bed without assistance. This is the condensed version of his many, many ailments. Today is my moms birthday. I am sure she celebrated it alone last night with half a gallon of wine. She told me when how sad she felt to wake up alone on her birthday, she and my dad have been happily married for 43 years. The cherry on her birthday cake will be visiting my 41 year old brother in the hospital today where he is having his 3rd toe amputated or possibly the remaining 3 toes amputated as a result of his diabetes which he refuses to control or accept and he thinks drinking a 12 pack of beer each day is acceptable normal behavior. He has not worked in close to 3 years because his amputations never heal because he never treats the diabetes. It is a vicious cycle. Oh, and he is also going blind...

I just hung up the phone after a screaming fight with my Prince. They are trying to do everything in their power in his program to get him out and to help him graduate. He refused to take a second math class today. He is failing math. He will not graduate because of it. I will have to pull strings and call in favors to get him into a program this summer that will offer him psychological and educational support to get him out of HS. I will have to fight like hell with my district to get them to pay for it. I work in education and I know the right people so I can get it done. But he is just refusing to do anything that he doesn't feel like doing. He outright refused to go to the class. They will probably not keep him in there now and they sent him home for the day. I had a screaming crying fight with him, he started getting loud with me and cursing at me, I once again told him I will not accept that from him any longer. It went on and on. I spoke to the family counselor, and told her, that I am basically ready to give up. F- it. If he doesn't want to help himself I cant do this anymore. I am so done. If he wants to be an addict, a drop out, fine. Go for it. I cant stop it. But you will not take me down in the process. I will not be spoken to like I am a piece of shit. I will not keep bailing his ass out and get him a job. He needs to learn how to be a man and not a child. I just cant take anymore. Oh... and his urine came up dirty for coke a week or so ago. Nice.

So, okay that is my immediate family. My little prince is starting to feel the pain of what he has seen the last few years and his school work is suffering and his whole attitude is changing and he is having a lot of problems. He is in therapy and responding to it. The AH is still slowly drinking himself to death. He sort of comfronted me about my relationship with the Italian. He wants to know why I would rather hang out with him and the little prince and the italians kids than with him. I said something along the lines of not being Julie the cruise director from the love boat and if he wanted to do stuff with his kids then he should plan it. You think he might have pushed the issue a little. But nope. He just went down to his room and I assume started drinking. Whatever.

It just seems there is so much wrong and bad with my life. And others just skate through without a hitch. Maybe I need to shout out some gratitude to remind myself that it could always be worse...

• My father is still here to wish my mom a happy birthday today
• My little prince scored a hundred on his science test yesterday he was so happy and proud
• The beautiful diamond earrings I bought for my mom, she deserves something sparkly and pretty today
• Deep down I know that this too shall pass
• Letting go
• My HP who must have a plan
• I have MY heath, and a good job and a few good friends that help take care of me.

I hope the rest of you out there are having a better Friday than I am.

When your on the edge and falling off

"There's a moment, there's always a moment, "I can do this, I can give into this, or I can resist it", and I don't know when your moment was, but I bet you there was one.

This is my favorite line from the movie Closer. I find it applies to so many situations in my life and those around me. Last night, the Prince and I, had a moment.

I had just walked in the door from work and from being away since Saturday. I went away for a few days and on Tuesday night I slept at my parents house and went to work directly from there. I was tired last night and looked forward to taking a nap.

And then the phone rang. It was the Prince. He was upset. He was more than upset. He was crying his eyes out and raging on and on about how he wasn't going back to his program, that he needed to go out and get high. His girlfriend would not take his calls and he did not know why. He was freaking out. Begging me to let him go get high, that if he could just go get high everything would be better, he could deal with it. He was crying so hard, it broke my heart. I spent about an hour on the phone with him, talking him out of it, calming him down. I was so proud of him. He reached out. He called me, he didn't go out and get high first. I told him that was the first time he had done that. After he calmed down he asked me to come pick him up. I took out for Chinese and then we went back to his grandmothers house and watched a movie together.

It still warms my heart to think how much he still needs his mother. I could feel the love he has for me last night. We talked for awhile after the movie and he told me the truth about what was going on with his girlfriend. He created a myspacee account with a picture of him exhaling smoke, and his screen name or whatever you call it had a reference to marijuana. She stumbled upon it. He doesn't know how but she is furious and is most likely going to break up with him. We talked for a long time about him needing to accept responsibility for his actions, and telling her the truth about the account. He also shared with me how desperately he misses getting high and he would like to just be able to smoke pot and drink. I explained to him that he could never do that like a "normie" and he said, he knew, but he wanted to be able to! It seems he is starting to understand this horror called addiction.

We spoke about maybe attending a NA meeting. He has been very resistant to it, because they have been sort of trying to force that down his throat at his program lately. I am going to call them and ask them to back off a bit about that, and I think maybe he would go if I went with him. I looked up where the local meetings are and will suggest it to him again next week. He is such a sad and broken young man. I am proud of him but I worry so much for him. He is so impulsive and really does not know how to deal with his emotions. His immediate instinct is still to go get high.

But last night, he didn't. One day at a time... right?

A Beautiful Disaster

I neglected to express gratitude to someone who is no longer in our lives, but to whom I ultimately, almost single handedly credit with being the person responsible for saving my Prince's life.

It was one year ago today. The Friday before winter vacation. My life and the life of my family had become completely unmanageable. The Prince was at the height of his addiction. We had applied for a PINS petition. We were waiting to be called before a probation officer. He was drunk and high all day, every day. He was barely attending classes. I can honestly say now, as bad as things were, I had no idea how far away my Prince had really gone.

He was high the night before. He was trying to bust into my room. We had a vicious fight where I was trying to keep him out and he was trying to get in. My little guy was hysterical crying. This was a typical evening in our house back then. The fighting, the screaming, the crying, the drama. I told him he was punished for the vacation and to be sure his ass was in the house immediately afterschool. That he should not F with me. Yeah. Right.

Late Friday morning I was sitting at my desk and my cell phone rang. It was the Prince's girlfriend at the time. The Toxic Princess is what I liked to refer to her as. I was surprised to see her number come up and thought maybe he was sorry for his behavior, he was working it out with the Toxic Princess and he was calling to apologize. Wrong. Wrong. and Wrong. When I picked up the phone, the TP asked me if the Prince was home sick today. I said no, he was at school as far as I knew. She informed me that she thought he was home, and she thought there was a party going on at my house.

I thanked her for the information, left work and went to my house. There was in fact, a party going on. 7 or 8 kids, the air thick with marijuana smoke, empty alcohol bottles strewn about, cigarette butts, etc. As usual, I am going on and on, as I am sure I have written this story in a post from last year. Long story short, I flipped out, he flipped out. I threw all the kids out and he took off. Told me to go F myself and he ran away. He stayed away for the whole weekend. When we finally got him home, we had signed him into a psychiatric institution on a dual diagnosis, where he detoxed, which helped us fast track the PINS petition, which helped us to get him into the program he is in today.

I sometimes feel like maybe I should have waited it out, and had the courts send him into residential. Maybe it would have been more effective. Maybe not. I will never know for sure. What I do know it has been an incredibly rocky year. A roller coaster doesn't begin to describe the ups and downs, peaks and valleys that we have gone through. I have never felt so out of control or helpless in my entire life. He has had many relapses but he keeps getting back up. My old therapist told me once that what is important is not how many times he falls, but that he keeps getting back up. I look back on this last year with such mixed emotion, things are not perfect, not by a long shot. I do not want or expect perfection. But things ARE better. Progress, not perfection. I needed a little distance and perspective to see that. I believe he has stopped cutting himself. My life is more manageable. I sleep at night. I feel safe in my home for the first time in a long time. I feel hope for my Prince. He is talking abut a future. Maybe it is not the future I would have chosen for him, but I have also learned to let go. He has to fight his demons, he has to make his choices. He is the one who will have to live with them.

I do not think our battle is anywhere near over. I do not fool myself into believing it is even close. I know there will be many more relapses. I am also certain he will end up in a residential center at some future date. But we made it this far one day at a time. And I discovered I can let go and still love him. And I will keep on loving him and letting go.

For all of this I send out gratitude to the Toxic Princess. I have never told the Prince how I knew about the party going on. I know that her motivation was selfish, she was jealous of a girl that was getting high and hanging out with the Prince (a girl my son said was "just like him") , and she may have broken his heart, and damaged him, but I do credit her with setting events in to motion that forced me to find the strength to do what I had to do to help save this Prince's life. I will be eternally grateful to her for that.

Detachment allows us to let go of our obsession with another's behavior and begin to lead happier and more manageable lives, lives with dignity and rights, lives guided by a Power greater than ourselves. We can still love the person without liking the behavior. -Al Anon, S-19

Happiness, no more be sad....

This will be my first ever gratitude list. I think I need to check in with myself and be grateful for some of the small stuff.... Hope its ok.

• A snow delay for La Petit Prince today. We got to stay in bed a little later and snuggle and watch morning TV together.
• A warm bowl of chicken noodle soup brought to me for lunch by a work buddy.
• An unexpected phone call from my Prince today. He was at my Dads breaking up the ice and spending some time with him. He just called me to share that and didn't ask me for anything.
• Wow. This gratitude thing is harder than I thought.
• My blogger buddy Tab who stops by every day and always leaves me beautiful heartfelt comments that leave me feeling warm and special.
• My Dad is still here. 2 years and 4 months after his "death sentence"
• My health. Watching my dad slowly and painfully deteriorate lets me see just how very important this really is and how easily I take it for granted.
• My children, they may drive me nuts, but I cant imagine my life without them.
• A long lost love making contact again. It may go nowhere fast but it makes me feel young and silly and good inside again.

So how did I do?

Only love, can make it rain...

It is raining bits of ice in my corner of the world today. The road are a mess of sleet, sluch snow and ice. Shouldnt be complaining really this is the first bad wintery day we have had here this season. And it is Valentines Day. My cousin who is equally as bitter and unhappy as I am called to tell me, "Happy F-ing Hallmark Day!" It made me smile and laugh.

I spent some alone time with the Prince last night. We went shopping to buy his girlfriend a Valentines Day gift. He told her about the latest relapse. I am proud of him, he doesnt usually tell her. She was really upset and didnt speak to him for a few days but she forgave him and is still standing by him. He seems back to his old self, much calmer, nicer and less angry. I am going to try to remain hopeful that he is serious this time and I told him he can always count on me to support him and help him in any way I can to stay sober.

Sometimes I forget how much I love that kid.

Happy Valentines Day to all my blogger buddies......

Is it getting better? Or do you feel the same....

So I am back at work after a week long break. I had to have a surgical procedure done to correct some abnormal blood vessels in my lungs. Sounds scary right? It is a complication of a hereditary disease I was just diagnosed with. I now have to get my children tested. But the procedure went well, I am fine and just have to follow up every year to see if other vessels need to be repaired. Gotta love my family gene pool for all of the wonderful things they have passed on to me....

My fathers cancer seems to be progressing rapidly. I spend weekends there now to be with him and to help my mom. He can barely stand or walk. He is very weak. The chemo makes him really sick and weak, but I don't think he has any pain. I really do believe he is losing the battle.

My prince had finally made it to modified curfew a few weeks ago. I didn't like what I saw. He was spending less time with the girlfriend and more time with some girls I did not know. I knew that meant trouble and sure enough there was a relapse last week. Pot and Dust Off. There was talk of Xanax as well, but he denies that and that wont show up in his urine. So he is back on grounding. Our family therapist said he is one of the most addicted kids she has ever seen in the program, and is not so sure they can help him much more. He will stay in the program, but she suggests NA or AA meetings and he is not very responsive to that. I will keep trying.

My youngest has been acting out a lot lately. I am very concerned. He is not doing the right thing at school and he has been lying. It is so disturbing. I am in constant contact with his school and they have been very supportive. I am taking him to our old therapist next week just to give him someone outside the family that he can speak freely to. I also took him to the neurologist yesterday and we upped his ADHD meds.

I need to work on letting go of my anger. It is becoming a real problem for me. Last week I lashed out at my mother in anger and hung up on her after yelling at her. Normal well adjusted grown ups do not yell and scream and have temper tantrums as often as I do. My doc has also upped my anti-anxiety/anti-depressant meds.

I have been speaking regularly to an old boyfriend. My first love, the man I swore and still swear is my soul mate. He is also married to an active alcoholic who has no desire to get or stay sober. She drinks herself stupid everynight. He is at his wits end and is now questioning his feelings for her. Been there done that. We have started speaking every day. There seems to still be something there. He is a better moral person than I am. He knows he needs to figure out what he is doing with his life before he can look to a reconciliation with me. But it is nice to know that maybe there is that option for me at some later date. He was always my best friend and I miss him.

I know, I know, I just keep making problems for myself.

That I would be good.....

that I would be good even if I did nothing

that I would be good even if I got the thumbs down

that I would be good if I got and stayed sick

that I would be good even if I gained ten pounds

that I would be fine even if I went bankrupt

that I would be good if I lost my hair and my youth

that I would be great if I was no longer queen

that I would be grand if I was not all knowing

that I would be loved even when I numb myself

that I would be good even when I am overwhelmed

that I would be loved even when I was fuming

that I would be good even if I was clingy

that I would be good even if I lost sanity

that I would be goodwhether with or without you

-Alanis Morrisette

This is what I want. This is what I need.

Illusion Never Changed....

I am addicted to reading everything to do with alcoholism, drug addiction, self mutilation, and recovery of any sort. In spite of James Frey and the whole A million Little Lies controversy, I still love reading memoirs and can always find a little slice of my own life to relate to in them and try not to take it all too serious but I love to read them.

When my Prince started his program last year, he had to write an essay about how he ended up there and what his drug history was, etc. His essay was surprisingly articulate, for a kid who hadn't attended a class in high school even remotely sober in the last 3 years. It was chronological, clear and concise. I had suggested to him that he keep some type of journal detailing his journey regardless of the outcome and that perhaps we could try to combine his thoughts and my thoughts and put together a memoir of sorts from the perspective of a teenage boy with some input from his mother. A perspective I have rarely found in any bookstore and something I would have embraced. It seems all the success stories that are published and sometimes made into lifetime movies of the week come from a mother daughter perspective. Sort of giving me the impression that a lot of moms and sons don't have close open relationships and that men and boys can only recover on their own and that all of the work and time invested by the mother doesn't qualify for a movie of the week.

I know, I know I need to get down off the cross and not look for glory for saving my son. This is his disease, his recovery. But as a Mom, I just would have liked to have found something from a teenage boys perspective as well as commentary from the mom. I just think boys and girls are wired very differently and even their language is so different, I just think there is an audience for this out there. At least in my little corner of this disease.

So as usual, I am going on entirely too long before I actually get to my point. I have finally come across a book written by a mother and a son, about their family battle with binge drinking and alcoholism. It is called: From Binge to Blackout: A Mother and Son Struggle with Teen Drinking (Paperback) by Chris Volkmann, Toren Volkmann. I started this book last night, their journey begins a little later in life than the battle of my Prince and I. Toren Volkmann does not get into treatment for his disease until he is in his twenties. I am only a few chapters into this book and I have to say, so far, I was not overly impressed with the chapters written by the mother but the few chapters I have read so far written by the son are amazing.

I am not an alcoholic although alcoholism runs through my veins like blood. I do believe I have alcoholic tendencies. I love wine and am very aware when I have some to be sure I am in complete control. I worry myself sick over crossing the line and becoming another broken branch in the family tree. In the first chapter written by Toren, he explains his "awakening", or when he realized that alcohol had taken over his life. He describes in detail his withdrawal from it when he would go a certain amount of time without it, the pain of hi s addiction, how he realized he was not like others, and basically just his descent into his alcoholic abyss. The writing was ok. He is not winning a Pulitzer Prize anytime soon, however, his message is so powerful, so concise, so honest, I was just blown away. For the first time ever, I could almost feel what he, and my son, and the many millions of addicts out there are feeling. I could almost understand it. I am not minimizing any ones battle with this disease, but this was one of the first things I have ever read in such laymans terms that describe the pain and the suffering involved. It is something I need to know and understand. Something that has been missing for me for a very long time. I need to understand this. I need to know how it feels.

So, anyway, I just wanted to throw a shout out there to this family even though I am a mere 100 pages into their story. I feel privileged they allowed me to glance into their lives to see their pain, just like I do every day when I read the blogs of my fellow recovery peeps. So march on soldiers. I love and appreciate every single one of you. You have all profoundly touched my lives in some way and I guess I just thought it was about time I stopped whining about my own problems for a minute and let you all know that.

Peace to you all.

Today

Sometimes Im just so tired and uninspired, but Im still here and Im okay and I promise to post soon.

Procrastination Nation

Sometimes my ability to procrastinate and not take care of what needs to be taken care really affects my quality of life. Point in fact, I often think all day about posting to my blog, but because I haven't posted in usually a week or so and there is now so much to share that I don't know where to begin or end and I hate that I sometimes write little blog mini novels instead of entries, and I start to feel like does anybody really care about all the details and minutiae that I feel compelled to include?

So even though there is much to share since my last blog I will stick with the procrastination theme and share about how I really need to be divorced. My little guy, a.k.a. la petit prince, as I think I shared in my last entry has been screwing up in school a little and has needed me to stay completely on top of him and his every move. Well, long story short, I caught him playing with matches this weekend. After lots of screaming and drama I finally got to him and he told what has been bothering him. His father does not pay enough attention or spend enough time with him.

This is the same pattern that his brother The True Prince, started with. First he felt neglected by his dad, then he realized about the drinking, and then he felt he was hypocritical then it turned to anger and then true hatred. I know I need to address things, but I just cant deal with all the drama. It is so easy because his disease and personality makes him so unable to communicate or articulate or even to confront me that I can do what I want and all he does is gives me the silent treatment, which has been going on for weeks now, and he will live in the status quo, even though his wife and family are moving forward and moving on without him.

Pleased to meet you.

And I finally figured out how to add a pic to my profile.... So there I am. Nice to see you.

I'm in over my head

I live my life in a cycle of guilt and regret. Although I have come so very far in letting go and trying to understand that the prince owns his disease and not me. That only he can choose to got well and I can not choose that for him. I still in the very deepest darkest corner of my being feel responsible for this. Every once in a while it creeps to the surface and I think, I should have been home more often, I should have spent more time with him, I should have known sooner, I should have done more, I should have left his father years ago and then I would not have been so unhappy and it would not have caused him so much pain.

The last week or two my younger son, who I lovingly refer to as La Petit Prince, has been acting out in school a bit. Last week he forged my signature on a note that was sent home because of a missing homework. I called a team meeting at his school yesterday and discovered that he has been really slacking off when it comes to homework. Just not doing it. I was shocked. It is so unlike him. I am so worried. I sat down and tried to talk to him last night and he just had tears running down his face the whole time. He is sad because he thinks I am disappointed in him. I tried to explained that it was his behavior that was disappointing, not him. I think he is acting out. Needing more attention. I just don't know. I am so fearful that we are about to head down the same path with him as we did with the Prince.

How do you stop the pain? Break the cycle? Change your fate?

Ticking away...

I am having a really hard time learning to let go of so many things in my life that I need to let go of. I know that it is time to move forward and divorce Asshole. I know he will never stop drinking and will never be the man I need for him to be and I know I will never love him that way or want to have an intimate relationship with him again. And yet, I can not seem to let go.

Since the prince is living with his grandparents, I am fooling myself into believing that I am letting my controlling issues go, but in reality I am just displacing these feelings.

I feel like such a failure as a parent, as a wife, as an employee, and as a person. I know this too shall pass but when? When will I grow the F up and take care of business???

Another Auld Lang Syne

Merry Christmas. Happy New Year.

Somebody, please shoot me.

My dad spent all day Christmas vomiting into a garbage pail, we thought as a result of the chemo. When his legs completely gave out from under him the next morning, we weren't so sure anymore. We had to send him by ambulance to the hospital. They still don't know what's wrong. His readings are all off the charts, his blood counts continue to drop, they will transfuse him this afternoon, he still can not support his body weight or stand. Maybe it was another stroke, or maybe a tumor in the brain. He is just soo sick.

The prince spent Christmas day sneaking beer and hiding the empty cans around the house. Another dysfunctional version of hide and go seek the empty cans. My favorite find was under the bathroom sink.

My brother a large part of his Christmas day getting drunk, insulting and picking on me. Knowing how sensitive I have always been about my weight and my anorexic tendencies, he kept calling me fat and chubby since I gained a few pounds from quitting smoking. He managed to get the whole family in on the fun. Even the Italian. And then they will all be shocked and bewildered when I starve myself for a week.

Asshole has been on his silent vodka binge for his vacation. Not that I could really tell. I haven't been home. But you can smell it and see it on his face and hear it in his voice.

The Italian boyfriend is mad at me and not speaking to me because he took my mom and I to dinner after the hospital last night and then he was going to come in and I hesitated because my uncle was there and he got mad, said I disrespected him and then he left and when I called to try to make up he yelled and cursed at me and then hung up on me three times. I'm not sure if we are broken up now or not. I'm not sure I even care.

I just had a breakdown in front of my boss. Cried my eyes out. How very professional.

My idiot friend was thrown out of her place by her even bigger idiot boyfriend again and she wants to stay with me again and I don't want her too. I am having a hard time telling her this. She is lazy, doesn't work and lays around sleeping in my bed all day, while I am up at 6 and working all day. Her MO is she will stay for a week swear she wont go back to him then she does and I don't hear from her for 8 weeks until he beats her up again and then she shows up back at my house again.

This just can't be it.