Peace by Piece

It becomes a problem. His use of drugs is not stopping. 

What do I do? I was in my late teens. I don’t know how to deal with this. I’ve never touched a drug in my life apart from one puff of a joint when I was in my early teens — didn’t like how it made me feel, didn’t touch it again. Second time my bestie and I thought we should try speed. We bought a capsule to share, we ended up splitting it with her cousin. Splitting a speed capsule 3 ways does nothing. 

It’s not that I had never been exposed to drugs, I had, but I was never interested. Apart from my disinterest, I always remembered reading a news article about a girl who tried a drug once and they found her dead — I didn’t want to be that statistic. I smoked cigarettes. That was my thing. I was happy for that to be my thing.

The most I knew about drugs was that they were bad and I didn’t want to do them. My dad had sat me down when I was in my early teens and told me that if I ever felt that I wanted to experiment with that stuff, I needed to come to him. Do it in his presence so that I was in a safe space. Said he never wants me to lie to him about that sort of stuff and he never wants me to hang around people who do that, because if they get caught and I am with them, it will be guilt by association. It always stuck with me.

THE FIRST REHAB

Our families are supportive of the pregnancy. My mom and step dad set up my room at their house, get our family cot out of storage, set up the room for us. Mine and Alexia’s room is ready. This is real. This is happening. My dad has moved to another city so I’m staying with my mom.

The drugs haven’t stopped. Eventually he goes to rehab. I am heavily pregnant. This is early December. I am so proud of him for acknowledging he has a problem. He can do this. We can do this. We will get through this. We’ve got this. 

I visit him regularly in rehab. Have sex in the bathroom there. I meet a girl that would become a friend and still is to this day, even though we don’t chat as often — she is still dear to my heart.

He leaves rehab. He is doing good. Part of his recovery is making amends to me. 

He has something to tell me. 

He slept with a girl in rehab. 

He was sick but now he is not. I thank him for his honesty, let’s turn a new leaf and start over. 

Am I hurt? Of course. But he was sick. He says he won’t do it again. 

I have 2 choices — I can forgive him and work on my pain, or I can hold it against him. I choose to forgive. We have a little girl on the way. God would not have blessed us with her were it not for some greater cause.

It’s Christmas. We spend the day with my family, everyone is so supportive of him and happy for him and proud of him. That evening we go to his extended family’s house. They do not understand addiction. Everyone is telling him one drink won’t hurt. I am sitting there shocked, sad — they do not understand. He cannot have ONE drink, because it won’t be ONE drink. That night his 2 or 3 weeks of sobriety ended. The drinking continues. The drugs continue. Why did they not understand?

ALONE AND PREGNANT

Throughout my pregnancy, Carter is wanting me to sleep at his mom’s house, great, except when he keeps leaving me to go out. His excuse for us not being allowed to go together is that the music is bad for the baby’s ears. I have no problem being at his house  – but don’t ask me to stay over and then you leave me there alone.

One night, after many nights of him leaving me, promising me he will be home by 10 and not sticking to that, I call his dad. He was still living here at the time. His dad came and fetched me and took me to the nightclub Carter was at and I pulled him out. I lost it on him. I was sick of it. That was the first and only time that I did that.

Another time, Alexia was still small, but we were broken up and I was out. I wanted nothing to do with him. I was done. He ended up at the same club as me, continuously trying to talk to me. I kept trying to ignore him and avoid him. He got me to talk to him by saying his dad was ill and he needs me. I cried for him, my shield I had built dissolved. Turns out that was a lie that would bite him in the back side further down the line.

ALEXIA IS BORN

We have a name for our little princess — Alexia.

I wanted a natural birth. I was set on a natural birth. If Alexia didn’t come on her due date, then I was booked in to be induced the next morning. 

We stay at his moms house the night before the induction. He cooks me steak just before midnight as I am not allowed to eat after that. We leave at the crack of dawn for the hospital. We are excited. We are doing this. Life as we know it will forever be changed. 

We get to the hospital. They give me an enema — I thought I was going to die, it’s the worst thing ever, I didn’t know which side everything was going to come out of. If you know you know. 

They hook me up to the machines, Alexia is ready. I have already started contractions before they had even given me the meds. You are strong that you cannot feel these, they say. They give me my meds. An hour or so later, they come to me — Alexia’s heart is racing, she is going into distress. I am not dilating at all. I have to have a caesarian section.

Back then, the internet and the world wasn’t what it was today. We would buy books on pregnancy and birth. The doctor would have tear out pages of books where we could take information on any topic we wanted. C-section hadn’t even been discussed as an option as no one thought it would have to be done. I knew nothing. I called my mom, sobbing, told her that Alexia will be here in 45 minutes — can they please come to the hospital asap.

They prep me for surgery, prep Carter — damn he looks hot in scrubs. I am scared, I do not know what to expect. Time for the epidural. Don’t look, Carter says. The doctor tells me to sit as still as I can and I cannot move because if they hit my spinal cord I could be disabled — no pressure, I think. Once it’s done, Carter says — thank God you didn’t see that needle.

They put up a shield so I cannot see what they are doing. They tell Carter to sit down, he says he is fine, they cut into me, blood and liquid gushing, he nearly faints – he sits. He has my hand the entire time. You will feel some pressure, they say. All I can think about is this “pressure” — wow that’s not cool. Are you sure the drugs are working, I ask them. Yes, they assure me.

Alexia is here. She is 3.64kg. 53cm. The doctor says thank goodness for the C section because I would never have managed a natural birth with her. 

They have to take her away, get her body up to the right temperature. Carter goes with her. I am left alone. I got to hold my baby for a short while and now she is gone. In my body for 40 weeks, and now she is gone. They take me to recovery. I wait. They wheel me to my room. I wait. I start sobbing and crying. I wait. Why are they taking so long. I want my baby. Where is my baby. Bring her to the room — I ask. They can’t.

Eventually after 2 hours (that felt like days), she is with me. Pink and perfect. All 10 fingers and all 10 toes. She is perfect, in every way. She latches perfectly, she is healthy. All is perfect.

You know that moment in time when your partner meets your little blessing for the first time, the first moment they get to hold them, the love that shines in their eyes, which makes your heart melt and pound and swell with love simultaneously- that moment that you look at your partner and all else fades away, nothing matters but the love that 2 becomes 3 brings into your space. I had so many of those moments with Carter and Alexia. It was those precise moments that so often made me squash any doubt about where I was supposed to be. 

Carter is besotted with our little princess and spends as much time with us as the nurses will allow. Elation and joy is all encompassing. Nothing else matters. What is done is done. All in the past. This is the start of our new chapter.

The insurmountable feeling of love and protection that you feel for your baby, it has to be enough, I tell myself. Being gifted with the biggest blessing known to mankind, how could you not want only the best for your child. Not knowing any better, I truly believed that love was enough for Carter to stop his drug use. 

They want me to stay for 3 days. I can’t. Hospitals and me — no thank you. I manage to do 2 nights then beg the doc to let me go home.

Carter fetches me. We have her in her little car seat. The drive home is the most stressful experience ever. It felt like hours, meanwhile it was probably 15 minutes at MOST. Everything for our little princess is at my mom’s house. We drive straight to Carter’s house — or rather Carter’s mom’s house. I never leave Carter’s mom’s house. She has a cradle cot there. My mom brings over all my stuff. Carter and I spend our days lying in bed with our beautiful new little girl. We both have so much love for her our hearts are overflowing, bursting.

This tiny little bundle is just pure perfection.

I wake one night with a jolt, Carter is across the room. In the dark, he saw a silhouette — he thought Alexia was falling out of her crib, meanwhile it was her teddy sitting on the side of the crib. He had woken up, glanced over, seen this, launched across the bed over me to save her. Gosh how we laughed.

Carter spends so much time with Alexia, we are both besotted. We love lying in bed with her, just watching her. Even when she sleeps she is amazing. When Carter is sitting on his computer, Alexia is there with him, in his arms, he alternates between giving her little kisses and whatever he is doing at that moment. These little moments, watching Carter being a dad, the love evident in his face and the gentleness with which he holds her, they literally melt my heart. 

THE EARLY YEARS

Carter got his first job — up until now he had never worked a day in his life. It was low wage, entrance level, but he worked hard. I started shift work at night so that I could spend my days with Alexia. My cousin, who lived upstairs, used to come down after school on the days I worked to watch Alexia for the short while until Carter was home. I would leave at four pm and return home anywhere between midnight and 2am.

Carter’s biggest dream back then was to make enough money so that I did not have to work, so that Alexia did not have to spend her entire day at daycare. He had such a love for her and for me and for our little family that we were building.

Very often I would get home – 1, 2, 3am and Carter wouldn’t be there. I was not happy with this. He would have gone out and left Alexia with his mom. He was still doing drugs. I would get angry and fight with him about it, his mom would defend him. Wrong is wrong. You cannot defend someone who is not doing the right thing. And thus the cycle continued.

And herein lies such a contradiction – he loves us so much, he wants only good for us, so many of his actions and words indicate the truth in that, yet so much of his actions go against that. 

THE ARREST

I get a call one night — Carter has been arrested. A guy I knew called me. I thought he was joking. What they thought I was supposed to do at 3 or 4am with a small child I do not know. I told them I wasn’t coming and they must leave him there. I woke his mom to tell her. She went down to the station and got him out.

The arresting cop had asked me if Carter had a problem with drugs. Yes he did — I said. This helped him not be charged because he needed rehabilitation.

That same cop that arrested Carter would pop in and out of our lives over the years. We would bump into him in malls, at our daughter’s sports. Both Alexia and his daughter would –  years later – attend the same school, and have a passion for the same sports.  He had an effect on Carter. 

THE DRUG YEARS ESCALATE

By the time Alexia was a few years old, Carter’s using was out of control. It was an all day every day affair. Things were so bad. Our normal — from spending days on the beach  or camping with our little girl, to dinners and family time — were no longer normal. Our days were spent waiting around for him to spend time with us. Things were awful. I couldn’t tell anyone. I was ashamed. I was embarrassed, but I was also too scared to leave him in case he died. It destroyed me — not to a blithering mess but it was probably one of the more isolating parts of my life. 

His drug use never entered our home, until everyone knew he had a problem and he tried to hide it. He would leave his plate with cocaine remnants lying around. I would fight, scream, beg. 

He would check my phone EVERY SINGLE DAY for hours thinking I was talking to someone else, usually it was his best friend that he felt I was betraying him with. He would trade my phone for drugs then go and buy it back. I lost all my early pics and videos of Alexia. This still hits hard. Not having access to memories so far gone for such a toxic cause pains me.

His dealer used to meet him outside our apartment building. After every binge he would break down in tears. I am so sorry, I need your help, please, you have to help me. I don’t know what to do. Who to turn to. Everyone that was there in his life for him was no longer — some shunned him and others did not know how to help. My mom was worried that the dealer would retaliate and hurt me or Alexia.

I tried everything to get him to stop. Flushed drugs down the toilet, barricaded doors. Begged, sobbed, pleaded 

Nothing ever helped, he always just found a way to get more. We locked the doors, I would hide the keys so he couldn’t get out the apartment. He always found a way.

I had no option but to realise that there was nothing I could do to help. Nothing I could do to stop it. I had to understand that this was beyond my scope of control. 

I had just started a new job, one that paid well. He would call me on my cell, over and over again. If I didn’t answer he would call me at work on the landline. He would accuse me of having an affair. Sometimes he would shout so loud everyone else in the office could hear. I was fortunate enough at the time that my boss seemed somewhat empathetic to my situation. He could not fault me in work performance, and thus was supportive of me rather than judgemental. I had no option but to be to honest with him about my personal life at that point in time. 

In the beginning years, when he got his car, he would drop Alexia at daycare, me at work, fetch me from work, we would fetch Alexia together. We would go grocery shopping together after work. We were a unit. 

This all stopped once I got my own car. It was then all on me. I never truly really realised or even understood the imbalance back then. 

MOVING AWAY

There were break up seasons during this period. Seasons where I would take Alexia and leave, I would begin to heal, and then he would come back. The details of those seasons — the women, the concerts, the moments that branded themselves onto songs I can no longer hear — those belong in their own chapter. What matters here is that each time he came back, I let him. Not always because I wanted to. In all honesty 98% of the time I didn’t want to. It was mainly because I felt so bad for him, knowing that it was his choices that led him to that pain that he was feeling. I always thought that if it were me, and I messed up, would I want to be given a chance to make it right? The answer was always yes. He always seemed so sincere, so remorseful, and whether he used Alexia to pull at my heart strings or he did truly believe the things he said, each time, I chose to believe that this time would be different. We would get back together. Over time, after him proving himself, I would fall in love with him again, things would be great for a while, and then his self sabotaging behaviours would get the better of him and he would mess up again. 

It was Zee’s birthday — more on that in the chapter on women. Alexia was a few months old. Carter’s drugging was escalating. He stole my hard earned money out of my handbag at the party. Between his mom and him never being home and now this I couldn’t take anymore. I was done with the fighting, the arguing, the toxicity that comes with addiction. I had nothing left in me to give. I needed my dad.

It was midnight. I called my dad, I was sobbing. I said to him, I need to come to you. He said he was having a cup of coffee and he would jump in the car. He said he would be there in 18 hours. He kept to his word, and just like that, Alexia and I moved to another city.

In the few months we were there, I signed up to do a nail course to make a better career choice for myself. Alexia was happy, she was a thriving little baby.

I was there for about 3 months before Carter made an appearance. He was sorry. He loved us. He wanted a life with us. He can’t live without us. We returned. All was good. He was amazing. He was the man I fell in love with.

THE PARANOIA

As the drug use increased, so did the paranoia. 

He used to make me cut the wires coming out of the ceiling fans because he thought they were cameras. 

He used to look for used condoms down the sink and bath plugs, he would not believe I wasn’t cheating. One night he even went so far as to check my vagina thinking that somehow a condom had slipped off whomever he believed I was cheating with and got stuck up there. It was invasive. It was embarrassing. It was degrading – humiliating. I stood there, while he underwent his investigation, with silent tears streaming down my face. So often the same thought would invade me – God, why me? 

He was a very sick young man, trapped in the hell that was his disease.

He would check my phone every day, to see what messages I had sent and received. He would look at images and see reflections in them that did not exist, but worse, accuse me of what his mind was telling him he saw. 

We used to have rip roaring fights, me begging him to stop. My mom at one point was scared that I would maybe harm him one day and end up in jail. She was heartbroken. I cannot even imagine what it must have been like for her watching this – and there were only small snippets of what she actually knew. 

He used to have all the curtains closed because he thought we were being watched. Lucky for me at this point Alexia used to LOVE going to my moms and she would often spend the weekend there so she was sheltered from a lot of this. During the week was work for both of us, so these occasions generally happened on the weekend. I was always waiting for the night he would carry on using.

If I went anywhere on the weekend with one of my girlfriends for the children to play, he would call me constantly, questioning me about where I was and who I was with. If I didn’t answer he would accuse me of lying to him. It became easier to stay at home. I didn’t answer not because I was hiding anything — I didn’t answer because I was too embarrassed for someone to have to witness the interrogation I knew would follow.

THE PRAYERS

During my pregnancy with Alexia and for some time after she was born, we attended church together. Carter really did try at many times to turn his life around. We were ushered in with welcome arms — me, this young unwed pregnant girl, with my drug addict boyfriend. We met some amazing people in the church. I don’t recall how long we attended for but certain people still contacted us and supported us long after we stopped going. Many prayed for us, many had had similar journeys. One of the men actually ended up marrying us many many years later.

There were many nights spent where I would feel so utterly helpless, lost, sad, angry, confused. On those nights, lying in bed, I would pray.

I would ask God what the point was, why am I here, am I supposed to be here, and I would be shown a positive. Alexia would wake from her room in the middle of the night, toddle through to me, still asleep, jump into my bed and put her arm around me. This was my sign. Over and over again. I would pray and I would be shown a sign to keep going.

Despite all of the drug using, he had since worked his way up from his old job and got a great job at another company, he was proving himself in the industry. Work wise he was gaining more and more success. 

Then he started missing a lot of work. He was dropping the ball. He never left the apartment unless it was for work.

There is something so destructive in sitting, watching someone you love so deeply, doing these things to themselves. There comes a point when you cannot carry on, for your own sanity, for your own mental and emotional well being, that you have to say enough is enough. Years after these experiences, Alexia started watching Euphoria. She told me one day to watch it, how good it was. I got to the point where Ru (I think is her name) and her mom were having this huge fight about drugs. It threw me into such a spiral, it was so triggering, it took me back so many years – more than a decade – and threw me into that place. Watching both the despair of Ru and her mom, my heart was shattered all over again. I turned it off. I could not bear to watch it. 

He had a 7 day binge. Bag after bag after bag of cocaine. I sobbed, I prayed. I said, Dear Lord, please, this cannot be Your will. Please, either take Carter now, or heal him, but I cannot sit and watch him kill himself day in and day out anymore. Please Dear Lord.

In my healing groups, this seems to have been a common prayer muttered from the mouths of partners of addicts. Different continents, different times, but the same prayer, world wide. Women who had never met each other until they were forced to seek help, coming together over something so devastating, so soul destroying as loving an addict. It takes one person who speaks up and tells of their similar prayer, and the shock at being in the presence of like minded women has a way of healing you. Knowing you are not alone. Knowing you are understood. You are home.

THE FOURTH REHAB

Carter’s using was out of control. My mom put her foot down and said I need to pack because she is coming to fetch me and Alexia. When she came to fetch us, she told Carter she loves him, and if he needs help he knows where to find us. The next day — just after Alexia’s birthday — he was ready to get help. This would be his 4th stint in rehab.  The other two were insignificant because he never maintained true sobriety for any significant length of time. 

My Nana came with me to drive him out to the treatment centre, 45 minutes away from our home. He got out the car. Alicia Keys — No One — started playing on the radio. I sobbed. This song is for you. I love you. With all my heart. Please get better, please come back to us. Please. You are worth more than this. He was broken. Defeated. I was defeated too, but I was also so filled with hope that he was going to get better. Him being in rehab — all I felt was relief. I could stop. Breathe. Reflect. Heal.

For the first week we were not allowed to communicate. Thereafter we spoke every day.

THE WINDSCREEN

One morning, on my way to take Alexia to school and myself to work, I got pulled over. I was terrified. Here I had my little girl in the car and I was already running on empty (physically, mentally and emotionally). Carter had shattered the windscreen on the driver’s side in a fit of rage, over some petty fight about something I don’t even recall. 

I started sobbing. I said please, my boyfriend has just gone to rehab, if you impound the car I won’t be able to get my daughter to school or myself to work.

He looked at me with so much compassion and said — okay, my partner has watched me pull you over, I will have to give you a fine for something. He asked to see my licence. I sobbed. I have no licence. He asked to see my learners permit. I did not have one. I sobbed harder. 

God was watching me that day. The officer could have thrown the book at me, but he chose to give me a small fine and let me be on my way — but not before pleading with me to please get my licence because, were I to be in an accident, even if caused by someone else, I would be liable as I am driving unlicensed. 

I thanked him, sobbed some more, thanked God, and off we went.

That evening, when Carter calls, I tell him what happened. He freaks out. I did not realise this is the perfect excuse that he had been waiting for that would justify him leaving. The rehab tells him that if he leaves he cannot come back.

RAPHAEL

The next morning, he left the rehab. He hitched his way into the neighbouring town and asked someone for money to call me from a call box. 

I’ve left — he tells me. They are brain washing me. I can’t take this. You need to come fetch me. 

I am at work I say, I cannot leave. 

He is crying. This is terrible, I can’t take it, they have me locked up in a jail he says. 

I can’t leave work, I tell him.

I call the rehab, speak to a male we both know from there. He tells me if I come and fetch Carter I am setting him back in his recovery. I cannot come and rescue him. He has to know he is all alone, there is no one to bail him out this time. Carter calls my mom. My mom tells him she loves him but he needs to go back to the rehab. He is lost. He feels alone. He feels deflated, dejected.

He is sitting on the side of the road. He looks up, and across from him, walking in the street, is a guy — Raphael — that he knows from his Narcotics Anonymous meetings. Raphael looks up and sees Carter. He comes across the road. God sent Raphael to Carter that day. This moment right here is one of the pivotal moments to Carter’s recovery. They sit, they talk, Carter cries, he goes back to rehab. We were banned from talking for the next 2 weeks. He is there for 2 months.

RECOVERY BEGINS

After the ban is up, we visit often, picnicking in the gardens when he is not allowed out,  exploring the little town he is in once he has earned exit rights. The man I love is coming back to me. I am so proud of him. There is nothing like watching the man you know, the man you love, the one with the heart so big he would give the shirt off his back to someone in need, the one who will anything for those he loves, who was so lost, coming back to you. The love, the overwhelming relief. He is back. Our family is back. This is good. THIS is our new beginning. 

He had an awful experience one night — he said it felt as if a demon was trying to hold him down to the bed. This could have been the first time he picked up his bible. The first time he was not in recovery for me. Not in recovery for Alexia. He was there for HIM. Because he was tired. He was done. He had had enough.

The morning that reflects so clearly in both of our minds was the morning he woke up and had his awakening. He was standing outside, looking at a beautiful big tree they had in the garden at the rehab, and he said he felt a complete sense of peace and serenity wash over him. He knew from that moment that God had entered his life and he would never touch a drug again.

In later years, I think very often on this memory and wonder how it could all still go so wrong.

He lost his employment while he was in rehab. He came home, helped me cook, helped me clean the kitchen. He was a changed man. Once again, he has to make amends. He tells me of an incident he had when he went away on a trip and slept with another girl. I have to forgive him because it’s in the past.

He never did touch alcohol or drugs again after this recovery period. He is now many years free of those vices. But this brings us to the scariest part of all. That active addiction does not look like drugs or alcohol. Being sober does not mean you are free from the other shackles of addiction –  and what it really and truly represents, not only for the addict, but for those that love them too.