Our day-to-day life looks very similar to yours. We don’t talk much about addiction. It’s not a focus. It’s not the first thing on my mind when I wake up.

There was a time when it was though. There was a time I thought I could never not think about it. But life finds a new rhythm and things that seemed so hard and life-shattering can, after time, not feel so earth-shaking.

We’re on vacation this week, traveling around the west in our camper. A few days ago, we were in Keystone, South Dakota, exploring Mt. Rushmore National Park. On the way back to our campsite, we stopped at a touristy shop to find a bumper sticker to commemorate our visit. From across the store, I saw Chris looking at some woven pullovers. Think hippie-wear people sport at Grateful Dead concerts. I made my way over to Chris and said, “No stoner sweatshirts, sorry.”

He laughed and then I took a picture with him making a sad face next to the display because he couldn’t buy one even though he said he’d wanted one forever.

Six years out, we can laugh about an ugly stoner pullover. That moment feels like a big milestone because for so long, nothing was funny about our life and Chris’ addiction. But I love funny things. I realize that sentence is probably stupid to write, but I’m serious, I love to laugh and find humor in the most ridiculous things. Some would call it immaturity.

I call it being really good at life.

I find comfort in being at the point we can laugh about what Chris is and what our life has become. I used to make fun of my aunt who has a mustache and now I have one. I used to love watching Intervention and now I live the storyline. Life is strange.

There are some things that aren’t really funny though too. While the Chris that emerged from a drug haze is a more wonderful version of the one I fell in love with, there are some lasting effects to his drug use that remind us how serious and how destructive his choices were.

Chris has short-term memory issues that are more severe than just normal, stereotypical “I’m a guy and can’t remember things” stuff. He often forgets things he’s been told more than once.

One night after dinner with some girlfriends, I came home late and we talked about my night as I got ready for bed. He was already in bed reading and I shared updates on my friends and life as I removed my makeup and got into my pajamas. We talked for about 20-25 minutes. We also talked about what was happening that weekend with our daughters.

The next day, Chris asked a question about something we had talked at length about the night before. It annoyed me that he forgot and I tried to jog his memory about our previous conversation. He had no idea—not even a vague recollection–what we had talked about. He couldn’t remember a single thing from the almost half-hour long conversation. He didn’t even remember that we had talked.

This happens a lot. He can remember minute details from high school, but can’t remember what we did last week. His short-term memory is still greatly affected, all these years later.

In learning about Chris’ drug habits, he confessed a lot of times, he’d smoke pot or do whatever else he had in our basement when I wasn’t home or after I’d gone to bed. He had hidden stashes in our basement and during his addiction counseling, he was told to get rid of the spots he associated with his habit. Like if you’re an alcoholic who sits in front of the TV in your recliner every night after work and gets drunk while watching shows, you need to get rid of the chair, rearrange the living room, and establish new routines. So many little things can be triggers so you need to prepare for them and set yourself up for success. For Chris, that meant rearranging our basement to get rid of the area he spent most of his time in.

All these years later, I still get a little anxious if he’s been in the basement too long. Which is silly because he’s in charge of the laundry at our house, so he’s down in the basement often. But I would be lying if I told you I never wondered every once in a while what he was doing down there.

I know addicts can go for years and then relapse (thank you, Intervention). I’m still always on guard, even when things feel relaxed and safe. It doesn’t take away from my life, it just makes it different.

This time last year, Chris started a new job as an electrical apprentice. We were so excited about this opportunity; it was a raise, a new career, and more ways to grow professionally. But what felt like an answered prayer quickly became an unsafe place for Chris to be. Because he was on construction sites, he was surrounded by guys who lived differently than he wanted to. What I’m trying to say is there was a lot of drug use. And while the one guy he worked with every day understood his struggle and respected it, drugs were still readily available and around him a lot. So he made the tough decision to quit his job and return to exterminating. His former employer graciously took him back and he has felt a peace about the switch.

Addiction still dictates a lot of what we do and where we go. There are places Chris can’t work. There are ways I can’t rearrange our house. There are people we can’t hang out with. If you use drugs and want to be our friends, it’s probably not going to be a very deep relationship. It just can’t be—we’re not judging you on your choices or preaching to you about why you shouldn’t do what you do–but we are, for the health and safety of Chris, not going to do life with you. That might sound harsh, but Chris being clean and sober is more important than us having more friends.

That’s what addiction recovery looks like six years later. I feel like this point is where we just keep doing what we’re doing. Chris is not currently active in any programs or recovery groups, but that is always a possibility and a welcome addition to our schedule if he feels like it’s needed.

I ask myself a lot if I’m scared of Chris relapsing. The answer is yes and no. Yes, because I don’t want my husband to do anything that would hurt himself, take him away from our family, or for him to be in a spot that makes him feel so lost he thinks drugs are his only answer. And no, because I have a peace that passes understanding for whatever comes.

I don’t know what tomorrow holds. And I’m okay with that.

Chris Graham and I had a come-to-Jesus one afternoon in a cabin on the side of the Smoky Mountains.

That was our first of many hard talks in the coming weeks and months. When Chris got caught after years of hiding and sneaking, he wasn’t really ready to give up his habits. He had excuses, rationalizations, and good lies ready. I have no doubt he had rehearsed this day in his head for a long time—he wasn’t dumb; he knew it would come eventually.

The thing about addiction is it lies. It tells you what you’re doing, what you’re sacrificing, how you’re living, isn’t bad.

When Chris would sit in his truck after work and get high instead of coming home, I’m sure his addiction told him he’d be a better, calmer dad and husband if he just took this little detour before joining his family.

When Chris would take off for a weekend or longer with friends for a road trip filled with drugs, I’m sure his addiction told him he deserved this break from responsibilities because he worked so hard when he was home.

Wading through those lies and figuring out what Chris really thought versus what his addiction told him was hard. Chris and his addiction had been intertwined for so long that he wasn’t sure what was his and what was the drug’s.

That’s what was so hard about all of this. It wasn’t so much the addiction (even though that is really hard and terrible and destructive), but it’s that he had lied to me for years. It’s that I didn’t know what was real and what was Chris on drugs. It’s that I thought everything was fake.

Trust was gone.

I believed nothing he said.

I was sure I never could again. Those initial weeks and months, I could not fathom looking at Chris and not first thinking that he was a liar and an addict. I thought those words would be the lens I would see the rest of our lives through, and I just didn’t see how I could stay married like that.

When I found out, just days after Chris’ addiction bombshell, that I was pregnant, it didn’t change much for me. I was already a mom to Ellie and had no doubts I could be a divorced mom. One more kid didn’t change my perspective.

But for Chris, it made something click.

Another baby, one that he might not be involved with like he had been with Ellie, sobered him up fast. He found an out-patient addiction treatment program which allowed him to still work during the day. He cut all ties with his drug friends, the ones that helped him get what he needed, helped him smoke what he had, and helped him hide things from his family. He reached out to other friends, friends that would ask the hard questions and support him when he was struggling, and told them truths about his life for the first time.

As all of this was going on, Chris was not living in our house. When we returned to Indianapolis from vacation, he packed his belongings and went to stay at his mom’s house. I couldn’t see past my rage and it was just safer for both of us if he wasn’t at home. Plus, I truly believed we would be divorcing and him sticking around any longer was pointless.

I didn’t pray for a heart change, I just prayed for strength to do life on my own.

But I know now there was a small army of people praying for our marriage, our hearts, and our healing. Mostly it was just family and close friends, we weren’t broadcasting what was going on with Chris, and we weren’t telling people we weren’t living together. I was too ashamed and embarrassed.

After a few weeks, Chris asked me to join him for the weekly family session at his rehabilitation program. Begrudgingly, I went.

I remember sitting in a circle with families of addicts and wanting to scream. They were sharing stories and asking questions and listening to the counselor and I just wanted to explode I was so mad. THEY KNEW THEY WERE LIVING WITH AN ADDICT. I DIDN’T KNOW.

I felt so betrayed.

Addiction is never just about addiction. If it was, it wouldn’t be so hard. If addiction didn’t seep into relationships and jobs, marriages and dreams, it wouldn’t feel so encompassing. For our life, addiction was in every part of it and I had just never seen it.

Rebuilding took time.

About once a day, I thought can this be over now? Can I just be back to normal now? But there is no normal anymore. And, I think, that hurt the worst. I didn’t know what home was anymore. I didn’t know what love was anymore. Because everything I thought was wrong. Everything I thought was a lie.

I don’t remember the exact moment I asked Chris to come back home. But I remember he cried. I was still cold and angry and not ready, but I was experiencing extreme exhaustion with my pregnancy just like I had with Ellie and it was making things really hard at home. Working full time and then caring full time for a one-and-a-half year old was kicking my butt and I just needed help.

I know without a doubt God timed that pregnancy perfectly. He knew I was too stubborn and too full of pride to try to work on my marriage so he gave me a little baby growing in my belly to knock me to my knees. I needed Chris because staying awake to feed dinner to my daughter was too exhausting. I needed Chris because getting off the couch to put my kid to bed was too much.

I needed Chris, and it pissed me off.

Fall 2010 was hard. The longer Chris stayed clean and sober, the more things came to light. The things I learned on the porch that July afternoon were just the tip of the iceberg. More than once, I felt like I just couldn’t hear anymore, couldn’t handle anymore truth.

But it had to happen or we weren’t going to heal. So Chris talked and I listened. Chris asked for forgiveness and so did I. He mentioned yesterday in his post about the hell ride from Tennessee to Indianapolis. To this day, I still cringe at the things I said. I have a way with words–a gift–and I can use that gift to uplift or to tear down. I knew all the right, cruel things to say to Chris on that ride home and I made sure to say them all. I was so hurt and so angry I just could not stop.

Chris needed forgiveness for his choices and so did I.

I wish I could give you–you who are hurting and wanting answers–the quick way to heal. But there is no such thing. We healed because of God’s grace. We asked for help and He worked some miracles on our hearts. Yes, we did hard work too—conversations, meetings, groups, books, more conversations—but the transformation that took place couldn’t have happened through all our hard work alone.

I don’t know what made me decide to stay married to Chris. I had such an easy out and no one would have faulted me for taking it. And things kept getting harder for a while. Things were hard for a lot longer than I imagined they would be, for a lot longer than I felt necessary.

Eventually, with time and God, I stopped looking at my husband through the filter of liar and addict. He had to prove himself again and again to make those labels go away. This took years. We had good days and bad days. As Chris re-emerged from his drug haze, we met a less patient man who sometimes yelled. I had never, in all the years I had known Chris, heard him yell. Ever. I was seeing emotions and reactions, both good and bad, I had never witnessed before. Being off drugs made Chris Graham more interesting, more human, and more real.

I loved who he was becoming as he stayed clean and sober longer. I fell in love again, with someone different but better. All the things I loved from before were still there, but brighter, shinier, and more colorful.

I had no idea that healed could look so good.

Hi.

My name is Chris Graham, and I am an addict, an alcoholic, and I am saved by the blood of Jesus.

This should be how I introduce myself to you. It’s how I was taught in Alcoholics Anonymous, Narcotics Anonymous, Celebrate Recovery, and my Chemical Dependency Intensive Outpatient Program. The “saved by Jesus” is from my Celebrate Recovery groups and is the most important part.

This is hard for me to do. I don’t talk about my addiction often and you have to be pretty close for me to do so.

My drug of choice is marijuana. I’ve also partaken, in no particular order, of mushrooms, acid, ecstasy, cocaine, various pain killers and amphetamines in pill form, alcohol, opioids, and heroin. I have never used a needle.

My father is an alcoholic, wine was his drink. I can remember being fourteen and he was passed out on the kitchen floor. My mom called home from my younger brother’s baseball practice with a dead car battery and needed help, so I drove my dad’s car to the baseball field, jumped the battery, and got them home. I remember swearing to God I was never going to touch a drop of alcohol. I could see where that would lead, and I wanted no part of it.

So instead, I smoked everything. I wasn’t drinking, that’s how I rationalized it. I thought I could do everything else, but as long as alcohol never crossed my lips I was golden.

Fast forward to when the Mary Graham entered the picture, she can give you the dates and my age, I’m fuzzy on the subject. (Mary interjection: We started dating in October 2004. Chris had just turned 21. I had started pretend-dating him in my head a few months before October, but apparently I’m not allowed to count that since he didn’t know about our relationship yet.) I was still not drinking then, just smoking pot on a daily (…hourly…after work…whenever I wanted) basis. I never used around her and when we started dating, I tried to quit cold turkey.

Let me pause for a moment to say that I was baptized at the age of nine. I was raised a believer and have always, in some capacity, been a believer in God. I bought into the lie of the devil that the Lord would use me to make others better in the midst of my drug use. I could keep on sinning to make the word of God true, which we know is not right according to Romans 6:1-2. But that was what I thought. I was in the worship band at my church. I was in the teen ministry telling kids to not do drugs and then I’d leave them and go do drugs. I felt that in my failures I could lead others to a better place. And that’s a lie.

So I gave up drugs.

I knew Mary and I were going to get married even though I hadn’t proposed yet. I remember dropping her off after a date one night and throwing my one hitter and its dugout out my truck window. I was through. It was over and I had made my decision on where my heart was going to reside. Then a year or so into our marriage I said, “I would like to try beer.”

This wasn’t a smart choice.

My memory isn’t great, but it took about .5 seconds for my mind to say this drink isn’t what I want.

So I was drinking beer now. Knowing my proclivity to drink and addiction, I set as many safeguards as I could. If Mary felt I was getting out of hand, she could just say the word and I, the obedient husband, would stop.

But that’s where the devil knew he could get us, or me, specifically. Mary only knows about the drink, only the beer. But I can get mine on the side; a hit here, a hit there. You buy the right weed, the potent stuff, and that’s all she wrote. And if you’re smart, that’s all you gotta do. But whoever said an addict was smart?

In July of 2010, we went on a family vacation to the Smoky Mountains, a great place to hang out in the woods and get stoned.

And I did hang out in the woods and get stoned.

And I got caught.

Imagine your world just dissolving. Gone. Mary may have mentioned something different, or similar, but I can still see her coming through the door as I was exhaling. My first thought was “oh crap.” Those of you that know my wife know the rage that she can possess. I say this to all of you, you have no idea. I laid on the porch after she threw my stash over the cliff and wept. Not for my stash, but for my balls. She hated me with all of her being in that moment. I was five hours from home with no car, walking my only means of escape. I was toast.

So I cried out to God.

Our church’s minister has always said the sin you hide in the dark will always be brought into the light eventually. It will happen. Change hurts, so either you admit it and tell your friends when they ask, because they know you’re not in the light, or you suffer the consequences. And I did, I suffered the consequences.

I mentioned my wife’s fury. It not the anger that people think it is. It’s the pain. I broke her in that moment. Think about that. I’m crying just remembering the look of betrayal on her face. And that’s how she masks it, with anger. Being a stoner/pothead, I am detached and less likely to get angry. I don’t do confrontation. After enduring three more days of vacation with a family that knows I am doomed and that they will never see me again, I had to endure the hell ride home in a car alone with Mary. My wife had decided my (read: our) fate as she cried, screamed, and hurled insults in my direction for the whole drive home.

That’s what this anniversary still brings up in me. Even after six years I can remember the pain and the brokenness. The tears and the threats. I’m still amazed I even made it home sometimes. Ha, humor. This has been a sad story and I’m sorry. It is a sad one, but it turned out great after a time. There is redemption, as there always is with Christ.

Mary and I came back from that trip 6 years ago with divorce as the only option. God said no. You all know Harper. She’s awesome; a week and half after my addiction discovery, Mary told me she was pregnant. And that’s where my redemption started.

I went to rehab.

I started dating my wife while we were living apart.

I worked at becoming a better husband and a better daddy.

And life was different.

In Colossians 3:17 it tells us we are representatives of Him. And I failed at being that to so many people. I was living a lie and showing everyone a lie. That’s what I remember.

I am better now because God ripped what I thought was only mine in the dark, out into the light for everyone to see. Sure, I fail on a regular basis, but I’m doing it clean and sober now, and there’s peace in that. That’s all I do for my girls.

These are my ramblings, and my very long story.

 

(Side notes from Mary: Chris typed this by hunt and peck which makes me laugh so hard. Watching my cute little husband peck away at my desk was a fun role change. Also, he used the phrase “funk that” in a sentence and I removed it because I said he was not allowed to say “funk that” on my blog. He said that was censorship and something about the man holding him down so I’m letting you know he wishes it was in his story but I said no because I am a mean editor.)

 

On July 16, 2010 I learned I was living with a drug addict.

Funny how learning that made a million little things fall into place. So many parts of my life made sense suddenly, things that never added up, things that always felt off.

But a million other things fell out of place that day as well.

Six years later, some of those pieces never really came back to me. So much of the puzzle that was our life before July 2010 was destroyed forever. But what did come back fit better, felt more right, filled in the cracks and completed things in a new way.

This week’s posts are going to be hard. Some things you read might be hard to swallow. Some things I have to tell you still make my stomach turn. Also, because this is such a private and emotional story, please understand there are parts that won’t ever be shared. Some of it just can’t be. Some of it just shouldn’t be.

I still worry about telling people my husband is a drug addict. He’s a recovering drug addict, but an addict nonetheless. I’m not afraid people will judge me (I don’t care what you think about me. SCREW YOU. Just kidding), but because there is a lot of stigma that comes with the word “addict” and I feel so protective of him. I don’t want to tell people things about Chris that will make them think less of him or question what a great dad and husband he is. I am married to a kind, loving, patient man who loves Jesus and his family very well. But because our world is broken, he also struggles with addiction.

Addiction is ugly. Addiction makes you do ugly things. Addiction makes you think ugly things.

So we’ll have to share some ugly this week. But it ends well, I promise.

Let’s get started:

Is the show Intervention still on TV? I used to watch that show ALL THE TIME. Back in the day when we had cable and I was watching more TV than reading or writing, I would DVR Intervention and watch episode after episode. If you haven’t seen the show, each episode focuses on how addiction is ruining the life of someone and then their family and friends stage an intervention at the end. You’d never know if the addict would take the offer for help because addiction lies and so many addicts don’t know how to say yes to help even if they want it.

So the show would go to commercial as you wondered if they would fly off to the rehab facility and try to get clean and sober. Then the show would end with an update on what has happened to the addict since the show ended.

I was obsessed with these shows. I found them fascinating.

What I find ironically funny and not-funny-at-all is I was living in a house and sleeping in a bed with an addict and I didn’t even know it.

How’s that for a plot twist?

So much of Intervention would be about the lows these people had sank to and how much of their life they had ruined. For us, it was a little different. For one thing, our home life was relatively normal. I knew Chris had smoked pot and done some other drugs before we met. I did not know any of that had continued once we were dating or married. Chris knew how I felt about drug use–I’m not one to mince words or let my opinion not be known–and so he was well aware I wouldn’t have been okay with what he was doing. So he kept it a secret.

Our finances weren’t impacted greatly by his addiction either. Since we’ve been married, I’ve been in charge of the finances and know where all the money is and when it leaves. Chris was supporting his habits with extra spending money he had or through tips he’d earn at work and just not mention. We weren’t ever financially strapped or near financial ruin because of his habits.

These reasons, I think, helped Chris rationalize what he was doing. All his drug use was during work, while he was driving in a car by himself, or when he was at home without me. I’m not his babysitter, and we both like some independence, so it was no big deal to spend time without each other often. That made it very easy for Chris to use drugs daily and have no one notice. During this time, he was also a stay-at-home dad with Ellie. That made things easy too.

Knowing that he did drugs with my daughter at home is something that still destroys me. I’ve forgiven him, but that still smarts a lot if I’m being honest.

There were other little things I didn’t understand were drug-related at the time, but made sense once I learned of his addict: the day he couldn’t stop throwing up and I demanded he go to the ER. He fought me on it, but eventually (because I am very persistent) we went and they were able to get him to stop. Knowing he had taken something that made him that sick and when we went to the hospital, he lied about what was going on, makes things very real for me. He could have died; the doctor could have given him something that reacted badly with what he was on; there are so many things that could have happened that day. But Chris wasn’t going to give up his secret to the doctor or me—he was in too deep.

Another time, our car needed brake fluid and Chris, while on drugs, put power steering fluid in the brake line doing a lot of damage to our car. I was furious and couldn’t understand how he could do something so careless. He was adamant he didn’t do anything wrong and we fought about it.

Now I know he was so out of it, he didn’t even realize what he was doing.

If I was reading this, I would ask how I could live for years like this and not know.

That’s a really good question I don’t have a good answer to. I have no idea. Hindsight shows me all these little clues, but at the time, everything could be explained away by something else.

I remember one time catching Chris in a lie that seemed pointless and dumb. I hate lying. I think it’s weak and lazy. Either live your life in a way you can tell the truth about it or make better choices, but don’t lie. I yelled at him, “If you’re lying about things that don’t matter, what else are you lying about?”

That was a very smart thing to ask. I just didn’t realize how smart at the time.

So I am smart on some things and dumb on others.

When all of Chris’ lies started unraveling, one emotion I had to deal with a lot was how absolutely dumb I felt. I was so naïve, clueless, too trusting. I was blind and, obviously, an idiot.

I had to work my way through those webs of lies for a very long time. What I got at the end was Chris’ addiction has nothing to do with me. Absolutely nothing. This is his thing and projecting it on myself hurts him and me. (This lesson fits anytime someone lies to you and you feel the aftermath of it; if your spouse cheats on you, it has NOTHING to do with you; that was their choice.) Once I removed myself from never-ending cycle of asking “what could I have done differently?” we were able to get down to the business of helping Chris fight his addiction.

That fight is still going strong six years later. Once you’re an addict, you’re always an addict. So welcome to the club, get comfy here. But the exciting part is, you can earn the word “recovering” to add to the title and the freedom that comes with that is better than any high you can buy.