A little over two years ago, I was married, employed, traveling the world, and on track to being nominated for two of the top awards for someone in my chosen profession (I got one of them, but that’s further along in the story).  Basically, things were looking good.  I was happy.

I was also clean and sober for 12 years.  My wife had been clean and sober for 5 years.  Or so I thought.

One day, I was cleaning the bedroom, and I came across some pills.  They were in an unlabeled bottle.  They didn’t look like any pill I knew.  My wife came home later and I asked her what they were.  She nonchalantly told me the pills were Klonopin and that her friend had been sending them to her for years to help her to sleep.  Years.   This was news to me.   For those who who don’t know, Klonopin is part of the benzodiazepine family which includes Xanax, Valium, the list goes on.  I knew of them because I had been addicted to Xanax when I was younger and they had destroyed my life.  For some reason, though, I shrugged it off.  I didn’t think twice about her keeping the fact that she was taking pills from me.  Things were okay in our lives, right?   My wife was getting and taking prescription drugs illegally, but there was need to to rock the boat, was there?  We were happily married.  I certainly wasn’t going to take them.  What could go wrong?  Looking back, yeah, hindsight is a wonderful thing.  The lies we tell ourselves are amazing.

A few weeks later, a stressful job, not sleeping much, I saw the pills.  I reached for them. The excuses.  Just one, I told myself.  My wife takes them and she’s an addiction counselor…say what?  Yep.  You see, there were a thousand and one glaring signs that things were not well with my wife, with our relationship, and with my own sobriety.  But at the moment I went for that pill, all I wanted to do was check out for a night.  Get some sleep.  Maybe it was to run to/from a relationship that I subconsciously knew was in deep trouble.   I am still piecing it together, but I will say that I had no idea that I was setting myself up for the most hellish ride I had ever experienced in my 50 years on this planet.