Growing up I was very lonely. My mother is a very cold and unloving person. My dad was fun, but he was gone a lot. I wanted so much for my mom to approve of something I did. I remember going to my friends houses and seeing all their artwork on the refrigerator. I wanted my artwork on the refrigerator. When I put something on there, she told me it cluttered things up and took it down. That still haunts me to this day.

As I became a teenager, I discovered that I could be loved by the opposite sex. So I began to go out with boys, and lost my virginity very early. I thought if I gave myself to a boy he would love me, and I would finally get what I had been lacking all those years. I think back to that time in my life and become very sad. I was very manipulative and expected so much from a man. I expected all my problems would be solved if someone just did exactly what I wanted them to. I had many failed relationships. I'll only highlight the most significant ones. First there was Jim. I met him at college. I was in nursing school. Another failure, by the way. Jim was what you might call a "free spirit". In other words he could never keep a job. We dated on and off for about 4 years during my early 20's. He was the perfect compliment to my co-dependent nature. He could never decide on a major, never keep a job, and never live up to his younger brother. He drank a lot too. We were planning on getting married Then came that summer before I was to enter nursing school. I was so proud. I had finally done what no one said I would be able to do. I got accepted to the School of Nursing. Even my counselor said I should pick another major. And then as quickly as my life was set, it was instantly changed. I got pregnant. Jim and I were so happy. I wanted for so long to have a child. I felt like having a child was the way to be loved the way I wanted to. So Jim and I found an apartment on campus. It was right across from the bars on a very busy street. I didn't care at the time where we were living. Just that we were going to be together all the time. So there I was, in a horrible cock-roach infested apartment, getting ready to have a baby. I had morning sickness all day long. I couldn't eat anything without throwing it up later. How was I suppose to succeed in school like this? I made the decision at that point to have an abortion, something I have regretted ever since. It was the worst day of my l e. I did it though. My little baby was gone. Jim and I stayed together and continued to plan our wedding. Things were never the same between us. Eventually, it did end. He ended it and I hated him for a long time. I didn't date anyone for more than a year.

If I may digress for a moment, during my first quarter of college, I was welcomed to the real world. College was very different from anything I had ever experienced before. I became very depressed and thoughts of suicide were very prevalent in my mind. It seemed like the only answer to my problems. I had been depressed most of my life that I can remember, but this was the worst. College was so hard. They expected us to read entire books in one week. Jim was no help. It was his first quarter as well, and he was all new to this too. One day in about the 8th week of the quarter, I came home from school and took a box of over-the-counter sleeping pills that I had bought previously for a halted suicide attempt. My dad took me to the hospital and I spent a week in the psych ward there. In the emergency room my dad told me he loved me. It is the one and only time I remember being told I was loved by my parents. I began intensive counseling, and my mother hated it. She had to actually talk to me about feelings. How awful. The depression was still there. No more thoughts of suicide, at least not that I admitted to anyone.

On my 23rd birthday I went out with a friend of mine and made the decision that I was going to find a man to use to make me feel better. I did. I got very drunk and went home with John. I thought he was gorgeous. Our relationship was totally based on sex. I thought I loved him. We drank a lot together and he told me we would have beautiful children. I was totally mesmerized by him. Looking back, I'm sure I was merely a distraction for him. He did leave me with a lasting impression though. A lovely case of crabs and venereal warts. Thank God that was all he left me with.

During this time I was working at a doctor's office. There were 3 doctors there. I gained many skills there, but it definitely taught me about loyalty to employers. It was that time that I decided to become a nurse. I lasted 1 quarter at the first school of nursing I attended. I hated it. So I transferred to a local college. I lasted 2 quarters at their school of nursing and dropped out. I was a failure. I failed at school, at relationships, and at being a daughter.

While working in the doctor's office, I met the man I would eventually marry. His name is Cliff and he is a doctor. He joined the practice after I had been working there. I was dating John at the time and he called me at work on Saturday, wanting to know if I wanted to get together with him. I was shocked, yet I knew there was something there. I felt it too. I got butterflies everytime he looked at me. But he was married so I stayed away, until he called me. We got together and began sneaking around, keeping our relationship hidden from our boss and his wife. I spent every moment waiting by the phone, hoping he would sneak away to call me. I remember he was in a swim club that would swim on Wednesday night. One time he went there and got his bathing suit and towel wet, and then came over to my house. I was living with my parents at the time. He had to come over when they weren't home. I fell madly in love with him. Eventually, he left his wife and gained custody of his 2 sons. She went nuts. In the years that followed I was determined to fix his miserable existence. At one point she kidnapped the boys and disappeared for a month. He was miserable. I wanted him to forget his past life and be with me. Of course, he couldn't. I thought I could give him everything he needed. Why did he need those kids to mess up my plans?

When the dust settled, I needed to get another job. I started working at a local hospital as a unit clerk. I prided myself on being a total bitch. I made so many enemies, but I was glad. All they wanted to do was mess up my life. I left that job after a year, and began working in another doctor's office. This time there was only 1 doctor and it was on a "lower class" side of town. I was still seeing the Cliff. We broke up several times, but always ended up back in bed together. I got an apartment also. My money problems began at this point, as did his.

I still wanted a child. I still didn't have the one thing that I needed. That unconditional love of a baby. I knew if I had a child, I would love that child so much that it would never feel the hopelessness I felt as a child. Cliff and I had a very sexual relationship. I always wore a diaphragm, but I took it out too soon, knowing full well that I was risking getting pregnant. I wanted to get pregnant. Working at a doctors office I was able to run my own pregnancy test. Things weren't that great between Cliff and I, but a baby would change all that. We would have a child together, instead of the leftovers of a failed marriage. Sure enough, my carelessness paid off. I got pregnant. This time I refused to have an abortion. I told Cliff. He didn't know what to say.

Soon after that I moved in with him. I moved into the house that he lived in with his ex. I hated everything about living there. It was never really mine. We even slept in the same bed that he slept in with her. I continued to work until about my 8th month, and then I worked part time. I was miserable. All this responsibility to take on all at once. But someone loved me and needed me, and if this was what I had to do to be loved, so be it. Cliff couldn't function without me. I kept everything together, except myself.

On September 9, 1991, my baby was born. My little girl, Mackenzie. I had read all the books and gone to a bunch of classes, so I really knew what I was doing. My child was going to be perfect. As I have come to understand, I was living in a dream world. Raising a baby was nothing like I had expected. I had decided before she was born that I was going to be a stay at home mom. "Little Suzy Homemaker". That lasted for a couple of months, and I went nuts. I started to resent my little bundle of joy for taking away all of my freedom. Cliff was a big help with the baby, but I still wasn't getting what I needed. Nothing was going according to my plan. And no one loved me the way they were suppose to. My relationship with the boys deteriorated day by day. I really hated them. They were selfish, rotten, brats. They never lifted a finger and they lied to me constantly. I tried to talk to Cliff, but he didn't know how to communicate. He never knew how to communicate. He was never open about anything. I thought I could change that, but I never did. When Mackenzie was 6 months old Cliff and I got married. Now I was a wife, mother, and evil step-mother.

Since I wasn't working, I made a decision to go back to school. Not in nursing. I went back to the same local college and enrolled in their medical records tech program. This was a new beginning for me. It was also the beginning of the end of my marriage and family. I went through many baby-sitters for Mackenzie. I had many fights with Cliff and the boys. Finally one day I had it. I had already told Cliff that I wanted to leave. The boys were monsters. His ex-wife had meddled in our lives for the umpteenth time. He was never there for me. I hated everything about myself. I got into a physical fight with the older boy, and that was it. I left.

Where did I go? To stay with my mother. Did she drive me nuts? YES. Had she changed at all? Not much. Maybe she had softened up a little. She loved my daughter. She always knew just what she needed, as if I didn't. After all, I was never any good before, why should now be any different. I stayed with them for 2 months and then began renting the house next door to them. It was such a blessing to have found that house. I got a dog, Max, and everything was perfect. I hired a lawyer and began divorce proceedings. I also started a new job at a local hospital in the medical records department filing charts. I also began attending a divorce support group. I also was seeing one of the counselors individually. I told her how after all these years, I was again thinking about suicide. I would lay in my bed at night and hear trains in the distance. I imagined throwing myself in front of one. The group helped a lot, but what really helped was the fact that after all those years of depression, someone finally suggested anti-depressants. At first I didn't like being on them because I didn't feel anything. No emotions at all. I gave it some time though and soon I began feeling normal. I felt like a normal person for the first time in my life. I began a new relationship, I was sure I knew what I needed. He was very nice. Cliff found out and went ballistic. During the time we were not living together, we still "dated". In other words he came over to my house and we had sex. Something was definitely going on with him, but it wasn't my problem. After all we were no longer going to be married.

When Cliff found out about the other guy, he assumed I was sleeping with him. I wasn't, but I could feel myself falling into my old pattern of throwing myself fully into making that person so happy that he could not live without me. I broke it off with him when I started feeling that way. He was mad, but I knew it was what I had to do. I decided to give Cliff an ultimatum. Either we got divorced and stopped seeing each other, or we got back together. If we got back together, though, it was going to be on my terms. He agreed to all my terms, which I found out later was in desperation. He had really hit rock bottom and I had no idea.

In March of my 29th year, I graduated from college. I got an associates degree in Health Information Management and a great paying job waiting for me when I had finished. All the hard work I had done in the file room of the hospital paid off. I got my foot in the door, got to know the managers, and got my job. Things were really starting to fall into place. In June of the same year, after I turned 30, Kenzie and I moved back in with Cliff and the boys. The boys were teenagers now. I went into it with a completely different attitude though. No longer was I going to fix their lives. I learned when I was away that they really had a reason to resent me. After all, their mother didn't have time for them and their father didn't have time for them. So I was the primary caregiver and disciplinarian. A third parent. How awful. Two is enough.

Now as quickly as things fell into place, they all came crashing down with a huge thud. Cliff called me at work and told me he was in trouble. He had been caught writing prescriptions for narcotics, using my name. He was being investigated by the medical board. He had to hire this very high priced arrogant lawyer to defend him, and he had to stop drinking. I knew he drank a beer everyday, and smoked pot every once in a while. This was all I knew. But he was hooked to narcotics too? He began seeing a counselor and we began marriage counseling. One night at about 2:00AM I got a call. It was the lawyer saying Cliff had been picked up by the police and was going downtown to jail. I was shocked! Taking the anti-depressant had made me a very heavy sleeper, so I had no idea. His older son and I went to the bank and managed to get $600.00 together from various credit cards and went downtown to get him. He was very embarrassed. He told me he needed help and that he couldn't get off the drugs by himself. I really had no idea his problem was so serious.

He entered his first treatment center the beginning of August that year. I swore I would stick by him and that we would get through this. At that time the boys were staying with their mother for the second half of the summer, so it was just me and Kenzie again. I could do this. We did it for a year. Cliff spent 3 weeks there. I wrote him every week, sent him balloons, and told him I would stick by him no matter what. We could get through this together. When he came home they wouldn't let him go back to work right away. He stayed home for another week and then went back to work full time. Long hours and outpatient treatment and meetings. He was never home. I resented AA for taking all his time away from us.

He was back at work for 2 weeks and he relapsed. I was so angry. How could he do this to me? What had I done wrong? I had to tell the boys, who were back living with us at this point, that dad was going back into treatment. I came to the realization that it didn't matter what I did. He was going to lie to me no matter what. The director of the treatment center sort of took Cliff under his wing. He had me come in and talk to him and Cliff. I was so angry I could hardly see straight. Cliff had made a timeline of his drug use and he shared it with me in that meeting. He finally came clean with me. His drug use was much more serious than I ever could have imagined. The narcotics were only the beginning. He was addicted to crack cocaine and had been spending all our money on it. He had several dealers he was buying from. He had been held up at gunpoint, cut buy a knife, and one of the dealers got shot and killed the same night he had been at the guys house. He lost his bank cards stealing money from ATM's. He had stole from his office. He even charged up our gas card because he found out he could trade cigarettes for coke. I was totally in shock. How had I been so stupid and blind. He was doing all this and lying to me. I felt like throwing up! I went home and just collapsed. How could he do this to us? Didn't he love us?

An old friend of mine who was working at the treatment center called me one day and told me to try Al-Anon. AL-ANON? Why should I go to Al-Anon? I didn't have a problem. It was all his fault. He was the one ruining our lives!

I got a list of Al-Anon meetings, got my mom to baby-sit, and went. It was OK. The people were very friendly. I even got a personal welcome, because it was my first meeting. They followed the 12 steps adopted from AA. So that's what Cliff was learning about. I decided that since I was a Christian, I could skip the first 3 steps. I already knew God was in control. They read from a daily reading book. I could do that. It wouldn't hurt. Besides, it would help Cliff recover. They also suggested I attend a family workshop, which was free. Well, I could do that, since it didn't cost anything. So I did all these things. But something happened that I didn't expect. They wanted me to focus on myself and my recovery. It was all so confusing to me at first. What did I need to recover from? It was Cliff with the problem.

Keep coming back, it works if you work it. Those words echoed in my head. When Cliff went back into treatment for the second time, I finally realized that I did have a problem. No, I didn't drink, but I was so dependent on other people, and so controlling of everything. I thought I was a very open and honest person, but the truth was, the only feelings I ever felt were other peoples. I never actually felt my own feelings. It was too painful to face myself. I didn't like myself and I didn't want to feel. The 12 steps made sense all of a sudden. Focusing on my own recovery was the best thing I could do for Cliff. It was so simple!

Cliff was released from the treatment center and spent a month at home. In December--actually it was Christmas Day--he went back to work. I don't remember exactly what happened, but all the work I had been doing somehow got lost in my brain somewhere, and all my old habits slowly began to surface again. In January, right after his birthday, Cliff relapsed.

I was totally devastated. He was using coke again and had a positive drug test. Even with the threat of me leaving, him going to jail, and weekly drug testing, he still thought he could get away with it. I was so lost and confused. I thought things were OK this time. I thought this was all over! I came to realize it is never over. Once you begin a 12 step program, you can never get away from it. I had made some really wonderful friends at my job and also I found an excellent counselor. I also went back to Al-Anon. Cliff entered another treatment center, this time in another city which was an hour away. The program there was at least 3 months long, and maybe longer. He had to tap into his retirement plan to pay for it. The boys and I and Cliff all sat down and had a family meeting. I remember the younger of the 2 boys saying how he felt like it was his fault that his dad started drinking because he got some bad grades. That struck me very hard. I made him tell his dad that was how he felt, and Cliff tried to explain to him that addicts always have an excuse to use and it was nothing he did. It was his choice to deal with his bad grades by snorting coke.

It was a very long 4 months, but we made it. Cliff did get to come home on weekends, which made it easier. I took a very good hard look at myself during those 4 months and I can honestly say that at this point in my life, someone loves me. I love me. No, I am not perfect, and I still slip a lot, but for the most part I am a good person. I no longer worry about how I look or what other people think of me. I am much more patient and forgiving of those around me. And with the help of my Higher Power I take each day one day at a time, knowing everything happens for a reason and that my HP will take care of me.

It is now June of 1996. I have been in Al-Anon for a year and a half and have now found a cyberserenity group on the internet, too. My story ends here, but it is not over by a long shot. I still have a lot of work to do on myself. Cliff has been clean for 5 months now. I don't know if I can handle another relapse, but I know my HP will be there for me, and as always, I will take one day at a time.