She's at NA.

For those of you who aren't familiar with the recovery communities, that's Narcotics Anonymous. She's mandated to go three times a week. She used to blow off going on the weekend, when she had to go two times a week but it's been upped to three times and the weekday meeting she went to lost their space so if she doesn't want to write another 12 page essay about why she wants to continue to work in the nursing field, she's gotta go on the weekend.

Now don't get me wrong, I'm not lily white; I've done my share of drugs (and some of your share too, depending on the substance). I used to deal pot when I was a teen; dabbled in coke, x, drank some, have even experimented with some prescription drugs. In the same vein, I've screwed my life up with MY addiction: sex. If you scratch the surface deep enough I'll tell you that in the pursuit of gratifying my body sexually I completely alienated my first wife, leading to the current child support arrangement I suffer through now. I'm not proud when I tell my 20 year old son of the hijinx I performed, the combinations of people I slept with. The best I can do is to explain to him that sex isn't love and that you build your self esteem from the inside out, or from the bottom up, and not by chasing someone or someones you can press your body against to ignore whatever pain you're in.

But I've been around this barn before and I'm here again WITH HER because I didn't have the sense to leave sooner and she made promises she was just gonna break and she never, never intended, through the three counselors (one joint counseling) and gastric bypass operation (an unmitigated disaster) to deal with the ISSUES driving the behavior. When I met her 8 years ago she was addicted to painkillers; she stopped because she had to, to keep her job, not because she wanted to clean up or be a better person or make our relationship work. Last year the iron deficiencies from the surgery left her addle brained; she t-boned a car, screwing up a prior injury at the base of her spine. Instead of exercising, stretching and walking she's just ignored it, stole pain pills from work and got more loopy in the head; five months later she was forced to start this program and now she's exhausted, angry, petulant, hates her lot in life, has been put on at least 3 different new, additional medications to regulate her mood and simply can't accept and deal with the fact that her life looks like it does because she's made it that way.

My son is great by the way; he's looking into the macintosh operating system as a hobby for the summer.