My partner has a real problem; she has a Crack habit which she is in total denial over. She also has an alcohol problem. She engages with the local harm minimisation team on her own terms. Every two weeks she attends her session (With a remarkably good worker!) and gives the usual pee sample, which usually turns up negative. It is clear for one simple reason; she does a lot of crack the week she is not due to see her worker and subsequently stays off it the week she is doe to collect her methadone script. It still makes me question why the drugs support workers simply allow this to happen.
Every year she does the same thing. Her ex-partner shows up to see his son after 6 months or so of not bothering to pay him any attention whatsoever. After a few weeks of this, they start drinking together (Her partner is a serious alcoholic that usually takes their 8 year old son to the local street drinking places to enjoy the company of half a dozen or so utterly drunk individuals). She will come home late completely intoxicated and be totally incapable of looking after her 8 year old son or our 7 month old baby. She will come home angry, she will come home having been drinking with her ex for hours and she will come home with our baby. Yes, with our baby; she will simply take off in the morning and bring our little one home (somehow, as she is usually incapable of any real parenting) and start the torrent of abuse that has become our relationship over the last three years. The abuse is always the same; she will tell me how useless I am, what a terrible father I am, how all her other men have been far better than me (Which is odd, since all of her previous partners have been violent to her). Once this cycle has gotten itself under way she will then start the crack cocaine nightmare once again. She will find every excuse and opportunity to take as much crack as she can lay her hands on. Her 8 year old son once spotted her getting into a car a few weeks ago and casually remarked thats the crack dealers car and then went on to describe it perfectly from memory ending with saying I know, because she goes in it a lot sometimes. I will find gauze hidden in strange places or even left occasionally on the floor. She will have sudden fits of going to the toilet every few minutes leaving the obvious smell of a freshly burned crack stone. She will of course deny any crack taking despite the obvious odour and fog left in the toilet. I should also add that these sudden onsets of needing to go to the loo every few minutes rather conflict with the fact she is extremely constipated due to the methadone and codeine phosphate which she routinely binges on. Recently I caught her smoking crack in our bedroom just before our baby was due to go to sleep. She was actually smoking it right over his little Moses basket. Again, she denies everything and tells me and everyone within earshot that I am being a control freak. This goes on and on; going out with her ex, coming home utterly wasted with our poor baby in tow, abusing me verbally and every now and again punching or hitting me.
Then we get to the Cocaine Psychosis. Now here is true Hell on Earth. She will have so much crack (with her ex or some of the working girls she likes to hang around with, again, often with our baby and very often with her own son) that she completely changes from the loving woman with whom I fell passionately in love with, to a paranoid, hateful, spiteful and utterly horrible monster with whom I seem destined to do battle for the rest of the evening until she finally passes out. She will tell me the most shocking things about me and during these rages; she really does hate every sinew of my being. She utterly despises me. She wants to destroy me and she will make sure that I know the full depths of her profound resentment.
I have left her twice in the three years we have been together because of just this. I have always returned to her once she has completely crashed and pick up the pieces, telling her that I will never leave her and that I love her.
This time things have been worse; far worse.
Our anniversary was a few weeks ago. I had been working just outside of London one Sunday morning. I am a professional musician and among the instruments I play I am an organist. I had been playing for a dear friend who is the Parish Priest of a church well known for its music. On the way back (with her son, who is usually in tow as he gets a free train ride and fast food!) I popped into the perfume and potions place at Victoria station and made sure I celebrated out third anniversary with some expensive fragrance and the usual gamut of cards and flowers. On the Monday in question, which was our anniversary I came back home from shopping with our baby to find her ex and her getting drunk on special brew, playing happy families in or front room. I told him exactly where to go and left for a few hours. He was still there when I got back. He did leave then as he knows that although I am a pretty mild mannered guy, I am more than capable of looking after myself. When this ex of hers has had a few drinks in him however, he becomes abusive, aggressive and very unpredictable.
This is becoming regular.
This evening, she came in so drunk and full of spite that I called the police. She was utterly incapable of looking after herself let alone her son or our baby. She was angry, swearing at me, calling me every name under the sun, saying things that she hoped would really upset me; hurt me. She followed me from room to room in our flat so she could carry on trying to destroy me. I would manage to get away from her only to have her push or ram her way in to the room I had just moved to. I would move away and ask her just to calm down or to ease up and stop the stupid name calling and threatening. Once things had calmed down she would start up again. She recently removed me from the tenancy of our home, so I have very little security. All at once I realised that her ex was in the front room and was seriously insulting, undermining and threatening me; all while she was not only encouraging him but actively joining in. Even her 8 year old started chiding me and that he hated me. Now, it would have been very easy indeed for me to knock seven bells out of her ex as he is a typical bully and woman beater (in case you had forgotten, he spent 8 years beating the living daylight out of her) and simply cannot fight. It would have been all over in a matter of thirty or so seconds; the ambulance would have taken him away; the police would have taken me away and we would be in an utter mess. So, here is what I did; I listened to his threats, told him that he was really just nothing and not even worth my anger and went into the bedroom with my baby. Things progressed from bad to worse.
What may seem strange to you is that it has taken only a matter of a few days to go from a loving partner and mother to this vengeful daemon. This, above all, shows me that she has been hitting the crack very hard. I know because I have seen her do this before. She still finds it perfectly normal that she took crack while she was pregnant. She did exactly what she always does when her drugs worker confronted her about it; she lied. Her worker just wrote a little note in the corner of a ledger that will never be read by anyone and that was that. Simple. Effective. Wrong.
She has drunk too much she is wasted
She has done so much crack that she is actually psychotic she is mentally ill
She really doesnt know the difference between reality and fantasy
She is paranoid
She cannot look after her children
She will do it all again tomorrow
Im leaving with my baby tomorrow morning. I will simply go shopping and not return. I will probably lose all of my clothes, possessions, books, music and instruments; but my baby will be safe and my baby will be with the one who loves him. I dont even have somewhere definite to go with my little one; but nowhere is better than the certainty of the Hell I and he have been living though. When the police came round they didnt really do much, in fact they made things a tad worse. Let me tell you what happened.
Sheryl was drunk, abusive and paranoid. She told me that we had ran out of baby wipes for out little one (who does, like all babies, need rather a lot!). I offered her 10 to go and get some. She sent forth a volley of abuse. The police did nothing. She stared cleaning our little one after a nappy change with some toilet paper or something similar. I went to the shops to buy some baby wipes. They were of course the wrong ones. They were the worst ones. They were the cheapest ones. The list goes on. However, by the time the police had left the events had changed in her mind to me calling the police because she had used toilet paper on our son. Seriously.
She then proceeded to tell our unwanted guest (Yes, her beloved, woman-beating, alcoholic, junkie ex) exactly the story as it had been rearranged in her head. How I called the police just because she had used toilet paper and not baby wipes. He was aggressive, rude, insulting and very threatening as I described before. I still kept my composure and did not hit him.
So that is that. I am going with my son tomorrow. The police are perfectly happy with my departure. They have involved social services with her own son.
She will completely freak out once she has realised that I am not coming home and neither is my son. She will call the police and accuse me of Kidnap (she really never uses the gerund). She will drink more booze. She will get more drunk. She will call her ex round. They will drink more booze and get more drunk together. She will hit the crack really hard. They will undoubtedly destroy my things. I will be away and my son will be safe.
If you have any faith at all; its time to pray
You must save yourself and your son. Her addiction is not your fault. She is sick and should not have children anywhere around her. Sending you strength.
