To feel so scared? Dh and addiction to prescription medication

[meadowposy]

My dh is addicted to medication, he was on codeine and says he hasn't taken any since April 11, I do believe him.

He has however been buying so much elsewhere in my name mostly. And so I can see he's replaced one addiction with another.

I know everyone says oh ltb. But it isn't that easy.

Neither of us have any family who help, we have very young children, we have no support at all basically.

Also he is not harmful to me or kids. He does it all away from our sight.

He's not always an easy man to live with but I do love him. And he's the only help and break I get. I just feel scared.

He says if it comes out he will kill himself. I really do belive him. He's tried twice this year already. I would feel responsible. It's no good people saying I wouldn't be I would feel it.

Just in despair.

Congratulations, meadow!
I hope you and your baby are very well and enjoying getting to know each other

Your H is showing lack of insight and denial. This will NOT stand him in good stead.
It sounds to me that this is the start of his house of cards coming tumbling down. I suppose at least his patients are now safe from him making decisions at work while under the influence.

Please, please, PLEASE, do what you can do to make sure his downfall does not take you and your DCs including the new baby down with him.

I hope you have RL support around you.

You cannot help him.
You cannot control what happens now.
You cannot cure him.
This is NOT your fault. Or your responsibility, Or your problems.

It is HIS.
And he is still not taking ownership of it.

You MUST step back, you MUST let the inevitable happen.
He may be close to reaching 'rock bottom' which is what many addicts require to fully engage with the process of recovery.

YOU need to accept that you are quite powerless here.
Your priority needs to be your children, not a grown man.
Please.

There's no point in him going to rehab until he wants to. It won't work otherwise. Hopefully, now that work are on the case, he will come to realise it's the only thing to do, and they will encourage him to see it as a solution.

I say this as an alcoholic with over eight years sober. If anyone had challenged my drinking, even three weeks before I concluded I had a problem, my reaction would have been to fall out with them and head to the pub.

Meadow, do what you can to keep yourself and your children safe. If nothing else, please talk to your health visitor so she can support you.

He gave the last of the gabapentin to me.

He's worried in case work ask for a drugs test. He tried to come off all of it completely cold turkey but he couldn't.

Meadow he won’t be able to come off it all by himself. He will need proper help. Going cold turkey with that level of addiction would be horrible.

As a doctor he must know that. I think medically supervised withdrawal would involve very gradually reducing the dose. Or replacing with something that is easier to withdraw from. I know from reading about coming off Citalopram that you need to do it very very gradually. Ore gradually than even most doctors realise.

Someone up the thread gave a number for a confidential service he could call. Or you could. And just ask what they advise.

I know cider but he just won't, no way.

I think every time he tries and fails he slips more into self loathing.

It wasn’t a number but a link to Sick Doctor’s Trust. They are specifically for doctors with a drug or alcohol addiction. I’ve just googled ad the website popped right up.

How about you call them? It will be confidential. They may have some suggestions for how you can help him. And after you get some information he might be willing to talk to them himself?

I get that. I’m sure he does hate himself.

Ok so you call them. You need to talk to someone. They might at least help you.

He would kill me cider

I really genuinely would fear for my safety. And I don't even care but I have children.

Meadow I really don’t know what to say. Why would he kill you? In the midst of how he is feeling now he is panicking at anyone knowing. But he’s been suspended. Work already know there is SOMETHING going on.

Could you call without him knowing?

If not I think your only option is Women’s Aid and a refuge. Something needs to change.

No good

I have tried all this before. No matter what some insist womens aid themselves told me he is entitled to see his children, unsupervised, he is their father.

On here I read and believed that you the mother can insist on supervised Contact, you can't.

It's just a matter of trying to stick it out. Not easy though.

My thinking about the women’s aid and a refuge is that you leaving might be his rock bottom and he might get help then.

And as I said earlier he would have to take you to court to get access. No court will give access to a drug abuser. So although women’s aid might tell you he is entitled to see the children unsupervised if the courts and social services are involved he will have to jump through many hoops to get unsupervised access.

Do you have family you could go to?

Please listen to CiderwithBuda, their advice is accurate. If you're in a refuge your husband will not know where you are, hence there will be no visits or access to the children. Once he does know where you are - when you have a place of your own - you can refuse him access until such time as he has applied for and been granted a court order. The court will listen to you, and they'll take into account the views of social services and the support worker from Women's Aid. If you give them the full story (with your evidence) then they won't allow unsupervised access until such time as he proves himself fit to care for the children. Before that he may get visits at a visiting centre, with supervision.

No one is suggesting this is going to be easy, but not taking steps to remove yourself is going to leave someone dead. It's no exaggeration given how serious this situation has become.

No matter what some insist womens aid themselves told me he is entitled to see his children, unsupervised, he is their father.

You need proper RL legal advice.
Please seek help - he is not helping himself, you are living in fear for your life, your children are NOT in a safe environment.

Change is horrific and scary and hard, but as your H is too unwell/caught up in his own shit/being a prick YOU have to be a grown-up here and pull the emergency break.

Whenever it is safe to do so, leave with your DCs. Go to the nearest Premier Inn if Woman's Aid cannot put your up. THEN look at what the next steps are.

You are in danger and you are keeping your DCs at risk.
Please do something rather than just being the rabbit in the head lights.

What happened to the more recent thread, please? I posted at some probably boring length on it, and have come back from work to see what is going on - but see it has been deleted. I hope the OP is ok.

Mumsnet deleted it saying they did not allow threads like that.

But they allowed the previous threads. What was different about this one?

I’m not sure, the op did make reference to feeling suicidal so maybe that was it?

I would like to know. It is of course essentially none of my business, but I did spend the day at work thinking about it, having posted at some length. So it would be nice to know what happened.

I've just read this one, missed it when it was originally posted. On this thread OP is clinging on to WA telling her that her H will get unsupervised access as a reason not to do anything, despite being told that he would have to go through court to get access.

Nothing's going to change until change is forced on her.

I also read another thread of hers posted a couple of weeks or so ago, saying that she doesn't love her children. I'm sure she does, but it seems she's shutting down, distancing herself from them, in case they get taken away?

Musicaltheatremum I wanted to like where you posted the number for the Sick Drs Trust

www.imt.ie/features-opinion/the-professional-path-to-recovery-12-07-2013/

@BerkInBag I'm wondering if this the same person? I have to say he is a complete gentleman as he was my GP for 17 years including the time spell of his first addiction and relapse. I know that link is in relation to the Irish medical times but to clarify where he was based was in NI albeit less than 5 miles inside the border, I still live in that general direction, We could be in the same area but I'm not living in that town now -

@meadowposy how are things now?

Have you managed to get any advice for yourself? Any support in real life? If you can would you even consider emailing women's aid and give them a brief outline and see if can offer you any advice as I really don't believe your OH would be allowed access to the children on his own and when and if he was it would be in a contact centre supervised. They can support you and their helpline is open around the clock everyday

www.nationaldomesticviolencehelpline.org.uk/

www.womensaid.org.uk/the-survivors-handbook/

www.womensaid.org.uk/information-support/useful-links/#1447861212244-86327b99-16a9

You are in an abusive relationship apart from everything else, you need to get out before he destroys you and the children and if he wants to he can sink his own ship but by then he will be exposed and IF he is suicidal he can be brought into hospital against his will (sectioned) for treatment for what I'm guessing is depression underlying which is possibly what he started out self-medicating from. It doesn't excuse what he is doing to you,

Once the cat is out of the bag, you will be safe elsewhere with the children and he will hopefully get the help he needs. Don't let him bring you down you deserve better than this and so do your children

@smurfy2015 you're wasting your breath, OP has been given countless numbers and links, including the ones you've posted, across all of her threads, but she refuses to do anything.

She'll be back again with another thread asking if she's BU, and so the cycle will continue. The only way this will be resolved is when he gets hauled over the coals and SS become involved.

@smurfy2015 not the same person, my friend was a hospital registrar and not in NI.

Clearly there are many doctors who go through this and seek help and can still keep working. It's sad the the OPs husband can't see that. However, I think from what she says he is deeply mired in his addiction and all the irrational thinking and manipulation of reality and loved one's (I'll kill myself etc) that goes with that.

is he a Dr?