I was enraged, and Stephen wasn’t even coherent.
“He needs help. He’s sick.” My voice was shaking with anger.
“He had a prescription. Just FOLLOW it.” This doctor was a piece of work.
“Please, just help us,” I said, trying my hardest not to punch this guy’s eyes out.
The doctor glared at us both and said, “I’ll be back.”
Where was he going, to take a fucking smoke break?!
Stephen couldn’t speak, but I could tell he was scared for his life. He was barely coherent but I could see him in there, trying to fight his way through this. Suddenly his back arched, his fists clenched, his body seized up completely. He had gone into a full-on seizure, shaking and jerking so hard he almost fell off the table. He turned blue.
I screamed as loud as I could for someone to get in here NOW. Stephen went stiff. The doctors and nurses raced in the room and put the defibrillator on his chest.
I was screaming. I couldn’t stop screaming. Two nurses grabbed my arms. “You need to leave, ma’am.”
“No! No!” I yelled.
The doctor rubbed together the sides of the defibrillator. “CLEAR!” I watched Stephen’s chest arch with the electric current as I was torn from the room.
They put me in an empty waiting room down the hall.
I begged and cried, but they wouldn’t let me out. I couldn’t stop picturing Stephen’s stiff body and blue face. I thought he was dead. I paced and paced, every minute felt like an hour. I was terrified that I had lost him. After twenty minutes a nurse came in the room.
“We stabilized him, but he needs to medically detox immediately. You have to take him to a rehabilitation center right now.”
“Okay. Okay.”
“We’ve given him some anti-seizure medication, so he should be fine for a bit, but you need to go right away.”
Wait, I had to drive him? In my car, which was not equipped with emergency medical equipment or personnel? How were we going to make it there?
I must have pulled out my phone and called some rehab centers, but at that point, I was on autopilot. My hands and feet were moving without me. I wasn’t in my body. I found a rehab center in Tarzana that would take Stephen, and I got him in the car. He was so out of it, he didn’t recognize me. I started the car, but I was so petrified he was going to have another seizure. I was so afraid he was going to die in the car, but I just drove. I had to get him there.
We made it there without incident, and he went straight into the medical detox program for thirty days.
I stayed in our two-bedroom apartment in Santa Monica for those thirty days. I talked to his mom every day about how he was doing. I went to visit him when visitors were allowed, but I still kept my plan to move into that Venice apartment. The thing is, I didn’t know if he was going to stay sober after he got out of this program. A medical detox safely brings you back to sobriety, but it was up to Stephen to stay that way. I didn’t know who he was going to be when he came out of this. He needed to get sober and get better, and I couldn’t be responsible for that. No one could get him sober except him.
At the end of the thirty days, I went to pick him up. He looked like himself again. He told me that he didn’t feel ready to be out in the world, so he had decided to go to an all-male rehab facility. I smiled, because that showed me he had a lot of willingness to get better. He knew that he had been inches away from death, and he saw everything he had to lose. He was timid and kind, and a lot closer to the Stephen I knew before, but the scars from the past months were still there. I hadn’t forgotten how he treated me.
I dropped him off at the rehab facility and went back to our apartment. He started on the 12 Steps again. Fifteen days after he began rehab, family and friends were invited to visit, and I went to see him in his room. After he had updated me on all the new friends he’d made, I knew I had to tell him something. This was the reason for my visit.
“Stephen, I’m going to move out of the apartment for a while.” I looked down at the table. This was so hard. Stephen looked deeply into my eyes and nodded, looking like he felt all the pain he had ever caused me. Finally I met his gaze. “I don’t want a divorce. I just think we need some distance so you can work on your sobriety, and I can focus on me.”
“I understand.” He tried not to show any regret or sadness, but I could see his disappointment in himself.
There I was, separating from my husband while he was sick in rehab. It felt complicated, because one of the tenets of my sobriety is to forgive, to see people as sick and doing their best rather than as evil. But all that didn’t change the fact that I did not trust Stephen. It didn’t mean that I had to sit and take the abuse when he turned into a monster. True, he wasn’t himself when he was using, but that didn’t change the fact that he was dishonest and verbally abusive. I knew Stephen was a good man. But I also needed to be sure that the drugs were gone.
After his second rehab program ended, I moved into the small apartment in Venice under a three-month lease. Stephen moved back into our apartment and worked through the 12 Steps.
I kept working and stayed as busy as I could.
When Stephen got to Step Eight, making amends, it had turned to autumn. He flew to Chicago for a day to see my parents. He had the cab drop him off at a flower shop near my childhood home, where he picked up a bouquet for my mom and planned to walk the rest of the way. Then, just like in the movies, a clap of thunder rang out and it started raining.
“A sprinkle never hurt anyone.”
With that cue, it started POURING. Stephen was instantly drenched, and the flowers looked like they’d gone ten rounds with a kangaroo. He knocked on my parents’ door and my mother opened it, completely surprised to see a wet man in a drenched suit.
“Erm. Hello.” Stephen waved awkwardly.
“I’ll get you a towel.” My mom rushed from the door, leaving Stephen to stand next to my dad uncomfortably.
My dad clapped him on the back. “Went for a swim, huh? Not very good weather for that. Weird decision to make.”
“Do you mind if we all sit down together? I’d like to read something to you both.”
My parents glanced at each other. My mom handed him the towel and led him to the living room couch.
Stephen pulled a soggy letter out from his pocket. He carefully peeled it open and drew a shaky breath, sitting on the long floral couch right where I used to watch infomercials every night as a child until I fell asleep. He read his amends to them.
My parents both stared at him. They weren’t used to apologies or direct, earnest communication. Or people who were willing to change. My mom felt the urge to fill the silence. “Ummmm. That’s really nice.”
Stephen continued, “Please, I want to work to make this better.”
“You’re still wet, let me—let me get you a new towel.” My mom rushed to the linen closet.
Abandoned, my dad tapped his heel awkwardly. Then he pointed to Stephen’s arms. “You been going to the gym?”
My mother was aware of what had been going on. I had told her about the pills and how mean he had gotten. But my dad . . . it was all news to him, and deep emotional confrontations aren’t really his forte.
“Um, not so much recently.”
“You know, when I go to the gym I listen to an iPod. I play some Nirvana, a little Beatles . . . you know, the greats. That just makes the whole experience better. And then—wham bam—you’ve run a mile! Good stuff, those iPods.” My dad then got up and joined my mother over near the towel closet.