What The...Rx Narcotics From Iran?????

I couldn't believe what I was hearing.  I stood there literally in shock.  A thousand thoughts going through my mind.  Did I love this man enough to stay??  Do I just abandon ship now??  How will it look if I left someone in his hour of need?  Can I do that and live with myself for just dropping him like a hot potato??  He literally needs help.  He doesn't seem to think so, but he does.  His only concern is his job?  Come on, seriously?  What about his health and life?  Are doctors that out of touch with reality  that they think they can handle all and every possible situation including their own addiction??  I stood stunned, listening to this craziness and working on a way to process it.  7 years later...I'm still baffled and working on a way to process everything that happened then as well as everything that happened since.

Let's take a step back possibly about a month or so after we were married and about 2-3 months before my stunning discovery.  It was yet another evening where I had had enough of the lack of his interest in me.  I was once again bringing it up.  As difficult as it was for me, I even tried watching porn with him.  It didn't work for me or him.  I just couldn't get it.  He then says, it is because he took a Tylenol with codeine.  It is probably a side effect of it.  I took a step back, looked at him, and said, "Why in the world would you take a Tylenol with codeine???"  He hesitated and said that it was because of a tooth ache.  Come on!  Was I born yesterday?  That was complete and utter bullshit and I called him on it.  I asked him where he got it.  He said that it was prescribed to him.  I said when?  He said that his cousin's husband had prescribed them to him right after the wedding.  Interesting...what for?  So he gave me the whole tooth ache song and dance.  I got up went into the bathroom vanity and checked on the bottle.  There were about 100 pills prescribed.  100!!!!  There were 6 left.  6 out of 100 pills left!!!!  94 pills taken over the course of one month!!!!  Is he effing kidding me!!??!!  That's an average of about 3 pills a day.  That's insane!!!!  I can't even take one pill.  I hate how it makes me feel.  I shared this with him and he says (oh God I can't believe he says this, but he does), "Some people get dysphoria but most people feel euphoria.  I experience euphoria when I take it."  But yet, the story was a tooth ache was it?  Ridiculous!  Caught in his own lie within the same conversation!  I was livid!  I once again lost my cool.  I screamed.  I yelled.  I threw the remaining 6 pills into the toilet and flushed.  You would think I flushed his first born down the toilet.  It was his turn to lose it.  He almost hit me several times during his screaming rage.  The wall right near my face got a pretty good beating.  I was scared out of my mind.  He cornered me in the bathroom and was using some real psychological torture technique on me.  It was the first time I was literally afraid of getting my face obliterated by a psychotic freak.  I thought about walking out then.  I didn't know what to do.  I had no place to go.  I had no money to my name.  I wasn't employed.  I had spent all of my money on the wedding - literally every dime that I had was spent on the wedding as he contributed approximately $250.  I was trapped!  There was no amount of persuasion that was going to get me to sleep next to him that night.  I was afraid.  I had no money.  I had no one in this shit town in the middle of no where.  I had no credit cards either.  Literally trapped with no options!  I was up all night that night and the next and the next.

It took him 3 days, but he apologized.  He talked about how much he loved me and how I was his whole life there and we only had each other, etc.  I still had a huge knot in my stomach and I didn't know what else to do.  He hugged me, begged for my forgiveness and promised that he would never touch any of that stuff again, buuuuut...he warned that if I ever pulled a stunt (a stunt?) like that again that he would divorce me on the spot.  Wow!  Comforting!!

Let's fast forward about 3, maybe 4, months later.  I was in a school doing a substitute teaching assignment where I couldn't use my phone so I typically kept it in my purse turned off.  When I turned it back on, there were about a dozen voicemail messages from him asking me when I'd finish.  They started out calm and then turned into panic and then just crazy.  I called him back immediately.  He needed me to come home quickly.  I asked if he was hurt or if he was in danger.  He said no that it wasn't anything that required immediate attention but it was urgent and he really needed me.  I promised to be home as soon as the last bell rang.  I said that I was sorry that I couldn't just walk out as I'm there substituting for someone else but I'd leave immediately.  I only had about an hour and a half left.  I raced home to see what was wrong.  Small town = home in 5 minutes.

When I got home, he was pacing the apartment in a panic.  Back and forth, sweat pouring down his face, his dark face red and just basically he was a mess.  I asked what was wrong and the story came out:

He had been randomly selected for a drug test.  He was positive for opiates.  Why the F would he be if I threw what was left of any narcotic in the apartment down the toilet was the thought that came to my mind and I asked.  So, apparently  one of his coworkers was going through some real live personal problems.  His life was a mess - a real mess.  I don't want to get into it right now because it really is sad.  He was Iranian and he was bringing in the Tylenol with codeine from Iran in vitamin bottles.  He was smuggling narcotics into the the US and providing my dear husband with pills on a regular basis.  He was panicked about his job.  He had just started his residency.  The year before was just a way for him to get in the door, but this was the real deal.  This was his career.  They would probably retest him.  He was suspended immediately until further investigation.  I was stunned!  He was taking prescription pills from Iran that were smuggled in vitamin bottles and his fear was his career?  How about jail?  He wasn't a citizen yet.  He only had a green card.  How about deportation?  This was a mess!!!  He was worried about what his mommy would think if she found out.  I was thinking how fast do I get out of this?  But where do I go and what do I do?  He then asked me to go with him to his friend's apartment so that we can make sure he doesn't say anything about the Iran smuggling thing.  Ok...so at least he is thinking about this.  We go to his friend's apartment and his friend is now only concerned that no one point in his direction.  What buffoons!  What assholes!  No one even thought to admit there was a much bigger problem - a narcotic drug addiction among the residents of this program.

For the next 3 days, I nursed this ass through his withdrawal but it wasn't until his 4th day that he admitted that it was withdrawal and he started talking about the dangers of narcotic withdrawal.  He swore he would never touch the stuff again and never take anything again.  He promised that he was a changed man.  I then started hearing about all the stories of how back in the Middle East, pharmacies are not as monitored as they are here and he started experimenting at his friend's father's pharmacy.  While they were learning about pharmaceuticals, they would go back to the pharmacy and try them out after hours.  It was then that he realized that his drug of choice was narcotics.  Wonderful!!!  Thought: so, I married a thief who is also a drug addict!!  This is going to be great!

I don't know why I decided not to leave.  I have no idea.  It might have been the notion that marriage is forever and it is possible he might change.  It might have been my upbringing.  I was taught that there's no getting out of marriage for any reason.  I remembered a story that I had heard years before when I was really young.  My dad told it about a woman who had left her husband and went back to her father's house.  I had asked my dad what he would do and he had said that he would send me back to my husband.  Marriage is forever - for good or for bad.  FML!  I believe that was the thought process during this time period.

Somehow, after the fourth day, I remembered that I might not have thrown out the bottle of his Tylenol with codeine.  I found it, gave it to him and he was able to get out of the "situation" because it is conceivable that he would have 100 pills for 4-5 months.  I wish I didn't help.  I really wish I just let him fry.  I wish I didn't have my father's voice ringing in my ears because as it turned out, my father would not send me back to my husband.  I wish I was wiser.  But hey, you can't cry over spilled milk, you just move on and make the best of things.