Love in the year of addiction

January

Love your alcoholic...
Nobody understands this better than Neha. She married one. The extent of her love goes beyond all reason or common sense for me. It's a bloody mystical kind of love in a weird way. It's a love that knows no limits of endurance... He can beat her... cheat her... humiliate her. He can set her up and frame her and then knowingly wrongly accuse her. He can imprison her lock her up I store room bathroom... lie to her... scam her... manipulate her. He can give her a venereal disease he picked up from women he sleeps with. He can turn her children against her, spy on her; ridicule...rubbish and mock her in public. He can threaten to steal her children and run away to another country with them and tell her she will never see them again. He can abuse her in front of those same children. All these things he can do and still she endures. She loves him.

March
Neha's love is a certain kind of horror isn't it? What I can’t decide is if the horror is him or her or just an overall combination of the two. Maybe the horror really isn't him the narcissistic, diseased, cruel, weak, mentally deranged, pathetic alcoholic; maybe the horror is her. She gets down before him on her hands and knees and submissively says, "Kick me." So he does, he kicks her. That sort of thing appeals to his nature after all. Then she gets up and tells everyone how bad she has it; how he kicked her. You poor thing! How can you take that? Why don't you leave?

May
"I don't know... Its for my kids... for my family... in hope of better future...I don't know..," she shakes her head incredulously, "How do I put up with it?" and as she says this she mentaly prepare herself to get down again so he can kick her for the hundredth time that day.

July
He got a notice from his office again, her alcoholic. He is again sent to a rehab. Not because he wanted to be there, but because he was mandated to be there. She is confident that when her alcoholic returns he will be a changed man. He has been registered manier times before also, but she has never felt as hopeful as she does this time. This time he is going away to be cured. She feels freer now, her dark mood lifts and she starts to make plans for herself and her children. Life will be better now. She is positive of this and as the weeks pass she builds her strength in mind, spirit and body.

September
Neha is thinking more clearly now that he isn't around clouding her thinking and she resolves that if her alcoholic returns an unchanged man that she will take her kids and leave him. She does not deserve this treatment and neither do her children. She is a good mother and a good person. These sentiments are reinforced by her friends who continuously tell her she doesn't deserve it and that she is a good person.

November
All Neha has ever done is love her alcoholic. She has lied for him, cleaned him up and done what he's told her to do no matter how irrational, absurd, painful, repulsive or morally wrong, . She loves him so much that she willingly casts her own soul aside to join her soulless soul mate on his journey to perdition.
But when he is away from her and his influence over her is weakened (although never completely gone because of the excessive phone calls) she begins to see that the price of loving her alcoholic is too high. It isn't worth sacrificing her soul and the souls of her children. She makes practical plans to get out just in case he comes back the same man. Neha isn't a stupid woman, just a woman inculcated with loyalty for her alcoholic abusive husband.

December
She calls it love, but it seems more like mind control. When she is away from his influence she is a transformed woman, but the moment she hears his voice she becomes virtually helpless and devoid of original thought. Consequently, the competence she demonstrates as she devises a plan for her big escape is an unexpected surprise. It turns out Neha has a strong family support system out there and isn't one of those isolated, beaten down, codependent wives. It turns out she could easily get a decent paying job and does just that. It turns out she can pay her own bills and make her own decisions. It turns out that she does look beautiful and she is sociable and interesting to talk to. It turns out she can assert herself and articulate her words well. It turns out that not only do her kids survive without their father around, but they thrive without his brooding, chaotic presence.
Neha feels strong and exhilarated with new hope for her future. She thinks, "Forget your alcoholic and love yourself."

January
Neha’s husband is on his way back home from the rehab centre. He is sitting in a sleazy bar downing his fifth Rum peg. He calls her up while he is waiting for his sixth. He scolds her for not picking the phone up right away and immediately accuses her of cheating on him with the neighbor. He tells her that the house better be spotless and there will be some big changes when he gets home. He is sick of Neha not doing what she is told. Neha automatically apologizes without even considering why she is apologizing or for what. All that renewed hope and excitement she felt for her life and all that resolve to leave her husband if he returned an unchanged man abandons her the moment she hears his voice. Her unexpected competence and strength is replaced by that old familiar mantra:
“Love your alcoholic...”



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