It was a year ago that her descent into drugs and alcohol really began. Before then, she rarely mentioned alcohol, drugs or drinking in any of her social media posts.
She went from mentioning them once in four or five months to mentioning drugs, alcohol or drinking every other day. Soon, it was once a day and then several times a day. In less than a month, she went from almost no drinking or drug use to doing one or the other almost every other day.
Her behavior went from a hard-working student who made Dean’s List, while taking five classes a semester, to drinking and doing drugs in public parks where underaged drinking, drug trafficing, drug use and public casual sex are well known activities. I’ve checked and she did not make Dean’s List this past fall, and I doubt she made it this spring.
Her family did not care and was unaware of what was going on until I spoke to her mother about Ellie’s addictions. Because her father is an alcoholic actively in denial, they have done nothing to help her—her father has also enabled her drinking and coerced Ellie into lying further about us. He has prevented Ellie’s mother from helping Ellie. He is a coward and a bully, and has been emotionally abusive to his wife and Ellie for years.
Her brother is also an alcoholic and drug addict. I know because Ellie’s mother asked me to speak to him about his problems with drugs, alcohol and chronic depression after he flunked out of Bentley a little over two years ago. I believe his depression was the underlying cause of his drug and alcohol use and they are both under control because he is being treated for his depression.
I think the triggering event for Ellie was when her first serious boyfriend, Ian, cheated on her in the beginning of 2011. I think her pride and stubbornness kept her going through the spring semester, but that she lost control after school ended for the year.
I think she has underlying insecurities about herself and does not realize what an amazing woman she really is. Her father’s emotionally abusive treatment of her and her mother combined with Ian’s infidelity pushed her over the edge.
I don’t understand how this beautiful, intelligent, strong and stubborn woman I love can’t understand how incredible she is.
She went from being one of the most narcissistic, selfish and self-centered brats—who had rightly earned the nickname “THE BITCH”—to one of the sweetest, generous and compassionate women I have ever known. That is one of the many reasons I love Ellie so much. She is one of the only people I know that I can see capable of achieving the kind of grace Gee had.
When I spoke to her family’s parish priest last summer, in an attempt to get Ellie some help, he told me she was very lucky to have someone that cared for her as I did and that my motives were noble. He read the documentation that Ellie’s mother had asked me to give her and agreed that Ellie was in trouble and clearly had a problem with alcohol and drugs. As far as I know , he tried to get the documentation to Ellie’s mother, as she had asked me to do last summer, but to no avail.
I also spoke with an acquaintance of Ellie’s family, whom I had met through Ellie’s brother while helping him with some car problems he was having two years ago. She is fairly high ranking in their town’s police department and her reaction to what was going on was not surprising. She confirmed that Ellie’s parents had basically abandoned their parental responsibilities and duties to their two older children several years ago, around the time I was asked to help “talk” to them. The officer’s daughter is classmates with Ellie’s little sister.
When friends have said that Ellie isn’t worth fighting for…I thought they were wrong. I thought that my amazing Irish rose was strong enough, smart enough and brave enough to fight free of her addictions if I just gave her some time to do so. I never thought she would succumb to those addictions.
I don’t know who the drug-addicted alcoholic that occupies Ellie’s physical shell now is. I don’t want to see what Ellie’s addictions have done to the amazing woman that loves me. I don’t care to know the drug-addicted alcoholic shadow of the woman I love.
If any part of the amazing woman I wanted to share my life with and raise our children with remains, I haven’t seen it. If Ellie should exist, trapped fighting somewhere beneath the horrors of her addictions, and is strong enough to ask for help—she knows where and how to reach me.
She knows what she has to do in order to ask me for my help—that she must make her amends for the lies and bad behavior that her addictions and her father have made her do; that she needs to show me that she is as committed to me as I have always been to her; and that she must show me that she has made a place for me by her side and will fight to keep me there. If she can do that, I will walk the long road to recovery with her and share our lives together as I asked her last June 22nd. She is still the woman I love most of all—and the one I want to marry and raise a family with.
I have a commitment to Ellie—the woman that loves me—but I do not have one to the drug-addicted alcoholic that she has become. It is a fine distinction. If Ellie still loves me and wants to spend our lives together as she seemed to be suggesting last June, then she has to prove it is really her asking for my help. I will help her as I promised her and her mother—but it is no longer unconditionally as it was before.
I have always been there for her, even when she didn’t deserve it according to her own words. She once told me that she always wanted us to be friends—no matter what her actions and behavior said—and I believed her. That is one reason I have been so steadfast in my devotion to the amazing woman I love.
I have never stopped being her friend—never stopped caring about her—never stopped loving her. She did all that to herself.
But, I prefer to remember Ellie, the beautiful woman I love, as she had been—proud, confident, and strong—unmarred and unshadowed by the new self-doubts and insecurities that gave her addictions the power to destroy her body, mind and spirit. I hope that God gives her the courage, the strength and most of all the will to fight her addictions and return to who she is supposed to be. She is capable of so much more than being a drug-addicted alcoholic shadow of her true self.
For now, I have to walk away. Goodbye my beloved little one.
I hope she eventually remembers who God meant her to be is not the drug-addicted alcoholic that she has been for the past 12 months. I hope she realizes that she is not supposed to be the lying, debased thing that her addictions have turned her into. I hope that one day she remembers that I love her and always have.
Her friends, such as they are, will likely not help her—they are truly part of the problem. Her family is in denial and I doubt they will help her unless she ends up in jail or the hospital. By the time they act it will likely be too late. I hope Ellie doesn’t have to hit the dangerous and hard rock bottom that so many addicts and alcoholics must hit before realizing they have a problem.
When she hits rock bottom, and I don’t doubt that will happen given her behavior over the last year—I hope she remembers that I promised to be there for her. I seriously doubt that her family or current group of friends will be there to stand by her when she tries to put the pieces of her shattered life back together and repair the damage that her addictions are going to do to her, her health, her life and her future.
May God watch over my beloved Ellie. God bless her and protect her, even from herself. May God grant her the strength, courage, and will to fight her illness and return to being her true self. May God grant her the wisdom to see the truth—both about her illness and about us.