The day my husband and kids could have died.....and I just wanted pills

October 2010

    "Chad has been in a wreck.  He is okay.  The kids were not with him", my friend Chris says to me calmly as he knows that I possess a tendency to freak out.

     I feel as if I'm going to hyperventilate, but I continue to breathe. 

     Another friend volunteers to take me to the scene of the accident.  I get into his car and he tries to make small talk.  I am barely listening.  We pull up to the scene and there are police cars, ambulances, and fire trucks everywhere.  The flashing lights are overwhelming.  I get out of the car and everything seems to be spinning.  I am not sure if this is because of the shock I am experiencing or because I am high. My feet find the ground and I manage to walk.  I hope that no one notices my stagger.

   My eyes focus and I see Chad's little red S-10.  It appears to be wrapped around a telephone pole.  I tell the firefighter that I am his wife, and he lets me walk over to the truck where Chad is still standing.  He looks at me and immediately begins crying. 

 "They would have died, Misty.  They would have died."  

  I stare strangely at him as I do not know what he is talking about.  Through tears, he manages to tell me that he had both of the kids and their carseats in the truck with him.  At the last minute, he felt an urge to see if they could ride with my sister, since they were going the same place. He points to the right side of the truck, where they would have been sitting, and cries again.  This time I join him. The entire right side of the truck is wrapped around a telephone pole.  There is no right side left.  I think to myself how different this situation could have been.  My babies and their carseats could have been wrapped around that pole.  

    The thought of that overwhelms me and I turn away.  We walk to the road where I see a smashed up car just sitting in the middle of the road, doors open.  There are pill bottles and pills scattered all over the ground.  The police officers inform me that the men in this car were in the wrong lane, and they hit my husband and ran him off the road.  They immediately got out of the vehicle and fled into the woods on foot.  They are being searched for.  I am appalled by this.  Someone under the influence had the audacity to get into a vehicle full of pills and drive....then almost kill my husband.  Then my thoughts change.  I wonder if anyone would notice if I picked up one of those pills?

    Chad refuses to be taken to the Emergency Room.  As we lie in bed that night, we talk about how fortunate we are, and how much worse things could have been.  Chad says, "We could be lying here tonight knowing that tomorrow we would have funerals to plan.  For our babies."  I cry myself to sleep.  I think he does the same.  

   I wake up the next morning, much later than I should have, and realize that I'm really low on pills. Like super low.  I plan on only taking a couple that day.  Within a few short hours, I have emptied the bottle. I begin to panic, and then an idea crosses my mind.  Chad could go get checked out for the wreck, and they could write him a prescription.  I jump straight into full-on manipulation mode, and begin convincing him that he is hurt.  He says that his neck and back do hurt. I continue with the manipulation.  "Chad, you need to go get checked out.  Remember....I was an insurance adjuster.  I know how they look at claims.  If it looks like you aren't in any pain and that you didn't receive anything for it, they will downplay your injuries."  He thinks that I have a good point, and he makes an appointment for the following day.  I am relieved that he has the appointment set up, but I'm not sure how I will make it another twenty-four hours.  The withdrawal symptoms are already setting in.  

  The next day, Chad goes to the doctor, and, sure enough, he comes home with a prescription.  It is my favorite kind.  He takes it to the pharmacy, and I, being the great wife that I am, tell him that I will go pick it up for him.  You know, I will do him a favor.  He says that he will probably never take any of it, so I tell him that we will put it up in the medicine cabinet "just in case" he needs it.  

   I pick the prescription up, and I don't even make it out of the pharmacy parking lot before I've got the bag ripped open, the lid off the bottle, and the pills in my mouth.  I do, in fact, put the medicine bottle in the cabinet, but I continue taking them.  Chad doesn't need them, and he doesn't notice that they are missing.  About a week later, he checks in the cabinet and asks where the pills went.  I, of course, have no idea where they could have gone.  I, of course, had not eaten the entire bottle within two days.  I, of course, had not taken the blessing of God protecting my husband and babies from death and used it to get more drugs.  I, of course, didn't have a problem.

   Believe me, I know that this story sounds repulsive.  I know that it sounds like I just completely spit on the fact that God saved my family from death.  Well, I agree.  This is what addiction does.  It makes us manipulative.  It makes us cunning.  It makes us hypocrites.  It makes us conniving.  It makes us uncaring.  It makes us heartless human beings.  

It makes a mother who is filled with gratitude that her children did not die dismiss this fact and turn around and pick up the pill bottle....yet again.  It makes a mother who loves her children so much tuck them in bed, thank God that they are still alive, and walk straight to the medicine cabinet.  It makes a mother who is thankful for the gift of life, turn around and willingly swallow death.......