Limbo

I feel as though I am torn between two worlds right now. The life I have to live for my children, and my desire to be with my husband. I cannot explain this feeling. I feel as though I am pulled both ways stuck in a limbo, in this thing called life...

I can't help but wonder what it was like for him. How he felt?

One of the things people do not understand about addiction is the fact that an addict really has no desire to live. So many people think that you can scare an addict clean by telling them they could die, when in reality they fall on deaf ears.

To live with an addiction is painful. You constantly battle the desire, constantly battle peoples perceptions on who you are. Too many people see only the addiction and not the person any more.

My husband would always talk about how he just wanted to die, that he lived for me, he lived for his daughter, he lived for our family. That was all he had left to hold onto. The only positive and hope he carried on with his life.

So what did he feel the last moments of his life? His daughter fighting so hard to just be away from him, constantly told that his other children hated him, wanted nothing to do with him. Me, his wife throwing him out because of a relapse... losing the family, and children he lived for. The only reason he held onto life.

He had to have felt very alone, with all of his demons. Where was his desire to hold on any longer? Right now I am forced to live on for my children. So was this what it was like for him? To hold on until finally he was free from what was holding him back in this life? Allowing the addiction to finally take him at last?

I loved him, I still love him, so very much! I feel so empty, so soulless without him.

I will live every day of my life with regrets. The regret of throwing him out. For not standing beside him in his moment of weakness. I wish I had just taken the needle from him, held him and told him how much I loved him and that together we would get through this relapse, that we would get through this fight with the world, and those trying to rip our family apart.

Instead I had hoped "tough love" would win out. That he would leave, and come back like he always did and we would fight through it and get him clean again. I gambled, and I lost. So many times I listened to others advise. To give ultimatums. I don't think ultimatums work. I am honestly not sure what does work.

All I know is that I love him. The person that he was, not the addict that so many people defined him as.

Without a doubt I believe he knew I loved him, as much as I knew he loved me. I just wish I had not given him a way out. I wish I had been strong enough to fight for him and give him a reason to keep fighting for himself, and for us.

No, I Don't Use...

This is a common misconception people have. Because my husband was an addict and continuously battled his addiction does not mean that I too abuse drugs. After years of being with an addict, I have learned a lot about addiction as well as outsiders view on addicts and their relationships.

Not all relationships are built on drugs. There are friendships, family connections, coworkers, spouses, and significant others. This does not mean that they too are abusing drugs. I understand that it's "guilt by association"; this is exactly the image I am trying to stop.

I was the calm my husband needed to pull him back when he was losing control. He needed me to stay grounded, stay calm, and be his support. I will not lie that sometimes out of total desperation, and lack of understanding this life, I would tell my husband maybe if I abused drugs then I could understand and relate somehow. I hated that he had these connections with others in a world I did not belong in.

My husband was adamant that I do not ever even experiment or try to travel this road with him. He always told me that it does not make things better in the relationship, but worse. He needed me to focus on the kids, the house, and support him when he needed to lean, and give him a reason to fight to be better for us.

I have never been high a day in my life. I have tried smoking pot 4 times in my entire life and all it managed to do was burn my lungs and give me a headache, so I never tried again.

I realize that a lot of people tend to also leave these kind of relationships. I am not saying it is wrong, or right, but for me it was worth holding on to. He was worth fighting for. I held faith in the man I love. I believed in him. The one thing I strongly believe all addicts need, is hope. Some one that has faith in them and believes in them. Especially when society does not.

I knew how amazing my husband was, I saw it daily. Some days we lost the fight. Sometimes the addiction took the better of him, and our lives. I always told him that as long as he is willing to keep fighting against his addiction I will always be there to see him through it and fight beside him--and I did.

I may have lost my husband to his addiction, but I refuse to stop believing in my husband and the man that he truly was. I hope to stand up and fight with him, against addictions, and help support and believe in those that battle addictions. As well as the loved ones of those battling addictions.

I may have lost my husband, but my fight is not over, and neither is his, because I will continue to fight for him...

Ghost House

My oldest son seems to be struggling with the loss of Brian the most. He is rarely home, consistently escaping when he can. During the weekdays he goes and does homework, or so he claims, at a friends house or the library. I wish I had the emotional strength to verify that he is actually doing the homework. I am so afraid I will just be angry and more upset if I look at his grades and see that he, in fact, is not doing what he says he is doing.

We don't have internet right now, after all of the money I have spent for Brian's services, and traveling I am running in the red for my account and cannot afford to have internet, so he goes where ever he can to find a connection, for school work or play.

Sometimes he leaves without telling me, and then doesn't come home at night. Finally I laid into him about taking off and always being gone. I know he is a good kid, so I am not concerned he is making bad choices, yet anyway.

I asked him what was going on, why was he not home, was it because it's hard? Is he missing Brian that much?

His response "Yeah, I miss him, it's hard being here without him, it's like living in a ghost house without him here."

I didn't know what to say. He pretty much summed up exactly the way it feels in our home. Brian was such a huge presence in the house. The house was always clean and orderly, he was very vocal telling the kids what to do. He would ensure they were always at the table doing homework after school, checking bag packs. Making sure they were taking showers and getting to bed on time. Sports were always playing in the back ground and you could hear him yelling at the television, or music blaring throughout the house.

Now it's just silence. You can hear the kids laughing, joking, fighting, but it's the deafening silence that you hear throughout the house. We can't escape it, it's everywhere we turn. His ghost lingers there, it may not be a physical ghost that you see on television, but it is his missing presence.

We all feel it. We all miss him...

Closed Doors and Troubled Children

Through the years of stories my husband has told I would sit in awe of the man he had become and how he opened my eyes to a world I never knew existed.

I was just like you, like everyone else, I turned a blind eye to the kids with family problems. The kids that were dirty, running around the neighborhood with no guidance. I wanted my kids to steer clear of these children. I guess you could have called me a snob.

My husband had a different view. These kids were always welcome in our home. He would bring them in offer them clean clothes, wash what they had on, offer them clothes to take home that were not so worn. He allowed them to stay as long as they wanted, sometimes until ten at night. He would ensure that they were fed, even if we did not have much food, he wanted these kids to see they had somewhere to go--that someone did care. He would send food home with them, if we had extras. A few children could not attend the summer programs on field trip days, because the parents could not afford their cold lunches, upon finding this out he insisted we make them cold lunches along with our kids and drive them to make sure they made it on the field trips.

Brian did whatever he could for kids. He always claimed he hated kids but his actions spoke so much louder than his words. Even in his passing I have had numerous people tell me how amazing he always was to their kids, acknowledging their presence and always very polite to them.

I remember one child that my son was friends with in 5th grade. I wanted my son to steer clear of this kid. The kid was not from a good home, my son informed me the kid had been to the Wyoming Behavioral Institute, WBI, because he tried committing suicide by sitting in the snow hoping to freeze to death. I was afraid that the kids emotional problems would expand onto my son. It wasn't that I thought the kid was awful, we were just trying to deal with our own tragedy, and I was afraid my son might think this was a normal way to cope. It was my husband that overheard me telling my son to steer clear that he intercepted:

"Why would you tell him to stay away from him? Those are the kids you should want to help. Maybe with Jordan's good influence then maybe we could save his life and show him a better way. You of all people I would think should appreciate that."

I had never been so humbled in my life. I realized then the things I was saying and never again would I turn my back on a child in need. It was Brian that opened my eyes to children outside of my own and the help that they needed.

Brian would give advice to children that would walk through our doors, sometimes to the point of annoyance. Kids would sometimes make comments that he was not their dad, not realizing he was just trying to help them make right choices. My sons would bring friends over with a broken bike and he would take apart his own bike to put the good parts on the kids bike to take home. If he saw one of the kids without shoes he would go get shoes and then lecture them on the importance and safety of wearing shoes. Sometimes it was exhausting watching him work so tirelessly. I don't think a single kid that walked through our door was a stranger, he would talk to them, lecture them, or yell at them as if they were one of our very own.

It was through Brian that I met a lot of kids from homes of drug addicts. I want you to realize that at this time Brian was not using, he just somehow was able to attract friends that were connected to addicts, or the addict themselves. These kids would be locked out of their homes during the days to fend for themselves as their parents were getting high in the house, or getting drunk. Brian always encouraged the kids to come over anytime they wanted so they didn't have to spend their entire days outside and not getting adequate care and food.

It was through this act of kindness that I saw what he was doing. These kids are all locked out of their homes while their parents are feeding their addictions. The way I see it, is that to him these kids were a reflection of himself at a young age. They don't know where they belong, they are not allowed in their own homes, the neighbors, and the "good" kids families ignore them and don't necessarily want them around. So what happens to these young children? They are alone, neglected, and when they become teenagers trying to find their place in the world, seeking the same acceptance he did as a child, there will come a day when they knock on their own door wanting to belong, so they join their parents, their family, and join in the addiction, because where else are they going to go? Who else will accept them and welcome them? They are just trying to find a place they belong, where they are accepted.

Brian tried to always give children a place to go. A door to knock on that they could be accepted, a place that would not encourage them or even allow them to travel down the road he did, the road their parents did.

I learned a lot from my husband. The life he lived, and how simple things we do can actually make a difference, just showing kids, showing people that you care. He would always tell me that maybe when he was a kid, if someone had fought for him, not allowing him to go on his own to a place he didn't belong, that maybe he could have turned out differently... Then again, if he had I may never have met him, fallen in love with him, and learned all I have about life and people. I may not have ever gotten to learn what true love was all about.

I hope whoever is reading this can learn to open their eyes like I did, and offer these kids a chance. They may just need something as simple as a cold lunch, a pair of shoes. They need hope, and someone who cares enough to open their doors and show them a better way to a better life.

The Making of an Addict

Brian was a little boy, lost in the world with parents that were more focused on partying and their addictions than they were this little being that they brought into this world.

He lived with his grandparents mostly during his younger days. His grandparents kept him involved in sports and other activities. He learned a lot of values during this time of his life but there was a huge void in his life, that no child wants to experience--his parents, his siblings.

He grew up close with his cousin that was the same age as him. They would play together and hang out while his cousin's parents were at work. They did everything together, except at the end of the day his cousin would go home, to his family, with his sister, his mom, and his dad, and Brian was left at home, with his grandparents. As any child would feel, they could not understand why his parents were not there, why didn't they want to take care of him? They lived right around the corner with his brothers. Classmates had their parents, cousins had their parents, his brothers had their parents, so why couldn't he? This plagued him to no end, eventually he started acting out and doing everything he could to go be with his parents.

I am not exactly sure how old he was when he moved in with his mom and dad. I have heard that he was 9 and also that he was 11, I don't know, he's not here for me to ask, to confirm the age. I wish I had asked these questions while he was alive, but I was more focused on giving him a better life than dwelling on his past.

When he moved in with his dad, he got to have his own apartment, according to his aunt, where he was virtually unsupervised and free to do as he pleased. Surprisingly, he was not out of control at the beginning. For several years he would get himself up and clean to school every single day. Waking up at 5am to exercise, he was really big in boxing, and then would clean the house from the parties his parents would have from the night before, and then walk himself to school. He excelled in school, always on the honor roll, A's and B's consistently, never so much as a C.

Brian took on this roll as a child thinking that he could somehow "fix" his family, save them and make them be "normal". He would consistently clean the house and continued trying to be this well mannered child. The Wright family had a name in Norwood, OH and for those of you that do not know where Norwood is, it is a city inside Cincinnati. They were known for drinking, drugs, and violence. Brian, however, was always different.

After he passed I had so many people opening up to me and telling me the Brian that they all knew. He was always so polite and well mannered. He was very timid around people, knowing his family did not have the best name, and yet everyone loved him, they welcomed him in their home, when no one would allow the rest of the family around. Brian was well liked, and respected.

His life was not easy being with his parents. They rarely had food in the house, most of their money went to drugs and alcohol, so Brian made do with anything he could find, sometimes not eating at all. He would clean consistently after all the grown ups would make messes from parties, and broken household items. His parents would fight consistently, and they would become extremely violent, more than one occasion he would see his dad beating his mom up and he would sit on the stairs and cry. At one point his dad even pulled a gun out on his mom. His mom, would turn a lot of her violence and anger toward Brian, and he would suffer from her abuse. Eventually his mom left one day and he did not see her for almost two years. Brian was hurt to discover she lived only a block behind him, and yet never came to see him. He would always recall one story when he saw her at a gas station and she hurried up and got in the car and sped off so she would not have to talk to him.

His brother who was older than he was would also make Brian a subject of bullying. If Brian ever lost a fight boxing, his brother would make sure he endured the consequences of losing. They had a lot of battles, and everyone of them Brian would lose. His brother was already doing drugs, drinking, and selling drugs for money. He would consistently tell Brian he needed to learn how to earn his keep and tried pushing Brian to sell drugs to provide for the family. At first Brian resisted...

One day after he had broken his femur bone the doctors had prescribed him pain medications, and after his parents had stole all the medications he had enough. He watched as they spent every dime they had on drugs, and he was tired of starving, tired of living in a dirty broken down house. He decided that if his parents were going to spend every dime they had on drugs he was going to get that back.

Shortly after he healed he began selling pot. It was not too long before he was making a lot of money, and moving large quantities of pot. In the beginning he would not smoke it or have anything to do with it. He would sell and the money he would get he began to use to fix up the house he was living in. He became addicted to making money. Eventually he began smoking pot and drinking with his friends and family. You have to realize that it truly is a different environment, this life style, his parents became proud of him, and so did his brother. He began to finally feel as though he fit in, and belonged somewhere in the world.

Unfortunately, in time, that began to expand, with drugs comes women, and at 14 and 15 years old your hormones begin to take over anyway. He began working with strippers, that started asking for cocaine, instead of pot, so he expanded a little into this market. When you start growing this big, and cocaine and pot are not enough, heroin eventually gets introduced. He was not a big heroin dealer, or even cocaine dealer, his priority was marijuana, however he did get introduced to heroin and pain pills and grew an addiction.

He knew he was in trouble when he got hooked on opioids. He even tried to get himself completely off at one point by escaping to his grandfathers farm and detoxing himself to clean up and straighten up.

Brian became his families caregivers. He spent most of the money he earned on repairing his grandfathers house. I would always hear stories on him dragging in dry wall, cabinets, doors. He completely remodeled the interior of the house as a teenager. Two different times he used the money to save their house from foreclosure.

Brian also had this thing for "project people", if he found someone, especially girls, that were mistreated, or not taken care of he had this insane nobility to try and save them. I could go into several details about girls but I will stick with one example. She was not taken care of, her parents were always buying off from Brian so he took her under his wing. They never had shampoo, body wash, or even toilet paper. The girl had no education, due to her parents not making her go to school let alone excel in school. He took her in and made sure she was showering and clean everyday, and even tutored her teaching her to read and basic math. She was not the only one he felt the need to save, there have been plenty of girls not too far different from this one. Then to top it off he would shower the girls with gifts, and especially gold jewelry.

The only thing Brian ever bought for himself was his mustang. He didn't have it long before he wrecked it but that was the only thing he ever bought himself and carried with pride. After wrecking it he was so devastated he had no desire to get another vehicle after that. He thought it was something he deserved for being so selfish and flashy with his money.

Even though he was accepted into this family, and this life style, he also started to feel more alone, like he still did not fit. So he set off in a mission to become a father, at such a young age, he just wanted a purpose, thinking a baby would make him happy. It took several years before he successfully had a child, after attempts with three different girls. One girl had become a long time girlfriend that was on again off again, she had endured several miscarriages and during one of their breaks he had gotten another girl pregnant, and it was a successful pregnancy. His main girlfriend was none to thrilled, as you could imagine, eventually he ended up getting her pregnant as well. He ended up having two children by the time he was 19.

Little did he know that him and his family was being watched for several years. Brian had been the subject of an investigation since he was 16. They continued to build a case against him wanting to get him at 18 so he could be tried as an adult, so they sat back and watched and continued to build their case. Shortly after he had turned 18 the police raided his house. They used flash grenades, that resulted in him having a broken nose and they tore through the house. It was during his trial that he became a father both times.

While he was in prison he had 2 1/2 years to reflect on his life and the person he was as well as the person he wanted to become. He knew he never wanted to go back to prison, and he knew he did not want to raise his children in this environment. He was thrilled to discover the mother of his second child had already left the area away from the drugs and the violence. Through consistent communication with her, he had decided he wanted to get his oldest child out of the area and give her a better chance.

Upon his release, he discovered the mother of his first child was in prison for drug charges, and her grandmother begged Brian to get the little girl out of Cincinnati and to take care of her. Brian had also discovered that the $20,000 he had hidden from the raid, his mother had already utilized all that money, so he had nothing when he got out. So with the help of his daughter's great grandmother bought him a bus ticket to take him and his daughter away from Cincinnati and out of Ohio, and that is how he began his life in a little old town in Wyoming.

I was not apart of Brian's life during these early years, I am basing this tale off from the stories he told me, as well as his friends and family.

I also don't want you all to look and think that his family, or the people that surrounded him were bad people either. This story is not to make other addicts look bad. You have to realize that every addict started somewhere. Somewhere in their life when they were clean, they were different. They too have a story to tell on how they became addicts. No addict wants to become an addict. I love his family very much! I also can attest to the fact that drugs CHANGE people.

As my stories continue you will see the good in my husband as well as the bad. I have no intention of only portraying my husband in glorified light. He was a great man, but he also had not so great moments. I need to help you all understand that drugs change who a person is, addiction is an evil monster and once it grabs ahold of you it's not as easy as one thinks to stop. It's not as easy to choose between right and wrong. It's about acceptance.

My Dad the Hero, from the eyes of a 10 year old.

Last night laying in bed, my daughter Kiki could not stop talking about Brian. She stared at his picture with me for quite sometime. Then she said it's going to be sad without him and she missed him.

These were the things she had to say as she rambled on about her dad as a Hero in her eyes:

"He was a good guy. Some people thought he was a bad guy because sometimes he did bad things. They would judge him because he had a police record, but it wasn't that bad. They did not know he was actually a good guy they just judged him and it was wrong. He is actually a really good guy. He saves the world, by saving the planet." I smiled and looked at her, not saying anything, just letting her get whatever she wanted to off her chest; "Like, he would pick up garbage wherever he went. It didn't matter how small it was. He was always picking up garbage. Even the tiny things no one ever saw, he would pick it up. He would always say to hold my soda so that he could pick up anything on the ground no matter how long it took. If he didn't pick up the garbage all the time the world would be messy and then our environment would be really bad, so yeah, he saves the world. People just don't know that he is a good guy."

It's important for me to share moments and memories like this as a way for me to journalize my husband's legacy, and the impressions he had on the world and those he loved around him.

Through my stories I am hoping you will all understand not only the addiction process, but also the man behind the addictions that we all loved and supported. So maybe one day you all will be able to look at those with addictions and see the people behind the addiction. He was a person, a good person, and to my family even with his flaws, he was still in many ways our hero.

We Lost a Person, Not an Addict

March 26, 2016

I lost my husband to addiction.

I know what some of you might be thinking; "He's just another junkie, an addict." To some he may not be worth a second thought, just another addict off the streets.

I am here to tell you that my husband was so much more than an addict. My husband's name is Brian Lee Becknell Wright. He was a father, a husband, a son, a grandson, brother, nephew, cousin, and friend.

My husband battled addiction from the time he was 14. He did not live a life that one would call "normal". His parents were addicts, he lived in a community surrounded by addicts. Cincinnati is a different world than the one we live in.

Brian moved here with his daughter to escape that life, to escape the temptations of addiction. He did well here as long as he could.

One fateful day he had a cut on his finger that got infected and eventually had to get lanced open. Brian had warned the doctor that he had a substance abuse problem. The doctor asked him how long it had been, approximately 5 years at this time, the doctor told him he should be fine and gave him the prescription anyway. For days that bottle sat on his fridge as he continued to ignore it, until one day out of depression he decided to take some. That began another spiral and battle with abuse. Mind you this was before me.

When I was going through a very unfortunate traumatic event in my life, Brian was there, when no one else had the strength. He was able to pull me out of my darkness and saved me, saved my family. I attest this to the fact that he had come from a very dark past, so he was able to relate. He knew how to swim in the darkness. He taught me how to swim along side him. He was also at a cross road in his life and somehow I think we needed each other, to focus, and give us a reason to move forward, to swim.

I will remember the day he called me to his house and told me "I am addicted to pills. I wanted to tell you this because I am going to get clean and be better for you guys. You already have one piece of shit in your life now sitting in prison. I'm not going to be another one in your life. I want to be perfect for you. You deserve a better life."

I did not know what to say, so I said nothing. I did not know anything about addiction at this time. I didn't even know people abused pills, I didn't realize that was a thing. I had friends that occasionally smoked pot, so this was new for me. I did, however, grasp the magnitude of what he was saying, he wanted to be better for me, for us.

That day he told me to take his daughter as he went through withdrawals and went to seek treatment in Casper. He did not use again for almost two years.

He relapsed when my son got sick in the hospital for three weeks. We were stuggling financially as well as emotionally.  The one thing to understand with an addict is that when they start battling hard times, the first thing they want to do is escape. We all do. Addicts just tend to find a way to escape instead of dealing with the issue at hand. It was a hard time but we ended up making it through.

When Brian would make mistakes they were usually short lived. They did not last long. But they were a struggle none the less. We got him back on treatment at one point, hoping it would help, however this time it did not work. So he tried the old fashioned way and got clean. He was clean almost a year before he hurt his back walking our dog. Upon getting hurt the first thing he told doctors was that he could not have pain medications. They had to give him something, so they did, and at first he did not abuse them. They prescribed him methadone, which is for chronic pain, but is also treated for opiod addicts.

It was about six months into his treatment that he decided to switch doctors. This doctor gave him way too many prescriptions; oxycodone 30mg, 4x's a day, methadone 4x's a day, and Xanax 4x's a day. I was furious and begged the doctor to not treat my husband with such drugs. I warned the doctor about his problems with medications. The doctor continued to prescribe them, stating that unless he ruined his trust with them, they would not allow him to go in pain. My words went unnoticed.

For several months he was on this ridiculous dosage, until eventually the doctor lost their privileges from so many patients that died under their care.

My husband somehow was able to find another doctor to continue writing prescriptions for him. At least this doctor did cut out the Xanax, and methadone, and cut my husband down to 3 oxycodone 30mg, per day. at first he continued abusing them. Until he decided to get some help again. He checked himself into Wyoming Behavioral Institute, WBI, to help him get better. Upon leaving we made an agreement that I would manage his medications. It worked for several months. I would not allow him to abuse them and never let him take more than he was given.

He continued to fight to be a better man.

Before his completely unexpected death, we were going through an extremely stressful situation. I won't go into that, since it was hard on all of us. He kept fighting and trying to do his best and resist his urges. His depression started to sink in deeper and I could not get him to pull out of it, partly because I too was depressed and didn't know what to do.

My husband, my Brian relapsed. It broke my heart to see he had relapsed and out of anger and frustration I threw him out. Not out of hatred. I love my husband I just could not handle going through the relapse on top of everything else. I begged him to choose me, and he told me he couldn't, he tried he just couldn't. I knew that it was the depression and the desperation to escape that was talking and not him. I figured he would go do his thing, then come home and get clean like he always does. Like he has so many times in the past. There was a lot of anger and hurt that day, but we both also knew we loved each other and even said as much. I begged him to stop and he admitted that he couldn't no matter how much he loved me he just couldn't.

That Friday morning he got to see a new doctor, that prescribed him 3 oxycodones 30mg per day, 7 Xanax, and a handful of clonozopam. In his medical records he had almost died coming off from Xanax a little over a year ago. Benzo's and alcohol are the only two things you can actually die from withdrawals. He had a huge history of all these things I had stated and even more. Yet this doctor gave him all these drugs in one of the most depressing and stressful times of our lives.

That night he took a large dosage of each medication. No it was not suicide, he just pushed his limits to far with the mixture of medications.

I do not blame the doctor. Nor do I blame everyone that had him extremely depressed. I know it was my husband's choice. What I am angry about, do not mistake my anger for blame, is the people that drove him into severe depression, targeting him based off from his past and the fact that they judged him and criticized him as a "junkie". He endured a lot in the last days of his life. I am angry about the lies that were told about my husband, and judgements passed onto him. I am angry at the doctor for not taking a moment to actually look at his history and deny him treatment. I am angry he was not flagged as a pill seeker in spite of all the warning signs as well as verbal warnings from him and myself. I am also hurt and angered that even in his passing people still judge him, still criticize him, and do not see the great qualities this man has, as well as the fight that was in him. He just lost his fight one day and that day cost our entire family, and his loved ones, his amazing presence in this world.