Expert: Libby Bonner - 8/16/2007

Question
I am 38 and was diagnosed 7 years ago. I'm in regular therapy and take my
meds religiously.

I have been doing cocaine over the past year or so. My wife now knows.

She has given up. She wants nothing more to do with me. This happened four
days ago.

My 5 year old son is one of the only reasons that i've stayed alive over the last
years. He is my everything and our relationship is accordingly special. Now
he's going to be without a steady father relationship. And I can't handle it. I
can't be without my wife, my child, my family.

If I've no desire to get better now, because there is nothing worth getting
better for, what can i do? My wife sees nothing but the evil of cocaine. She
will no longer accept this as a simple symptom. She, rightfully so, will never
be able to trust me again. She has a reason to turn her back.

She won't budge and I can't go on unless she does. I would have already
killed myself if not for the desperate want to not abandon my son. And even
that is slipping.

What can I do? What advice is there for her? I am open to anything. I will give
up any amount of control or hard-headedness or self, if it means retaining
the one thing that i still have in life--family.

Please help.

Answer
1.  YoOu have been doing cocaine for a year while taking your meds faithfully.

2. Has that not altered your psychiatric stability?  To the point that your doctor remarks about it?

3.  And you can afford the cocaine -  how?

4. And your diagnosis for which you take the meds?

5. The reason you commenced cocaine use was - what?