When I met and fell in love with my charming, fascinating, creative ex-husband, I never saw the addict. We came together as poet and painter, with great passion for our respective gifts and for each other. It would be six months before I would begin to suspect that this exciting roller coaster ride of joint inspiration and creativity came with “another woman”—Lady Crack Cocaine.

I suspected there was someone else when he began staying out late and then all night. When I confronted him, he would say he had been out with his friend Jack and that I had no need to worry about another woman. He would then return to his “normal” creative, exciting self.

We traveled South Florida and the Keys, exhibiting our work and seeking out spoken-word venues. We collaborated on a body of social/political/spiritual paintings and poems that touched on abuse, addiction, homelessness, gun control, war, God, the devil… Eventually we opened a gallery and performing arts center in Key Largo.

There we got married. The day after our wedding, he disappeared for three days. I wanted to have the marriage annulled; but our best friends, one of whom had married us, assured me that we were meant for each other and things would work out. My husband agreed to go into rehab and all seemed fine again for a while. I didn’t know anything about addiction. I didn’t know that an addict always looks to “celebrate” with his drug of choice. I also didn’t know anything about crack cocaine and how addictive and destructive a drug it is. I would learn.

Poets and writers from South Florida and beyond attended our weekly spoken-word events. My husband was a charismatic and highly gifted performance poet; all who met and heard him desired to be in his company.

He was as comfortable on stage with a microphone before a crowd of people as he was lying on the couch reading a book. I was not. While I enjoyed interacting on a one-to-one basis with all the people who came to the gallery and Center, I had terrible stage fright. His return to active addiction and repeated disappearances on performance nights would force me to take over as emcee in his absence, recite his poetry (which I knew by heart), and introduce the featured and open mic readers. In retrospect, it was a great learning and growing experience that would be critical in my future endeavors; but at the time it created stress and anxiety. To add to my worries, expensive hi-tech sound equipment and tools that he had convinced me were necessary to purchase for the Center but were strapping us financially began disappearing and reappearing in pawnshops.

After 9/11, which left the Keys with few visitors and little tourist revenue for the residents, and a subsequent hurricane that damaged the gallery space, we closed shop and moved to Ft. Lauderdale. There things got much worse. We were in a strange city where I knew only a few people, but where there were many fellow crack addicts and sellers for him to connect with on a regular basis. I was struggling to get a new exhibit and performance venue and an artist services business up and going; he was diving off the deep end.

Then, in addition to being an addict, it turns out he had unfinished business with the Federal Parole Board for a parole violation on an old drug trafficking case. The Federal Marshals appeared suddenly one day and whisked him away. Within 48 hours, he was indicted. It would be a month before I would hear anything or know that he had been taken to Chicago, where his case had originated.

Terrified over not knowing where he was or what was happening to him, I grew depressed and anxious over what I would do. I had no money. He had pawned whatever equipment we still had. I held yard sales and sold what belongings I could. I packed up my artwork, painting supplies, and clothes and moved back home to Massachusetts. He would be incarcerated for a year. During that time I stayed with my mother, got a job, and began a slow financial and emotional recovery.

He remained drug-free for the entire year he was in prison. Upon release, he convinced me of his commitment to stay clean. He wanted to fix our shaky relationship and resume our creative life. I was hopeful. We moved together to East Boston. We would make a new try.

His new parole required that he go into the office for random drug tests—inconvenient, but not a problem since he was clean. He found employment; I continued at my job while developing my printing and framing business. I came to know many local artists and rented a studio space in the local artist community building, where we began holding a monthly art and spoken-word poetry event. It seemed our friends had been right: things were going to work out. My business grew and generated enough income, together with his earnings, to cover our monthly expenses, so I quit the job to run the studio full-time. Before long, he and a partner opened a lucrative gelato shop in a large mall in Cambridge.

I was happy during this period—until the addict started disappearing again. He wouldn’t come home. His partner would call in a panic because he hadn’t shown up to take over at the shop. He would deplete our checking account just when bills were due. Once again I didn’t know what to do. He was “on a run” nineteen days out of one month. In no time he had changed from the happy-go-lucky, outgoing, creative, charismatic man I had known and loved, to become withdrawn, dark, surly, and explosive.

Then he got caught with a dirty drug test result. Amazed it hadn’t happened before, I learned he had been taking a pill that would give a false clean test result. His Parole Officer mandated him to go into a 30-day rehab facility, which he did. After rehab, he attended AA meetings, read the Big Book (of AA), talked regularly with his sponsor, tended to his gelato shop, and came right home after work. He discovered that alcohol was his trigger; that if he didn’t take a drink, he wouldn’t go for crack.

Things were tentative for a few months. He was doing the work but clearly wasn’t committed to it. He was doing it because it was required of him, not because he honestly saw himself as having a problem. He hadn’t yet “hit bottom.” Meanwhile, I continued to live in a state of stress and hyper-vigilance, waiting for the next shoe to fall.

Soon it did, and it fell hard. He called to say he was on his way home but never arrived. The next day his partner phoned frantically saying he couldn’t reach him and the register had been cleaned out, the receipts from the prior day gone. The normal daily take was about $2,000 a day. He was out for a long run.

In short order I moved out of our apartment. I couldn't do this anymore. Once things settled, I painted an image (shown at the top) and wrote a poem called “The Other Woman.”

        ... worrying each day
        is he with her or dead
        in some God forsaken back alley
        until one morning you wake up and know
        he may never leave her so you must let go
        and save yourself
        all the while praying
        that one day he will do the same

Three years later, we are divorced and he is in jail again. I still paint and manage my studio business. I founded and direct a volunteer nonprofit performing arts center called the 80 Border Street Cultural Exchange Center, which hosts weekly musical performances, spoken-word poetry, and art exhibits. I regularly and comfortably serve as emcee, announcing the acts, reciting poetry, and encouraging others to take the mic and step beyond their fear.

I had often thought I would die from the sorrow, overwhelming depression, fear, and anxiety I lived with so much of the time with my ex-husband. I had lost my center and my peace, taken serious blows to my spiritual foundation, and lost my self. I wouldn’t have believed it possible three years ago, but today I am stronger, more content and at peace with life, happier and more creative than I have ever been. It was all well worth experiencing if ultimately it brought me to where I am today. I still pray “one day he will do the same,” one day he will let go of that other lady and save himself.