I don't often write about very personal things in my life but if one family is spared the pain that we have gone through its will be worth it!

Addiction is an insidious disease. It doesn't discriminate. I lived with an addict many moons ago and had decided I would not ever go through that again. When my ex-spouse wasn't using he was the most kind, caring and loving man. The cocaine took that away. He was violent when on cocaine. He was scary on it actually. It was like he was a completely different person. I spent YEARS looking behind my shoulder. I didn't even allow interviews or cameras around my children. I was so scared that he would find us.

I had left him once but went back as he was attending counselling. Within 6 months he was back on cocaine and turning to violence again. It was more difficult to leave but with help I was working on getting away. Unfortunately, he was still on the daycare pick up list for my daughter and he had picked her up. A friend of mine came with me to see if I could take her....nope was thrown into the elevator where I ended up with broken ribs and a badly bruised kidney (not good for a renal patient). I went down to the office to have the clerk call 911...he refused. So we found a phone booth to call from. The police showed up....finally

Six big and burly police officers were able to retrieve my daughter. I was taken to an emergency shelter then to the hospital to have my injuries assessed. It was at this point I vowed I NEVER, EVER  be in the same situation. This was 28 yrs ago.

So in 2001, I moved locations and I'm happy. I left a place I loved but my son and I needed a new start. My daughter was living with her father and my oldest boy was with a family that loved him very much. I was working and had attended school. I had a job I enjoyed and things were ok. Although my son had some struggles with school here. A few years back, he ended up living with his grandparents.

I had a couple of relationships that didn't workout in the meantime. So in 2005 I decided I need to make some changes. this was right around the time that my boy went to live with his grandparents. I had tried sobriety before but I ended up drinking after several years of not drinking. I wont say sober as I hadn't done any changes to mysel that brought me to where I was drinking alcoholically.

What helped was that I had met a man who offered me a place to live and companionship, but most of all he offered unconditional love and support. He took me to where I needed to deal with my demons. He understood me. Something that I had not seen in others. We ended up getting married.

And this is where things get rough. He has 3 kids; 2 girls and a boy. We joked around about being the Brady Bunch as I had 3 kids; 2 boys and a girl. Both of our oldest kids are the same age separated by a few months. Also the 2 oldest kids have kids of their own, again both the same age.

So my husband has always struggled with his son. Turns out he's been on drugs; cocaine and methamphetamine as well as alcohol. after burning bridges with part of the family he lived on the streets and shelters. He's a con artist trough and through. hard to tel what is true with him.

Well fast forward to May. He needed a place to stay. He was working and he was dealing with his addiction, so we thought ok. I needed companionship as it lonely being so sick. I,m in end stage renal failure and on dialysis. I made the mistake  of asking my step-son to go get some groceries from the store. I gave him my debit card and pin as I had been recovery from peritonitis which really tires me out.

However I had no idea that he would actually start stealing from us. I found out last Thursday that he had been taking my debit card out of my purse. I take a sleeping pill which makes me sleep soundly. Renal patients have issues with insomnia usually due to pain or to a noisy cycler....that thing can be loud! In the meantime we've also discovered that he had stolen and pawned some of our expensive items.

So with the blessing of my husband and his ex-wife, I moved forward on laying charges. I have sent a written statement as well as what evidence we have found connected to the thefts. While going through his room we discovered needles and caps (nothing like getting an education in how to use street drugs....shudder) There was plenty of empty booze bottles and beer cans. He was also smoking in the house. He was driving drunk and, apparently with a drivers licence as well.

I did end up getting an Emergency Protection Order as he has made threats to come to the house and kick the door in as well as send Hell's Angels to our door. I just needed to get this out of my head.

Sorry for the long post.

This work by Cora Shaw is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.5 Canada License.