Jessica Hughes
Freedom Through Christ Ministries
On Feb. 18, 2001, I married my college sweetheart. We had dated since Dec. of 95, and knew each other very well. Although we had somewhat of a rocky relationship at times, and I often questioned "should I really be with this guy?" We broke up for a period of about 7 months after I graduated college in 1998. It was a very difficult break up and I felt like just when I had all my "after college plans" in order, my life was falling apart. Just when I accepted that Sean might not be the one God had for me, and prayed "Lord if you don't want me with this man, I know it is because you have something better, " he called and shortly after, we were back together.
Against my better judgment, but afraid to lose him again, I moved to PA where he was finishing his last semester of college at Penn State. It was a difficult year. I think, deep down, I knew I wasn't where I was supposed to be, but I wasn't at a point in my life yet that I heard from, or listened to God. And my life was governed by fear of losing "my boyfriend" rather than trusting God's plan for my life. I also struggled with the fear of being alone. Before meeting Sean, I had only had one steady boyfriend, and didn't like dating.
Two years later, we decided to get married. After spending two years, doing the wrong things, we decided that we wanted to make things right. We had both grown up quite a bit, and it seemed that getting married would put the difficult times behind us. So we thought.
Sean had always suffered from migraines/tension stress headaches, back pain, and kidney stone problems. When I met him, he was a college athlete and was always getting hurt. His mom called him her "Red Cross Kid". We were always in the ER.
Before we got married I knew that Sean had gotten a few prescriptions here and there for migraine headaches, and back pain, or kidney stones, but I never thought anything about it. I don't think he did either. On our honeymoon, we had the opportunity to ride jet skies. Looking back on things, we think that caused an aggravation to an old injury in Sean's back. So, two weeks into our marriage, Sean was given a prescription for Percocet, and it was the beginning of what would be the greatest trial thus far in our lives and marriage.
That one small prescription of Percocet led to one more and one more….and so on. He was becoming addicted to narcotics right before my very eyes. At first I didn't even know it. It was the farthest thing from my mind. When I met Sean, we both stood very firm throughout our college years that we would never "drink, smoke, or do drugs." Seeing how alcohol affected people in my own family gave me a very strong stance that I would never even so much as look at a guy with a beer in his hand. Unfortunately, I was very self righteous, and God was going to have to fix that. So there was so much irony, I went from being a person that wouldn't even look at a guy with a beer, to being the wife of a man on drugs. It was unbelievable to me. I actually got defensive with Sean's family doctor when he didn't want to prescribe anymore pain pills. I actually said to him, "Why don't you care about my husband? Why do you want him to live in pain?" I had no idea what was happening.
Sean began an online obsession with Pain Management Support Groups. He was constantly on the computer chatting with people who were suffering in pain. Through the group he chatted with he found out about "the best pain management doctor in all of PA." He made an appointment with him. I went with him, of course, in full support of anyone who could help my suffering husband. I wanted him to have pain relief and had no idea at this point that there was an addiction in the making.
He started seeing this doctor who prescribed Lorcet. He started taking it and it worked for a while. And then his body became used to it. He told the doctor it wasn't working anymore. So then he prescribed a pain patch with the Lorcet. Sean had a reaction to the pain patch and we ended up in an ER, where he was given I.V. medications to stop the vomiting and for his migraine. The next week after the patch was clearly not the answer, we went back to the pain doctor. This time he prescribed Oxycontin. I had never heard of that before, and had no idea, still, how serious this was becoming.
One night while he was on the Oxycontin, he came into our room in the middle of the night, I was already sleeping, and he said that "something was happening, he was seeing things and his skin was crawling, he wanted to jump out of his skin" He said I had to take him to the hospital, that he couldn't take it anymore. I immediately got up and we went to the nearest ER. They said he was having an anxiety attack. He had never had one before. They gave him I.V. Ativan for the anxiety attack, Phenergan for his nausea, and Demerol for his 'extreme pain'. We went back to the pain doctor and Sean told him what had happened. So the pain doctor took him off the Oxycontin, and put him back on Lorcet.
Sean's anxiety continued, so he was referred to a psychiatrist and was prescribed Ativan. The next several months consisted of nightly trips to different ER's where he would tell them what he needed, he had it down to a science, and he would tell the doctors that he needed 4 mg of IV Dilaudid and 4 mg of IV Ativan. He would become so high that he could hardly walk up the stairs to our apartment without falling asleep in mid step. By this time, I obviously knew that Sean was suffering with a serious problem.
Every night, he threatened me, saying if I didn't take him to the ER, he would drive himself. He was already very altered on his own prescriptions, I knew he couldn't drive. He told me what a horrible wife I was and how I didn't care about his suffering. He told me he wished he had never married me and that he wished he had married someone that would care about him. Each night, torn, I took him to another ER. When we would get to the ER, I finally started trying to get nurses alone and telling them that he had already taken his own medicine, and that he was taking too much. But it never mattered. They would still come in and give him exactly what he told them to give him. If we ever got a nurse that tried to give him less, or suggest he had had enough, he would read them his patient rights to pain relief. And they would come in and put more in his I.V. And when we got in the car, he would take all his own pills, despite my begging and pleading.
It wasn't long until he became violent if I tried to stop him from taking his meds. If I told him I was going to say something to a nurse, he would grab me around my throat and say "if you even think about talking to a nurse, you will be so sorry when we get in the car." We were living a nightmare. After hospital visits, he was so altered that he would insist on cooking. He would fall asleep standing up at the hot stove, or with his hands in the sink with the water running. I could not stop him. It reached a point that I could never relax. It was dangerous for him to be left alone. He couldn't even chew food without falling asleep and then he would start choking. I cried and begged him to believe me that something was wrong. But he said the only thing wrong, was me, and the fact that he married me.
I am so ashamed to admit, but I began to grow disgusted with him. I couldn't stand the sight of him. I didn't even know who he was anymore. I loved a man that didn't exist. The man that he was, I couldn't stand. I asked his best friend to come with me to the ER's because I was afraid of him. And yes, at this point I was still taking him to the ER. Somehow I thought I was doing the right thing protecting him from getting into a car accident and killing himself, or someone else. I was in constant fear that he was going to die. And at the ER's again, I would beg the staff not to give him anything, but they did over and over. And they always sent him home with a couple scripts as well. So he had these on top of what the other doctors were giving him. He had several different doctors prescribing the same things. None of them knew what the other was prescribing.
I had become so disgusted and would say very mean things. I no longer cared how angry it made him, and didn't think he was capable of being hurt. We were always in an argument, but this one ended up physical. He grabbed me and tried to throw me down our apartment stairs. I knew I had to leave.
I called some friends from church and went to stay with them. This was the first time I really made it known just how bad things were. And he wasn't very happy about that.
I stayed with our friends for a few weeks. Sean agreed to go to counseling with me. He also agreed to go to detox for Ativan. So he did. And he came out on Methadone. He thought that Methadone had worked great for his pain while in detox. When he went back to the pain doctor, he asked for methadone. After the detox, things got a little better for a while. We went to a counselor for about a month. And it seemed without Ativan, he was more alert. He also stopped going to the ER for a few weeks. I thought things were going to get better. It was the calm before the storm.
Our financial situation was as bad as our marriage. We were running our own business and he had stopped working, so we weren't getting paid. So much money went to prescriptions and doctors. He had a 40,000 dollar savings that we were draining to pay our bills, and it was almost gone. Paying for an office lease, apartment, cars, insurances, cost of living, etc., it went fast. Soon our car was repossessed and we were evicted. We were losing everything.
We went to live with Sean's mom and brother. Sean became very depressed on top of everything else. So he was prescribed more pills for his depression. He was now on medication for depression, anxiety, nausea, back pain, migraines, muscle relaxers, and the ER visits started up again.
All of the medication was also affecting his mind in more ways than just being ''high'' or ''altered''. In the beginning of his addiction, he was sleeping all day. Now he wasn't sleeping at all. He became Manic. He followed me around trying to argue with me about everything. He didn't make any sense. When I tried to tell him I didn't understand what he was saying, he became belligerent. He told me I was the one that was so stupid. I spent many nights hiding in closets with blankets and pillows trying to "get away from him" and get some sleep. If he saw me, he wouldn't let me sleep. I felt like he was a person with a serious mental problem and I couldn't communicate with him. Still, he disgusted me. I would cry myself to sleep, sometimes outside in a garage where he couldn't find me. I would cry out to God "Why God, Why is this happening to us? Why is this happening to me? Why am I still here? Why can't I just go home? What am I doing here?" I knew I had parents in Florida that would bring me back home in a heartbeat. But I knew I couldn't leave Sean. God wouldn't let me.
As much as I hated my life….I always heard God say "You do the right thing my child, and I will bless you abundantly" I never knew what that meant. I grew to accept that my idea of a blessing, and God's, may be very different. I accepted that this may be my life forever, although I prayed that it would not. I came to a point in my walk, that whatever God had for, I would receive. I cried out to the Lord every day for help. I begged Him to save my husband's life. I was growing closer to Him through it all.
Sean was still going to ER's, but I stopped taking him. It was so difficult. I was so scared that he was going to be in a car accident and get killed. Now that I wasn't taking him, he would not only go to 1 hospital a night, but 2, 3, sometimes 4 ER's throughout the night. And he was still taking his own pills as well. I constantly prayed that Jesus would just be his pilot and take the wheel.
One day Sean decided that he was going to leave me. He hated me so much. He hated everything about me. He said he was going to move to CA and never wanted to see me or any of his family ever again. On his way to CA, (fortunately he didn't make it very far) while still in PA, his tire blew and he had to stop for the night to get his tire fixed. He didn't have any money so he went to Catholic Social Services, St. Vincent's DePaul. They were going to put him in a homeless shelter, but the shelter was full, so they put him in a motel. They weren't able to fix his tire for a few days, so CCS put him in the motel for those few days. He would call me and keep me on the phone all night, manic, picking at me, and hammering me, it was so sad and horrible. I felt so terrible to hang up on him talking. At this point there was nothing I could say to him that he wouldn't argue with. I couldn't even say "I love you, or I miss you" without him becoming irate. He'd say "if you loved me you wouldn't treat me so horrible, you wouldn't be such a horrible wife" I could do no right in his eyes. While in the motel, he started an argument with the manager. He was making long distance calls and wasn't going to pay for them. During all of this, he was preaching the scriptures to everyone he saw. But he wasn't preaching lovingly, he was losing his mind. I got a call from the police and they asked me if he was my husband. They asked me questions about him. He was acting so out of his mind that they took him to a local psychiatric hospital and had him involuntarily committed. He was 4 hours from where we lived and I went to see him. It was one of the most horrible memories I have of this time in our lives. He was so drugged that he walked like his arms were paralyzed. He acted like this psychiatric hospital was his new home. He had given up on having a life with me. He still hated me, but he didn't care anymore. He showed me around and introduced me to other patients like this was his new life and this is where I would see him from now on. This was it for him. I told him I loved him. I pleaded with him to stop taking his prescriptions and come back to me. He asked me to leave and told me I disgusted him. I left broken and weeping.
Even other Christians were advising me to leave him, saying I didn't deserve this life. But deep down I knew that I deserved nothing but hell. And God's definition of happiness is very different from ours. I came to the realization that God's purpose for our lives isn't just 'personal happiness', but He wants us to lead people to Him, and live for Him. And in living for Him, we will experience true joy that far surpasses earthly happiness. I knew that if this is the life He chose for me, that He would carry me through it and that He would give me peace and joy. Somehow.
When the hospital released Sean, he came back home to his mom's house. He started living the same pattern of multiple doctors, pills, and ER visits. One night we got the call that he had been in a car accident. He was crossing the bridge from PA to NJ, very close to a hospital. They found him in the car with a hospital arm band on and 2 others on the floorboard. He was headed to the 4th hospital of the night just before the accident happened. His family and I met him in the ER of the hospital, and of course they were already treating him for pain. I couldn't take it anymore. I was determined to make someone listen to me. I was so angry with doctors, hospitals, and the medical profession in general. They were helping my husband kill himself. I went to the doctor and pleaded for them to help him. I told them about his prescriptions, the psychiatric hospital, the ER trips, and the over medicating. I was ignorant enough at this point to believe they cared. I had no idea how often they see this and how much they already knew. We were just another case to them. I thought they were going to help. I didn't realize that they couldn't help until Sean wanted help. I thought they were going to do it. They admitted Sean into their "Drug Rehab/Psychiatric" program. After a week there, he came out on 19 different medications. I thought he was going to come out clean. Instead, they treated him with more medication for all his "mental problems" that I knew were drug induced. His hatred for me was stronger than ever because he knew I "put him there". While he was in there, God spoke to me. He very clearly told me not to visit Sean. Every time we talked, Sean became angrier with me, God shared with me that my physical presence was doing more harm than good. God told me to stay away from him and become a prayer warrior. It was very hard because I wanted to see him, but every time I did, he couldn't stand me. Sean's brother didn't understand my decision. He became very angry with me when I told him I wasn't going to the hospital to see Sean. He too was suffering with an addiction and I lived in a house with him. At one point he became physically aggressive with me, so I moved out. It was another horrible and dramatic episode, one of many it seemed.
I moved in with a family from church that I didn't know very well. I made it very clear to Sean that I wasn't leaving him. I just couldn't live at his mom's anymore and told him I wanted him to get off medicine and get better so we could have our own life together again.
The next several months were spent with this wonderful family. It was one of the most spiritual times of my life up to that point. As much as I missed Sean, I was able to live without daily fear for the first time in a year. I could sleep in a warm bed, wrapped in the arms of Jesus. He became my everything.
I knew that as much as I missed Sean, if I went back, nothing would change. He wouldn't get better. As horrible as what happened with his brother was, I knew God used that to lead me to where I was. I started praying that I would see Sean through God's eyes instead of my own. My love for him was growing each day through my prayers for him. In some ways, though we were apart, we had never been so close. I trusted that if it was God's will for Sean to be in this state, he would restore him fully. And He would reveal His purposes to me and carry me through every step. I grew to accept whatever God had in store, and accepted God's will for my life. I also accepted that may mean I would never have children. And even though I had come to a place of acceptance, I never stopped expressing my longing and hope for Sean to be fully healed. And I continued to pray that someday we would have a 'normal' life and a family.
While living with the church family, my parent's had come up from Florida to visit. Sean and I were not having contact at this point other than phone conversations. Things were still very bad when we were together. One night I got the call that I had always been afraid of. A hospital called me and said "Are you the wife of Dennis Sean Hughes?" I said yes. They told me he was in serious condition and to come to the hospital. When I got there, frantic, they told me they didn't think he was going to make it through the night. They said he overdosed. Having never seen anyone suffering from an overdose, I was terrified when I saw Sean's mouth completely black, and black all over his chin and gown. It was charcoal. They shot him full of Nar can and pumped him full of charcoal, which is how you treat a narcotics overdose. Well little did they know, he wasn't overdosing on narcotics. He was having a severe drug interaction from all the psychiatric meds he was on. At this point he was on 19 different medications. So shooting him with Nar can almost killed him. He was having seizures and his heart rate was uncontrollable. A few of us gathered around him and just started praying. After hours of him being in complete torment, he finally fell asleep. The next day in the hospital, they came in and asked him if he was suicidal, he said no. So they discharged him with the instructions to continue all medication as prescribed.
Well he finally accepted and realized that these prescriptions were going to kill him. And they almost did.
He got off all medications, but the Methadone. Honestly his brain was fried. Getting off all the meds didn't help very much yet. He was still manic all the time and still couldn't stand being around me. And I was learning that I loved him so much more when I was away from him. When I was in my safe house with the church family, I could read the bible, pray for him, love him, and see him through God's eyes. But when he was in my presence, that peace didn't last long. When I wasn't with him, I wanted to be, so we tried to start dating. But every date ended very soon after it started, and most were spent with tears of frustration and hopelessness. I would come back to the safe house and start my walk all over again. I just couldn't seem to keep it in his presence. As much as I wanted to be with him, he made me feel unsafe and then I just wanted to get back to the family's home. I felt like Jesus was there waiting for me, I didn't feel like He was in the car with Sean and I. We were not at a place where we were inviting Him in yet.
About 3 months later, Sean and I had started to attend church together. It was a start, although it was strained and I was still very uncomfortable to be around him. One day after church he told me that he was going to move to Georgia to attend a church of a Televangelist that he saw on TV. He asked me if I was going to come. He said if I didn't go with him, we were going to be over once and for all. He said that I was supposed to be a Godly wife that followed her husband. I wanted so much to be a wife that would please God. I was so torn. I had so much fear of going with him. I didn't have any peace about it. I was scared. But I didn't want to displease God. After church I begged him to talk to the pastor with me before he left. He said if I wasn't going to go with him, than he didn't need to talk to anyone for me. He left. I wept running up the isle of the church, sobbing to the pastor. I was desperate. I thought this was truly it. I thought he would die there, or meet another woman and move on. I would lose my husband forever. I pleaded with the pastor to help us and asked what I should do. The pastor shared with me that it didn't sound like Sean was really being led by the Holy Spirit. They advised me not to go with him. He was leaving in a car with no place to live when he got there. We talked on the phone several times that Sunday, I pleaded for him not to go. He just kept saying if I loved or cared about him I would go. He told me to stop crying to him like I cared. And the fear came back and I felt so out of control and desperate.
Sean left that night. When he arrived in GA, he found a room to rent. He had no money, but his mom paid for him to rent the room. She too feared for his safety. After a couple weeks, the woman started asking Sean's mom questions about Sean's mental state. Sean finally started calling me and we talked on the phone. I could tell he still had so many mental issues. Every conversation ended with him saying "if you loved me, you would be here" and he'd hang up. It was very hard. I wanted to believe if I just moved to Georgia, we could have a life together and he would get better. I missed the man that I knew God intended for him to be. That is the man I hung on to.
After about a month in GA, I got a call that said "Would you receive a collect call from 'inmate Sean Hughes" I will never forget that call either. It was another heart stopping phone call. I immediately thought "Oh, please God, what has he done?" I found out there was a road block in the middle of the night, and Sean was pulled over and they asked him for his license and insurance. He couldn't find his license, so they took him to jail. By this time, he had already been thrown out of the house he was renting a room in. He purchased a tent and was getting ready to live in it. He called me to bail him out. But of course I didn't have money. He yelled and cursed and told me to do whatever it took to get him out of there. I was so scared for him to be there. He described the people he was in there with. And it sounded so horrible. I was so broken and again fear set in. What if I didn't do everything I could to get him out and then something so horrible happened to him that he could never get over it. And my mind began to think the worst. Well after I stopped thinking for myself and took it to God, He gave me peace and I knew He had purpose for Sean to be there. Sean kept calling, threatening, screaming, and cursing. But I just let God be my strength and my rock. God said He was in control and I knew He was.
After about 4 days, they let Sean out "ROR," which means "released on own recognizance" or without bail. Sean couldn't take any pills while he was there. And for the first time in 17 months, he called me and said "I love you, and I don't want to live in this life anymore without you." He asked me if he came home to PA, if I would live with him. He said he just can't handle living apart anymore. I agreed to live with him. I was scared and I didn't want to. But I knew that God wanted me to. And that He would carry me through whatever we were going to face. The next several months weren't easy. It took quite a while for Sean to start to act normal mentally. And it took so long for me to trust him, relax around him, and just love him like Jesus. "Love keeps no record of wrongs" was very difficult for me to live. I was terrible at it.
In 2003, God closed every door for us in PA, and made it clear he wanted us to start a new life in Florida. Sean still had one med left that he hadn't let go of yet. Methadone, it was the hardest to come off. He was determined to come off of it before we arrived in Florida. He truly wanted to start over completely drug free. Methadone withdraw is truly the worst thing I have ever experienced. Sean didn't sleep but for minutes at a time for 6 weeks, and he had tremors and shook uncontrollably. I cried watching him suffer. But knowing how much he needed to do this. He had moments where he had to take a quarter of a pill; he just couldn't take it anymore. I didn't know at the time that he was still taking some. I just thought that he was finally able to get some rest that it was getting better. After a long road, he was finally free.
I can't even begin to tell you how thankful l am to God. Words could never express what my heart feels when I think about His amazing faithfulness. How much He loves me is more than I can fathom.
The plans that God has for us, no matter how hard at times, are better than we can ever dream up for ourselves. Without the trials, we can't know victory in Christ. I would never trade that brokenness for who I used to be. And it is the brokenness that leads us into the arms of Christ. That experience in my life tore down the walls of my self righteousness. What was once a girl that couldn't even stand to look at a guy with a beer now realizes that her sin of self righteousness is far more disgusting than unrighteousness to an all loving God. I realized the real reason I stand righteous today has nothing to do with "self," and everything to do with Jesus Christ. He shed his blood and suffered the eternal wrath of God, which I deserve. Once you realize the true cost of your righteousness, there is nothing more shameful than to remember that there was ever a time when you actually had the pride to believe that you are deserving of anything.
When I look back on all the things that the doctors told me; "your husband is permanently disabled….he will die before the year is up, you have to come to grips with that….we have never seen an addiction case this serious and the person live through it…….you will have to visit him in mental hospitals for the rest of his life…..he cannot live a normal life and function in society ever again…… his mental condition is caused by a life changing event….. this was probably triggered by your wedding, even if he shows signs of getting better, it will happen again if you ever have children, or if someone close to him dies….. it is triggered not just by bad things, but good things as well…." All of those things medical professionals said to me. I am so grateful that God's Word does not speak that way; God's word says "with God, all things are possible." His word tells us "God causes all things to work together for good for those who love God and are called according to His purpose." His word says "He who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus." And His word is true!
And now 6 years later, my husband has an amazing testimony of God's love and faithfulness in his life. We are blessed more than I ever realized we would be. We have 2 beautiful and amazing children, which I wouldn't be blessed with if I had thrown in the towel and called it quits. I wouldn't know what it would be like to have such a blessing for a husband. The man, who once hated me, now loves me like Christ loves the church….even when I am unlovable. The husband, who couldn't stand me, now holds my hand and wipes my forehead when I am having his babies. The man, who used to curse me, now encourages me and others with the word of God each week. He surrendered his life to Jesus and fully lives the verse "It is not I who lives, but Christ who lives in me" The man who I used to be afraid to follow, I would now follow anywhere because I know his steps are led by God. Nothing is impossible with God, no matter what anyone says. Our lives are a living testimony of that. And as much as God has done for us, I know He doesn't love us anymore than He loves anyone reading this. He will guide and direct the path of anyone willing to surrender their will. And His plan for us is better than anything we can make for ourselves.
Three years ago Sean started Freedom Through Christ Ministries, a ministry helping those struggling with addiction. We are so thankful that God is allowing us to use our experience and testimony to help Him help others.
