I’ve posted before under a different name, but wanted to keep this anonymous.

When I met my husband, he was an off-and-on alcohol and drug (over the counter medication, primarily robitussin) abuser. After a year together he tried to clean up his act. For the last 7 years, he’d have relapses where he’d drink or abuse medicine one night or a few nights in a row, but then abstain for a few months at a time. He always kept it secret from me by doing it in his car, sometimes in the parking lot of a pharmacy, at night after I was asleep. Whenever I caught him he’d beg me not to leave him and make all sorts of promises to stop. He tried a few different therapists and antidepressants, but nothing seemed to work long term.

7 months ago I caught him drinking and taking robitussin again. I told him that I was sick of him lying to me and continually falling back into his abusive ways, and that I was going to leave him. The next day I found out I was pregnant. I decided to try a few more months with him, and he was completely clean from that point forward until yesterday.

Yesterday I got a call from his office that they had just called an ambulance because he’d had a seizure at work. He’d never had a seizure before. I met him at the ER, and it turned out that he had taken a LOT of robitussin on his break after 7 months of abstaining. He’s done serious damage to his kidneys and stomach lining that may or may not be permanent. He’s still at the hospital and is on “suicide watch,” because of the sheer amount of medicine he took.

When asked why he did it, he told the hospital (and later told me) that it was because everything in his life is so amazing- me, the baby coming, etc.- and he doesn’t feel like he deserves it. He was abused as a child and has very low self-esteem. Additionally, he’s been under a lot more stress than usually lately, with his hours being nearly doubled at work, and he’s constantly worried that he’s going to be a terrible father because he never had a good example growing up.

I don’t know what to do. I love him, and aside from the substance abuse he is an amazing guy. He loves me beyond measure and would do anything for me and the baby. However, I’m not sure I want to bring our baby home to a house where its daddy may be chugging cough medicine secretly at night. I thought that he’d completely stopped because of the pregnancy, but if he relapsed now, he could very easily relapse again.