You must be on the edge of your seats...

I really lit into him when I got home that night/morning. I told him that he's gone to the casino more times in the last three weeks than he has in the last three years put together. He started to argue with me. It was a good kind of arguing, for once, though, because "That Guy" was still gone. I was having a "regular" argument with my husband and we were both hearing each other and making sense. So after the mad was over, we decided to try to figure out why he was doing this. And he came up with the possibility that back when he was "normal" (not bipolar that we knew anyhow), he was very outgoing and had lots of friends. He could make friends with anyone at all. That was something that I always loved about him. Anyhow, he was thinking that part of the reason he is being drawn to the casino is because he misses all the people, the chit-chat, the joking....the kinds of things you say to acquaintances, you know? And I strongly told him that he could get that need met by volunteering somewhere, or, finding a job somewhere. He thought about it, and agreed with me. Then, after our talk, he was so motivated, he got up and went job hunting! And he might have found something. It sounds very promising. Supposedly they will be calling him tomorrow. I'm hopeful. He hasn't gone to the casino since.

And he's been going to bed at a decent time, too. It's made so much of a difference in his motivation and his energy, he wakes up, gets up and DOES STUFF. It's great. And the greatest part of all this is that when we were arguing, and I knew he was angry with me and I was angry with him, "That Guy" never came out at all. When he's not around (That Guy), I feel safe talking about anything and everything with DH because my real DH and I have always had that kind of relationship. It was just a couple of days ago that they upped his Lithium dose again, and it feels good.