by Catharine Beale

Created on: February 24, 2009   Last Updated: January 13, 2012

Peering out the window of our Brooklyn brownstone, I wondered if I would ever see him again.

"I'm running across the street to get cigarettes." Always his last words as he shot out the door. I could see the bodega with the orange sign on the other side of the block from the window.

Then, at the bottom of the stairs, he turned left, and he was gone. Sometimes a day.  Sometimes three or four.

Then out of the blue he would be back. Like nothing happened.

This is the life of a drug addict on crack and heroin. I was leading the anguished life of someone who loved him.

One Friday night in January, he returned from another disappearing act. Shaking, strung out and gray-skinned, he explained everything: "I'm a drug addict."

Another lie, I told him. To prove it, he flashed his arm in front of me.  It was riddled with tiny holes.  They also dotted the space between his toes. And the skin on his thighs.  Was he telling the truth?

"I'm sick," he said, dramatic, playing the sympathy card. His eyes were still that beautiful, silky blue I loved. He pleaded for money. He would get much sicker if I didn't take him to the ATM and withdraw money. He might die, he said.

When I refused, he exploded. He roared in rage, shook me, shoved me hard across the room. The third-floor window was a heartbeat away. It crossed my mind: He was going to kill me.

And then, miraculously, he was out the door, again.

Desperate, I searched in the phone book for someone to call, and reached a woman who had been here, done this, lived, and was happy.

"You need to get help," she said gently. Her soft words were everything I needed to hear. I cried. But I didn't want help for me. I wanted help for him. More than anything in the world, I wanted Dan to enter rehab.

You can see this is not a talk you can have with your neighbor. Nor your work colleagues.  Nor your mother. Not even with your best friend. Yet, this stranger on the telephone sounded like someone I had known my whole life. Someone who was waiting for my call.

"You can't put him in a rehab," she told me. She was firm. This was not advice I wanted to hear. She did not back down.

"He needs," she said, in measured tones, "to put himself in rehab. You can't do this for him."

I pleaded. I would put him in a rehab. I could do that. She assured me this would never be possible. I wanted a different answer. She explained. I pleaded again. She listened, this woman on the phone. For a full hour we talked, until I

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