It's the time of the year that I must call upon my skills as a worm whisperer .. lol.  We have a good size garden and this year is our second year of planting a garden.  I'm very proud of my AH he has a natural green thumb.  We've had different ideas and it's all worked out.  I have officially been the proud owner of a tomato tree/bush because as we all know more is better right?  That's actually a funny story in itself.  He really gets a tremendous amount of credit this year, less learning curve more experimenting, we have much more variety.  

Monday I pulled off, (I say pulled off I wouldn't touch these nasty little creatures with a 10 foot pole .. green, squishy and they squirt yellow stuff when I've tried in the past .. eww ick.  I'm an odd country girl .. I don't mind a lot of things squishy and buggy I don't do .. ewww.  ), 5 that day and I'm able to break off a small end or leaf and do it that way .. again with the eww and the yuck!

Tuesday I pulled off another 6.  One of these little creatures will take out 1/2 of a large tomato plant if not caught in time.  I'm not big on pesticides of any kind and so I do the manual thing with the buggies. It's very important to get them and to know what to look for in hunting for them because they totally blend in. 

My AH said to me the other day how can you find these things I never see them!? I can even find the small ones .. lol.  I started wondering how do I spot these as quickly as I do when it can be challenging for others. 

I had to think about it for a moment and there are signs I look for, how much damage has been done, there is the worm poop, that's some odd looking stuff.  It goes without saying  the larger the worm the larger the damage and poop .. lol.  Oddly enough the larger the damage the easier it is to find the worm.  The smaller the worm the harder it is to see the damage and it's easy to allow the damage to grow because that little worm is going to become a large worm. 

Then I thought about my own recovery and the damage that alcoholism/addiction can do to a family.  What's happened just in the last year has been mind boggling to deal with, then there is the issue of how long has this really been going on and how has the alcohol been an issue in our relationship.  Now I would and have stated a standard answer and I have shared it before of 6 years on and off, each "incident" grows.  If I really want to be honest with myself it started long before my AH and I were even together, there is the before me time and then the after me time.  This is the worst it's been since we've been together and I've been at my lowest at this point, with my own issues. He hit a high in incidents before we met as well. 

I see myself as the tomato plant, I have to care for myself, nurture myself, make sure I'm doing what I need to do to grow, feed water, and so on.  Those worms are the effects of alcoholism on me.  I have to trim, clip, not only do I have to spot the big ones in recovery I have to identify with the small ones as well.  If I catch the small ones I stop things in their track instead of a big worm not so much damage has been done.  It made a lot of sense to me that these things that seem so harmless are not, they can't be ignored or the issue gets worse, they turn into moths and populate other plants close to them with more worms.  It's an endless cycle just like addiction is, it never ends.  I can choose and am trying to choose on a more regular basis a healthier place to be.  

Anyway, it was interesting to me how my AH can't find his own tomato worms.  Probably because he isn't looking (yet) and how the affects of addiction on him the damage is starting to show through, because it's not stopping at me first.  He's going to have to find his own tomato worms.