Relapse?

About a month ago, my partner went to our doctor complaining of headaches, and the doc asked if she needed her to prescribe something for the pain. She refused, and told me about it later. She said she was surprised that the doc would suggest pain meds when she knows that's her drug of choice.

Then, Friday, she went back to the doctor with chest pains. I asked her to ask the doc about the last incident, and she did. The doctor told her that she would have prescribed a non-narcotic. THEN, the doctor offered to write her a scrip for the chest pain, which is apparently the result of an enlarged chest cavity, but NOT heart related. She went home with a prescription for Topomax.

That night, I went researching Topomax, and found out that it's an Opiod, which is the same thing as the Suboxone she had such a hard time coming off of. What I read said that it works the same way and that it can be addictive. So, of course, I started obsessing. I told her what my concerns were, like the difficulty she'd had coming off of her last opiod and the possiblity that taking this would "wake her tiger", and then I really let it go.

Today, she left work early to go home for her pain pills, and then was going to drive to therapy. I asked if she was supposed to drive while taking them. She said that she was supposed to wait to see how they affected her before driving. I told her that impaired people usually don't realize that they're impaired and she decided to go home.

I went to our couple appointment alone. The therapist was concerned about her having the prescription, and suggested that I hold the medication for her and suggest that she talk to her sponsor and her other therapist, who works in drug treatment. He also told me to ask her to count the pills with me. When I told her what the therapist said, she first said that his advice was bad for me because it was feeding my codependency. Then she told me that she has taken more than the prescribed dosage for the last 3 days, by taking 3 pills in the morning instead of 2. She said that she might as well go out and drink, b/c she was gonna have to pick up a white chip. She went through all kinds of rationalization with herself about whether or not it was a relapse, and told me that she knew she was rationalizing. I mostly just let her talk and reflected back for her.

She told me that she would talk to her sponsor, but that she wasn't willing to let me hold the pills. I told her that I'd need to talk to my sponsor and figure out what I needed to do to take care of myself, but that probably I'd find somewhere else to spend the night if she wanted to keep the pills and I'd see her tomorrow. I told her that I could live with one of 3 options- either I'd hold the pills for her and we could talk to her therapist tomorrow or she could call the therapist tonight or I'd find somewhere else to stay the night and she could keep the pills.

The confusing part for me is that she's actually right. Me being involved in her pills is a dangerous place for me to be with MY disease. But the therapist was right, too. I really didn't think that she was already taking more than prescribed, and if I hadn't followed his suggestion, I wouldn't have known about it and it probably would have escalated.

I don't know. Are any or all of us (me/partner/therapist) making a bigger deal of this than it really is? Or are any or all of us minimizing and rationalizing, and it's really a bigger deal? Should I worry about yet another doctor feeding her addiction? Right now, I feel pretty good about where we are with it for now. Stay tuned.