A Friend In Need

Hi there,
My boyfriend's best friend has been addicted to cocaine for the past 6 years. He had a breakdown earlier this year and spend a month at a rehab. We was so positive and determined to deal with his addiction but barely a week after he came out of rehab, he started using drugs again and has been ever since. We are at our wits ends (never mind what his family is going through). We are being lied to, taken advantage of and hurting. We understand we are dealing with the addiction and not him, but what can we do to help me. He knows we are a call away yet chooses not to call us if he is craving. He knows he is always welcome to stay over yet chooses not to.
He stands to loose a great deal in his life if he doesn't sort his life out.
This is driving us insane and we have no idea how to deal with the situation or him - we've tried getting mad, setting boundries ... and now we are at the point where are just letting him be because he doesn't listen anyway.
How do you get through to someone like that? How do you help someone that doesn't want to be helped? What can we do as caring friends who love and care for him?
I always hoped to have someone that cares for me as you have done for this "freind". I feel empathy for all involved. Noone can give you a quick fix or solution. The only way I could suggest in your helping this loved one is to try and get him to remember who he was before the drug found place in his life. Help this person see what has made him proud as well as strong in himself. Understand why he repeats this destructive route. Seeing through his eyes might help you understand what pain he is covering, but make no mistake giving him an "excuse" to effect himself as well as everyone else in his life with his pain will end in demise. Plainly spoken. "Put a mirror in front of his face". Good luck and GOD bless.
Hi Friend,

It is always a tough situation when the addict just doesn't want to stop or feels they can't. Which by the sounds of it, is what your friend is going through. He has been to rehab for a month and in every rehab I know they go over alcohol and drug awareness and education. They give you and teach you how to use tools to stay clean. I have been through this myself. I went through rehab stints and used almost immdeiately after treatment. I have gotten clean time and than gone back and used. Sometimes it is not until the addict truly faces the fear of using that they become willing to do whatever is needed to stop and stay stopped. That is what it took me. Nobody could understand why I used and ruiend a seemingly good life. Just didn't make sense to anyone ... not even me. And that is part of the problem. In my case I used to cover up any emotion or feeling I had. It was the only thing I knew to do from 30 years of using. I became so conditioned with my using that it became the only thing I knew. It was not until the fear of using and dying that I became willing. That willingness had me begging for help and praying for the strength to seek it.

You asked what you can do. You can make your friend aware that you will always be there for him if he ever wants help. Just be careful not to confuse helping him with enabling him. We as addicts become great manipulators of the people that want to help us and we take advantage of them. Helping him to find recovery is what I mean by help, helping that person remain in active addiction ... that is enabling. Unfortunately, in some cases there is not much you can do if he does not want to help himself. You can keep reminding him that you care and will do anything to help when he is ready. You can try and talk to him about what he is doing to his life. Try and get him here to ask other addicts questions when he is over your house. He might not want to hear anything about it, but at least you can sleep easier knowing that you are trying everything. Check out these websites for more education on the disease.

na.org
narcanon.org

Good Luck,

Albert R.
Lovingly detach yourself and let him hit his bottom. There is nothing you can do until he reaches the point where he is desperate for recovery. Give his family emotional support and most of all look after yourselves. We addicts can take a terrible toll on our loved ones when we are ill. Don't take anything he does personal because truthfully he does not have the ability right now to see how he affects those around him. Take care.
Thank you so much for your replies and your support. From your replies I have gathered that we are on the right track and we have come to realise many of the things ourselves.

We have for one stopped paying his dealers or lending him any money whatsoever. We have locked up any liquor that we had at the apartment - any so called "triggers". We've also come to realise that he doesn't need these "triggers" to use drugs - he seems to want to do this on his own unassisted-no excuses needed. He is also supposed to phone his sponsor who is my boyfriend and his best friend, when he is craving and he chooses not to. He knows our door is open for him any time and that we are there for him no matter what. He does seem to enjoy this attention and even seem to feed of it, if I dare say so ...
We know the lies, we know the manipulations and we know that it's not him.

We have sat down with him and heart a very difficult heart to heart. We drew up a list of all the people closest to him and how his addiction is affecting everyone around him, how it made them feel and what the consequences of his actions were. We seem to have directed this at the addiction and we didn't get through to the person. Deep down he really is a lovely person who is our friend and whom we love but he stands to loose his family, his friends, his apartment, his career and his partner - I wish he could see himself through our eyes.

It is so difficult for us an non-addicts/non-recovering addicts to even begin to understand what he is going through, so it really is a huge help for us to chat to other recovering addicts and get some insigth as to what we are going through.

Thank you for your time and your support, I admire you for your strength and courage to have chosen to recover and to have chosen life. Drug addiction has always been something we see on tv or stories we hear - now it's the harsh reality.