I just broke up with my girlfriend. She my heart; smart, beautiful, intelligent. We lived together and she told me she wanted to marry me one day and I said the same to her, but there was one problem...her addiction to heroin. I found out about a month into our relationship and from then on it was a nightmare. She lost her job, withdrawals, lying and destroying my trust in her over a span of three months. I truly do love this girl and I had to systematically make her hate me in order for her to leave and I hate myself for it. When I broke up with her I told her it was because i knew i was enabling her and I was going to talk to her family about getting her help. Stereotypically, within three days she had a new boyfriend. I talked to her family about her drug use but they all think im just a jealous ex and I can't believe this is happening. She posted on Facebook that she started a new relationship what would've been our anniversary. Seriously wtf? As a former addict I don't know how I didn't relapse, it truly is amazing what 3 years of sobriety can do for someone. I can say without a doubt that this has been the hardest relationship experience in my life but I know I did the right thing both by myself and by her because although I could've turned a blind eye to the matter and we'd still be together, it wouldn't have gotten her clean. If anyone is going through this I just want to give you props for doing what's right, even if you're giving up on something you love by putting them on a path of destruction. I would rather she was clean and with someone else than using and with me and those are some bittersweet words to swallow
Sorry you are going through this heartache. It sounds like you are putting your sobriety first, which is the right thing to do. As a recovering addict, you know the pitfalls of staying with an active user.
You probably well know that when people are deep in their addiction, all rational thought goes right out the window. Don't feel used by her. She has serious problems that she's not addressing. No one can help an addict that has not surrendered.
It is the worst thing to blame yourself, think you could have done something to help her, or feel like you were a fool to stay with her. We all care about our people, but need to protect ourselves when they continue to use. If they don't change, then we need to.
Keep posting. There are plenty of people here who have walked in your shoes. Stay strong and move on with your life. Congratulations on three years sober. Keep up the hard but necessary work.
You probably well know that when people are deep in their addiction, all rational thought goes right out the window. Don't feel used by her. She has serious problems that she's not addressing. No one can help an addict that has not surrendered.
It is the worst thing to blame yourself, think you could have done something to help her, or feel like you were a fool to stay with her. We all care about our people, but need to protect ourselves when they continue to use. If they don't change, then we need to.
Keep posting. There are plenty of people here who have walked in your shoes. Stay strong and move on with your life. Congratulations on three years sober. Keep up the hard but necessary work.
Thanks OP for sharing. Your words really helped me tonight.
I am going through a similar situation, right now. My boyfriend was addict for 14 years and clean for almost three. I recently found used needles etc. and am 99.9% sure he is using again. I am not a drug user, but I am having trouble ending the relationship. He is denying using, but I know if I leave he will fall even deeper into this relapse. He also struggles with deep depression and has told me in the past, if I left he would have nothing to live for. I don't think I can live with the guilt if he doe something stupid. I hope you are able to stay strong! You should be so proud of yourself already and the steps you are taking to maintain your sobriety and health.
Hi, Renee1988.
I just read your post and wanted to reach out because I have felt/experienced a lot of what you wrote. My bf just entered inpatient treatment this past Thursday after a long downward spiral for 1.5 years. He has been clean (heroin) for 8 years. We met about 2.5 years ago. The first 6 months were amazing and then everything started to spiral and he slipped and started abusing benzos while being on perscribed suboxone. I immediately raised flags when his behavior started to get worse (lying, stealing my dog's seizure meds, dissapearing, becoming a blank/emotionless man, no intimacy, etc etc). I tried everything-took him to see a counselor with me, begged him to go back to narc anon meetings, call an old dr he connected with, etc etc. Last year, I had to ask him to leave the house because I had enough and wasnt getting anything out of the relationship. It was awful. He lived with his parents, was very angry with me and blaming. After about 2 weeks of resistance, he went to get an eval and started an outpatient program to get back on track. They say "Relapse is a part of recovery". He came back to the house, ignoring my intuition telling me that he wasnt serious and was only doing it to come back and would continue to buy illegal pills.
Well, my intuition was correct-it took about 4 months for it to become really obvious-Addicts are very very skilled at lying, placing blame on you and keeping things "under control"...but there always comes a point where things spiral and it did. I started to see some major changes in depressive mood, an angry/animalistic blow out with his brother, dissapearing again, never having money, stealing money from my wallet and then the bathroom behavior-spending longer in the bathroom, locking bathroom door, shady behavior of moving prescribed medications to garage late at night, finding wet wipes and drug wrappers stamped with deisel. All the while, i am asking him whats wrong, lets talk, why am I finding wrappers and wet wipes. The responses I got were ridiculous lies, telling me I was paranoid or crazy or f&^%ed up.
Finally, a few weeks ago, late at night I demanded he unlock the bathroom door and I found him with a spoon and needles shoved in his pockets. He burst into tears when I ripped the spoon from him and called 911, hoping I could have him arrested. Instead, he panicked, came at me and grabbed the spoon and threw it and needles in our dense woods. Nothing could be done. I left my own home for 1 week and told him to get out. Instead, he enjoyed the home and went on a heroin binge. I came back and he was gone but all his things were here. Thankfully I had my dad with me and he held me accountable and told me I was doing the right thing and I need to protect myself. I changed the locks and packed every single thing he owned in the house and put it in the garage for him to retrieve with advance notice of arriving.
I received nasty voicemails about how cold hearted I am and how he would never forget that I did this and begged to sleep in the garage because he was homeless and living in his car. I stood my ground and said "No, you're actions got you here, admit yourself for treatment".
I continued to receive heroin fueled texts that were confusing, incoherent, blaming, hurtful etc. and I just responded "admit yourself for treatment, you are sick and need help" and hit delete.
He eventually ended up at his parents once he blew his paycheck, ran out of heroin and was homeless. He then played chemist, tried to go back to his suoxone and 4 times his perscription of benzos and his parents found him OD'd and then convulsing in seizures. He survived and I got the call I had dreaded for 1.5 years. After all this, I still went to the hospital when he was released (I didnt see him the night at the ER thank god because the withdrawals were so bad, he was apparently screaming for me to come and be with him). He looked like a complete stranger to me, wrapped in a blanket with no shoes , shivering from withdrawals and nose dripping. He was just a stranger "junkie" to me, not the person I loved.
He completed the paperwork for inpatient treatment and told me he F&^%ed up and gave up on everything and just wants to be normal. He continued to use at his parents while he waited for an open bed (because his parents enabled him/turned a blind eye). I told him I would not talk to him or see him until he was detoxed and clean. He had severe withdrawals the night before he entered treatment and then finally got admitted for 30 days.
His inpatient counselor called me Thursday night to tell me, in front of my bf (not sure if he is even that anymore), that what I did was incredibly strong, the right thing to do and an act of SUPPORT NOT ENABLING. I knew that deep down, but hearing it from his therapist and in front of him made me hold my head high.
Addicts can only help themselves and sometimes they need to find their rock bottom to revisit their sobriety and not take everything for granted, even being alive. The pain that addicts cause to loved ones is incredible and I dont even know if I am able to heal from what he has done to me.
Follow your instincts and reach out to the people closest to you. You have to take care of yourself and fight for what YOU deserve and the happiness and love and trust and partnership you deserve.
Be strong
I just read your post and wanted to reach out because I have felt/experienced a lot of what you wrote. My bf just entered inpatient treatment this past Thursday after a long downward spiral for 1.5 years. He has been clean (heroin) for 8 years. We met about 2.5 years ago. The first 6 months were amazing and then everything started to spiral and he slipped and started abusing benzos while being on perscribed suboxone. I immediately raised flags when his behavior started to get worse (lying, stealing my dog's seizure meds, dissapearing, becoming a blank/emotionless man, no intimacy, etc etc). I tried everything-took him to see a counselor with me, begged him to go back to narc anon meetings, call an old dr he connected with, etc etc. Last year, I had to ask him to leave the house because I had enough and wasnt getting anything out of the relationship. It was awful. He lived with his parents, was very angry with me and blaming. After about 2 weeks of resistance, he went to get an eval and started an outpatient program to get back on track. They say "Relapse is a part of recovery". He came back to the house, ignoring my intuition telling me that he wasnt serious and was only doing it to come back and would continue to buy illegal pills.
Well, my intuition was correct-it took about 4 months for it to become really obvious-Addicts are very very skilled at lying, placing blame on you and keeping things "under control"...but there always comes a point where things spiral and it did. I started to see some major changes in depressive mood, an angry/animalistic blow out with his brother, dissapearing again, never having money, stealing money from my wallet and then the bathroom behavior-spending longer in the bathroom, locking bathroom door, shady behavior of moving prescribed medications to garage late at night, finding wet wipes and drug wrappers stamped with deisel. All the while, i am asking him whats wrong, lets talk, why am I finding wrappers and wet wipes. The responses I got were ridiculous lies, telling me I was paranoid or crazy or f&^%ed up.
Finally, a few weeks ago, late at night I demanded he unlock the bathroom door and I found him with a spoon and needles shoved in his pockets. He burst into tears when I ripped the spoon from him and called 911, hoping I could have him arrested. Instead, he panicked, came at me and grabbed the spoon and threw it and needles in our dense woods. Nothing could be done. I left my own home for 1 week and told him to get out. Instead, he enjoyed the home and went on a heroin binge. I came back and he was gone but all his things were here. Thankfully I had my dad with me and he held me accountable and told me I was doing the right thing and I need to protect myself. I changed the locks and packed every single thing he owned in the house and put it in the garage for him to retrieve with advance notice of arriving.
I received nasty voicemails about how cold hearted I am and how he would never forget that I did this and begged to sleep in the garage because he was homeless and living in his car. I stood my ground and said "No, you're actions got you here, admit yourself for treatment".
I continued to receive heroin fueled texts that were confusing, incoherent, blaming, hurtful etc. and I just responded "admit yourself for treatment, you are sick and need help" and hit delete.
He eventually ended up at his parents once he blew his paycheck, ran out of heroin and was homeless. He then played chemist, tried to go back to his suoxone and 4 times his perscription of benzos and his parents found him OD'd and then convulsing in seizures. He survived and I got the call I had dreaded for 1.5 years. After all this, I still went to the hospital when he was released (I didnt see him the night at the ER thank god because the withdrawals were so bad, he was apparently screaming for me to come and be with him). He looked like a complete stranger to me, wrapped in a blanket with no shoes , shivering from withdrawals and nose dripping. He was just a stranger "junkie" to me, not the person I loved.
He completed the paperwork for inpatient treatment and told me he F&^%ed up and gave up on everything and just wants to be normal. He continued to use at his parents while he waited for an open bed (because his parents enabled him/turned a blind eye). I told him I would not talk to him or see him until he was detoxed and clean. He had severe withdrawals the night before he entered treatment and then finally got admitted for 30 days.
His inpatient counselor called me Thursday night to tell me, in front of my bf (not sure if he is even that anymore), that what I did was incredibly strong, the right thing to do and an act of SUPPORT NOT ENABLING. I knew that deep down, but hearing it from his therapist and in front of him made me hold my head high.
Addicts can only help themselves and sometimes they need to find their rock bottom to revisit their sobriety and not take everything for granted, even being alive. The pain that addicts cause to loved ones is incredible and I dont even know if I am able to heal from what he has done to me.
Follow your instincts and reach out to the people closest to you. You have to take care of yourself and fight for what YOU deserve and the happiness and love and trust and partnership you deserve.
Be strong
Beaniecj I wish I were as strong as you have been. After a 17 yr relationship and two beautiful daughters I still cannot bring myself to leave him no matter ho much I rationalize, no matter how much I pray, no matter how much I hope. I've tried everything I could think of, rehab, enabling, fighting, lecturing, I've read endlessly about the disease. I've read about the hopeful and the hopeless. I'm pretty sure I'm at my wits end but I just can't pull the plug. Part of it is selfishness because I don't want the guilt that will come if something happens to him or if he hurts himself. I've taken care of him all these years and as much as I think or want to believe that this is it and that I've had enough I cannot find the courage. I feel responsible for his well being. If something happens to him I wouldn't know what to tell our beautiful girls. I'm so conflicted, I've felt dead inside for too long yet I manage to face the world each day with a smile on my face as if nothing were wrong, no-one knows. I've done an excellent job hiding his addiction and my enabling ways that I can't seem to stop. I need help but have nowhere to go.
Is it hopeless to still be hopeful? I'm willing to do just about anything to make our dreams of growing old together a reality. I don't want to cheat my girls of their father. He's functioning (barely nowadays) and the girls just think he has serious mood swings, I've done too good of a job hiding his secret, our secret, that now I feel trapped. So many questions, so few answers.
Is it hopeless to still be hopeful? I'm willing to do just about anything to make our dreams of growing old together a reality. I don't want to cheat my girls of their father. He's functioning (barely nowadays) and the girls just think he has serious mood swings, I've done too good of a job hiding his secret, our secret, that now I feel trapped. So many questions, so few answers.
I met the love of my life when he was clean and sober. That was eight years ago. This past year has been a living hell when his very own mother introduced meth to him a year ago. It has been a living hell for me and i know for him as well. Relapses not once but at least three times that i know of with his moms help. I knew nothing about this culture but have finally realized after a year that i have to take care if me and can no longer live like this and be healthy myself. Even though i know he loves me i realize i come second to meth now. I was there for him through it all seeing it as a health issue but it was sucking the life out if me. His mood swings would be him pleading on how much he loves me and wants to get back to the man i knew before meth to leaving and telling me i need to find someone who will care for me better. Its been a year of emotional pain for me. My hope crumbled over and over again. This day moving forward i hope i will find the strength to not let him back after dropping him off at yet another program at his request. He left four programs this year. I want to believe him but i have lost all trust. Will be expecting the numerous desperate calls from him telling me how he wants to come home, loves me and will go to na every night. I have got to be strong and not let that happen. Will find a support group for me
I just found out 4 days ago about my boyfriend's 4 year heroin addiction. We actually traveled together to his hometown so I could finally meet his family and the day before Thanksgiving all hell broke loose when I caught him in the hotel bathroom at 6am snorting heroin. Prior to this horrible event, I had noticed some unusual behavior and could kind of tell about all the lies but because I am not one bit familiar with these kind of situations I actually convinced myself that I was overreacting and going insane when in reality I was right about every single thing. I will never forget that morning. I kept insisting him to tell me truth and explain to me what was going on and after a while he broke down crying and said I deserved to know the truth and deserved better. He had been a heroin addict since age 20 (he is now 24) but had been clean for months since he had moved out of his hometown and had been working and doing amazingly great, compared with how he had been. The relapse happened when he received a very generous commission for a job he did at work. Right after all the crying and fighting and started calling his family and telling them I had found out about everything and he really wanted help.
He's mom and sister got to the hotel (so I can say I didn't meet them under the best circumstances) they decided to take him to the hospital for the time being, since they were waiting on a call from a Detox facility to make sure they had a bed open for him for that same day. We were at the hospital for about 2 hours or so and he was lucky enough to have a bed opening that same day. We took him to the facility and that's where our Thanksgiving trip ended...saying goodbye at a rehab/detox facility entrance.
Today would've been his fourth day of detox and just last night his sister told me he would be leaving today. I have no idea how that was supposed to help. Again, I'm not familiar with these situations but in no way I would think that 3 days of detox is going to help a 4 year addict! He needs to get his insurance in order to enter a rehab program and knowing he will be out with nowhere to go until he can get this taken care of, scares the sh*t out of me. I live in a different country, where he was living with me, so I'm not there to help him right now. I haven't slept since all of this came up to my attention. I haven't been able to tell anyone close to me, since to my family he was a great, healthy, hardworking man. I don't have the guts to tell anyone about this. My family would never accept it. I have just been talking to his sister, whom I just met for that one day, and she's been the one giving me support. She finally told me that this would not be the first time he's gone through this and that he has been close to dying, which gives me no hope at all. I think I've been doing great in regards to giving him all the support he needs but I don't know how much longer I can keep this up. I really needed to find this kind of messages like the ones you guys have shared but they scare me so much!
I know there are stories of success but there are so many of relapsing and us having to be strong and end everything that I really don't know how to feel about any of this.
Please, if there's anyone here who can talk some words of wisdom and experience to me. I would greatly appreciate it.
He's mom and sister got to the hotel (so I can say I didn't meet them under the best circumstances) they decided to take him to the hospital for the time being, since they were waiting on a call from a Detox facility to make sure they had a bed open for him for that same day. We were at the hospital for about 2 hours or so and he was lucky enough to have a bed opening that same day. We took him to the facility and that's where our Thanksgiving trip ended...saying goodbye at a rehab/detox facility entrance.
Today would've been his fourth day of detox and just last night his sister told me he would be leaving today. I have no idea how that was supposed to help. Again, I'm not familiar with these situations but in no way I would think that 3 days of detox is going to help a 4 year addict! He needs to get his insurance in order to enter a rehab program and knowing he will be out with nowhere to go until he can get this taken care of, scares the sh*t out of me. I live in a different country, where he was living with me, so I'm not there to help him right now. I haven't slept since all of this came up to my attention. I haven't been able to tell anyone close to me, since to my family he was a great, healthy, hardworking man. I don't have the guts to tell anyone about this. My family would never accept it. I have just been talking to his sister, whom I just met for that one day, and she's been the one giving me support. She finally told me that this would not be the first time he's gone through this and that he has been close to dying, which gives me no hope at all. I think I've been doing great in regards to giving him all the support he needs but I don't know how much longer I can keep this up. I really needed to find this kind of messages like the ones you guys have shared but they scare me so much!
I know there are stories of success but there are so many of relapsing and us having to be strong and end everything that I really don't know how to feel about any of this.
Please, if there's anyone here who can talk some words of wisdom and experience to me. I would greatly appreciate it.
only an addict can get themselves clean- only an addict is responsible for their continued use / relapse- it is nobody else's responsibility but the addict - we are all responsible for our own actions and must live with the consequences- anybody who thinks they can change the behaviour of an addict are leaving themselves open to a whole world of pain and unhappiness- we lie, we steal, we will promise you we will stay clean- whatever it takes, we may even believe it ourselves when we are telling you- then our disease kicks in and we relapse again and perhaps again - we are the only ones who can decide when we have had enough- we have to really, really want to get clean- and even then it is a constant battle, and thats not an excuse- an addict who wants to stay clean has to put their recovery first, just as they have put their drugs first when using- that means anyone who is involved with an addict whether in active addiction or in recovery must realise that this may not leave much time in the addicts life for them- addiction is a very selfish disease and recovery can be a very lonely place for the spouse/partner or friend -
I keep reading that over and over again....How am I supposed to know if what he's saying is true or not!? He just got out of detox and has to stay alone at a hotel....I do not have a good feeling about any of this but he keeps telling me to be positive and to trust him...this is by far one of the hardest things I've ever been through. So unexpected and unbelievable to me.
this is one of the problems of dealing with addicts, myself included, we lie, we manipulate and we decieve- that is the problem- so how do you know when he is telling the truth- time, trust has to be re-established and this takes time- actions speak louder than words- he will have to prove to you that he is serious about wanting to get clean- until you are 100% sure - be very dubious of what you are told- in that stage between using and getting clean it is a very fine line between making it or relapsing- i wouldnt trust me during that period- but please remember you are NOT RESPONSIBLE for whatever way he choses to go- it is his decision- do not be influenced if he starts telling you he cant make it without you- this is more manipulation dot fall for it- if he is serious about recovery he will do it for himself regardless of who is in his life- anything else is b....s...t- if i were to be truly honest i would tell you to walk away and never look back- do you want to live with this for the rest of your life? the fear of relapse and being let down? the lies and deceit-walk away look after yourself- you owe it to yourself- i have been around the world of addiction for too many years and seen at first hand the hurt we cause those that love us- walk away, i wish you all the best whatever decision you make-
