hzebo - Addiction & Recovery Message Board

natema · 01-10-2002, 02:27 PM

Just wanted to thank you for the insight you gave me:
QUOTE]Originally posted by natema:
He had some slip-ups in the beginning with some pills,
For an addict like me, if I were to have a "slip-up" (and I think this goes for any addict), we wake up that "gorilla" It is the obsession to get more and the compulsion to get and use more, no matter what.

I felt ashamed and hurt. I felt betrayed.

You shouldn't feel ashamed and hurt. Don't take on his shame and gult because it will be more difficult for you to see the disease of addiction in his life. He wasn't betraying you, it was the disease that he cannot control. We do anything to get high. I used to spend all my money getting loaded and my car note was two months behind, I was desparate and I went into my mom's house and I knew where she had money stashed and I stole $1000 dollars from her to make my car note. Guess what? I didn't make the car note and I lost the car anyway. Talk about guilt and shame!!!

Don't get me wrong, he's a really good guy

Many of us are "good guys" underneath this f***ed up addiction that we have constantly hanging over our shoulder. If we don't constantly work on ourselves, we use again and the "Mr. Hyde" comes out.

I hope this doesn't offend you. I have a way of doing that to people without even trying. I say all these things to share my experience as an addict to maybe better help you understand. Our basic text says that "one addict can best understand and help another addict" so.... The best thing you can do for him is let him make the decision that he doesn't want to live that way any longer. He needs to stop using for himself. It takes us years sometimes. It took me 27 years of living that way until June of '98.
I finally made the phone call and went into treatment on my own. I was so wasted though I don't remember the exact date, but I use June 20, 1998 as my clean date because that is the first day that I remember that I didn't put anything in my body that was mood or mind-altering to change the way I felt inside. It has been a rough road, but I just do it slowly. I am even in a relationship with another recoving addict.

hope this helps, good luck.

h

[This message has been edited by hzebo (edited 01-08-2002).]

It actually helped me to better understand what is going on even though I've been down some of those roads myself. I never did something so addicting as heroin, so my recovery is very much different from my guy's. I don't understand why all of the other people who posted replies were on this band wagon of 'get rid of the *******'. Just because someone is an addict, it doesn't make them less of a person. It doesn't mean they should be cast out. I don't condone what he did. I'm here for support if he asks for it and if he truly wants to recover and is doing the work. Anyway, thanks.