Well, first of all I want to thank aideen for her posts if she happens to read this one. You're topics have made me feel a little less alone. I've printed off some of them so I can keep looking back.
See, I'm 22 years old and my boyfriend is a recovering heroin addict. He's been an addict for about 10 years and he's been clean for about 10 months (1 month longer than we've been together). He had some slip-ups in the beginning with some pills, but he got past it and I've been so proud of him. Until yesterday... Just yesterday morning I was telling him how proud I am of him for staying clean like he has. Later on in the day, my mom came over. Seems last Sunday when we were there, half of her codeine cough syrup disappeared from her medicine cabinet (she's been sick). I felt ashamed and hurt. I felt betrayed. Later in the day I found out that this past week he also pilfered some valium from the bottle the vet gave me for my sick kitty cat. And I remembered that when I got my wisdom teeth pulled back in November, I went to get a pain pill (I had all four taken out) from my bag, there were none left and I could've sworn I had 2 left. I had to go without.
Don't get me wrong, he's a really good guy and we've got lots of love and respect between us. He's been depressed for months and he's getting a lot of cravings. I'm not trying to save him, I just want him to be healthy and happy. He was in rehab for about 3 or 4 months. He's in therapy now, but I feel so discouraged. Not to downplay these other f**k ups he's had, but it was a serious violation of trust for him to steal from my sick mother. I don't know if I can trust him anymore. I love him and I don't want to leave him, I just want him to get better. I need some input: advice, resources, anything...
Hope to hear a response.
peace to you and yours and some love
Natema
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Participating in real life is not so hard. Ceasing to
pretend that there is something better we could be doing is a
little harder.
-Tao of Enlightenment
It makes me shudder when I read that "don't know if I can trust him anymore". The reason it does is because if you don't know the answer to that by now, nothing anyone tells you about him will make any difference.
Please consider this: why don't you know if he is trustworthy or not, by now?
He has to want help bad enough to go get the help all by himself...no one can help him but him. Part of you seems to still think you can rescue him from himself, or that he isn't really as untrustworthy as he behaves.
Sweetie, this is his reality: the way he is behaving right now. His words don't mean anything unless his behavior lines up with the words.
Your real decision is, is this what you want to expose your mother and yourself to? Is this how you want to live? Do you want you and everyone you care about to go without whatever you need that he thinks he needs, first or more?
Is it really love that motivates you to expose yourself to that kind of life?
[This message has been edited by friend (edited 01-09-2002).]
Hi - Please heed the other posters words/advice. You can't help him.
I know you want him to be healthy/happy. But what YOU want isn't the answer -- it's what HE wants.
If he truly wants to get clean, then he knows what he needs to do. Nothing you say, do, want, is going to make any difference. Right now, he's stealing from you and your mother --- and I'm sure he's finding some other ways to get what he wants/needs.
An addict has to hit rock bottom. All his resources for drugs has to dry up. You cannot enable him by feeling sorry for him, giving him money, food, a place to live. The only way you can *help* him is to tell him to go somewhere else. Tough love. It's hard, but it's what he needs.
I hope he gets clean. Addiction/alcoholism is a progressive, fatal disease that CAN be arrested --- but he has to want to. God Bless you both. Peace, Lee
[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).]
natema,
I just ended a 4 year relationship to a man who has smoked marijuana daily for 30 plus years. My kids and I tried moving in with him and lasted only 5 weeks. I realized that I could never be first in his life. Marijuana had one that place. He would get up in the middle of the night to sneak a smoke, drove me and my kids while stoned etc.
It is a very tough thing to leave. You see so many good qualities in him. You think of the good times you shared together and can't imagine life without him. It took me over six months to finally walk away from the relationship.
My kids found out that he smokes. My daughter said to me the other day, "Mom, if you knew he smoked pot, why did you have us move in with him?" She didn't want an answer, she just wanted me to think about it.
That is what you should do, really think about it. Is this the kind of life style that you want to be exposed to? It hurts like hell to break it off, but there is also a sense of relief. I am sorry that you have to go through this, too.
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I'm in love with an addict 
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