hello-kitty

Hi Chelsey, Denial is a powerful drug. And I'm not talking about the addict. I'm talking about us. The more we try to save someone from themselves, the longer we try to help them change into who we think they should be, the sicker we become. We become even sicker than a drug addict. We lose grasp on reality. We lose touch with ourselves. You see, for individuals like you and I, and many in this forum, people are our drug of choice. Just like opiates are your boyfriends drug of choice. We develop a disease called codependency.

This disease of codependency often has roots stemming from our childhood - Possibly we grew up with addict or alcoholic parents. Maybe we only had one parent. Maybe our parents didn't give us the attention we needed. Maybe we experienced some kind of loss or someone hurt us. I'm not sure what your situation is. I just know mine and the stories of many of the people on this board.

As part of our disease, we suffer from something called "terminal uniqueness". We are determined not to give up on a relationship despite our better judgement. We think we can make things work out. We think our addict is different. We are convinced that our situation is different.

It's not though.

Trust me on that one.

In all the years I've been coming to this site, in all the addiction situations I know in real life, unless we let go of trying to fix or control the choices of drug addicts and accept that WE ARE NOT POWERFUL THAN DRUGS, we end up the losers.

I hope you don't have to experience years of pain and heart ache to come to understand what this means. I hope you will read all you can about codependency, setting boundaries in relationships and the disease of addiction. I also hope you think about what might have caused you to end up in the mess you are in.

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Chelsey, some thoughts to share. My alcoholic bf did break lose of heroin, 20-30 yrs ago (long before I was in the picture). I am fairly sure there was no one in his life when he did it. With a possible rare honesty, he said one time that he thinks he traded the heroin for the alcohol. He has been drinking his adult life (going to be 63 on Weds).
A few months ago, when our relationship was brand new, he talked about the idea that having me, he "knew" he had to cut back, or quit. I was skeptical then..and said straight out, that doing it FOR ME was totally not workable. That the day would come when he would start to resent me for it, or get mad, and crash. So, I semi- saw it coming, and hate to say "I told you so". Of course, even though I saw some red flags, I wanted it to work SO BADLY that I ignored myself, and let myself get attached.
Many sides to the pendulum, friend. The REASON to "dump them" if one has to say it so callously, is to make absolutely clear that NO ONE can make the choice for them. It has to come from inside, totally.