tartel

having had some time away from AH, who is sober and back on "safe(r)" ground, and convinced he is going to stay away from heroin, i've recently been thinking...

how much of their behaviour while doing heroin and also while sober, is the drug's doing, and how much of it is the person's natural behaviour? is this a naive question? i think about the amount of stuff he has put his parents though in the last 20 years, and how much i've suffered the last few years with him, what i know is that, had i caused so much pain to the people i love, i would do EVERYTHING i possibly could to get away from the drug. and yet, he still doesn't believe in rehab, he is dismissive of counselling and still tries to get sober via his methods of 'trial and error', which seems to me more and more like experiments to keep doing heroin.

are addicts completely unable to face upto what they've done? sure, he apologises once he gets sober, and there are all those declarations of how much he hates himself, how he realises how terrible heroin is, but i've never really seen real remorse, bar a few times and that was also during the withdrawal-depression rather than while he was of steady and sober mind.

i know there he keeps up some controls even while doing heroin. for example he doesn't steal no matter how desperate he gets and yet - he manages to manipulate so effectively, say so many awful things, terrorises his loved ones, which are things that are just left unaddressed while sober. is it because we have in some form allowed it to happen? is it because he is just an awful person? is it just addiction depriving him of the facilities he needs to be a better person?

i'm sorry to ramble. what i want to ask is, while i am in the process of moving on and away from him, how much of it do i forgive, and how much of it justifies any anger i may feel towards him? in your experiences with the addicts you love, do you manage to forgive and forget?

zoso77

tartel...

I don't know your husband, so I can't make an informed statement on "is it him, or is it the drugs."

But with that being said, what's important to remember is heroin and other opiates do significantly impact the behavior of the user. When you make a statement like this --

-- you are underestimating the power of heroin and other opiates. Imagine a state of consciousness where nothing matters. There's no pain. Only bliss. That's what it's like to be on heroin. And the reason why it's so difficult to get off it is the brain remembers what it's like to be in that state. When someone coming off heroin feels a flood of emotions like they're cranked to 11, the brain is going, I know a way you'll feel better. Someone in active addiction will go above and beyond to get to that place, even though it's slowly killing them.

Well, you have every right to be angry, tartel. Every right. As far as forgiveness goes, I believe it's a bit premature to talk about that. Right now you're hurting, so you need to keep the focus on you and your well being. There will come a time when those types of questions will have some urgency and relevance. Right now is not that time. Take care of you.

AliWProk

Forgiveness is for YOU. Only you can decide when, and if, you're ready. You don't have to forgive anything. Your feelings are valid because you feel them. And it's really no use trying to analyze how much of it is the drugs and how much of it is him. It's a waste of time. But I must say that if you do forgive him, don't you ever forget!

In my case, I will never know who the real XAH is, and I will never know if he's actually sober. Nothing he says while using is true; nothing he says while not using is true. But that's really not my problem. My problem is with me, not with him. He will do whatever he's going to do and be whatever he's going to be whether or not I beat my head against the wall. I have to let go in order to have a happy healthy life for myself and our little boy.

thequest

From personal experience only but what I've noticed from abuse of drugs, alcohol and/or abuse of legal stuff is that the user loses control. They say inhibitions are lowered. Lacks impulse control. It amplifies existing issues or character traits.

I'd say the "impulse" to do many things is already there in all of us but being sober and in control allows one to keep them deeply buried rarely or never coming up. Hate to say it but with the alkie/addict here after some serious thinking/reflection they had character issues and/or warning signs before they became abusers. As a child & teenager they always had a bit of a temper and were impatient now they are a walking bomb that can be set off by the littlest thing including not getting what they want immediately.

Also keep in mind many say maturity stops when an abusers starts using to excess on a regular basis. The adult thing to do would not name call or bait someone.

A very long winded way of saying substance abuse amplifies impulse control problems and most alkie/addict probably had some character issues/traits before no matter how small.

Good Luck

ubntubnt

As a recovering alcoholic I would say that a good deal of the behaviour is not their natural personality. I think when drunk/high there is just a feeling of out of control emotions, lack of logic and even not caring for the consequences of our behaviour. Then when hungover the despair and shame is awful so we tend to try to push through that by being extra sweet and loving. It just an endless, numbed and even surreal cycle. Then again, what does it matter if it is their real nature or an alcoholic false one if it is the reality? A person who acts like an a$$hole every day is an a$$hole.
I don't know your story but if you are moving on and away then maybe switch your focus and attention to yourself, you have probably given enough minutes of your life already.

tartel

thank you for your responses.
working on myself is such a process too. day by day i'm realising that feel so very sliiiighhtly better as the ties that bind are slowly loosened. although i must acknowledge there are periods of feeling depressed or empty - it is so much better than the acute anxiety of waiting for/or waiting out a relapse. yesterday o read on this forum about someone writing about finding newly-sober partner "with heroin in his eyes". how i can empathise with this feeling, and the acute despair that came with it.

feels good to finally spend time on myself. i feel quite protective of my peace, knowing how easily it can be killed, even now. hehe. i know the road ahead is long, but at least i'm on the right path for now eh? here's to onwards and upwards.

thank you all. i love this forum.

OpioPhobe

Tartel - I have extensive experience with opiates (> 10 years daily use), and I think it is a cop out for someone to blame their actions on an opiate addiction. With alcohol for example, it was clear that my judgment was impaired and I would do things that were quite out of the ordinary. That just wasn't the case with opiates so long as my supply wasn't interrupted. When actively using I would have done close to the same things to protect my supply that a normal, rational person would do to protect their access to water. The specter of withdrawal was always hanging over me, and it was terrifying. However, when I did have an adequate supply I went about my day the same way that any other person would. I would make a few extra trips to the bathroom to dose my drugs, but other than that everything was the same. Over that period I was able to hold down an extremely demanding job (~80 hours per week) and help my wife with the children when I was at home. The reason that I used initially was because I was able to handle basically an unlimited amount of stress, and work a tremendous number of hours at work without blinking an eye. Eventually, as my tolerance escalated, the positive effects were diminished / eliminate, but I was faced with a monster withdrawal process. There were a lot of limits that I did not break during my active addiction such as never exposing my children to the buying process (there were times when I was sick for hours on end and I could have driven 15 minutes away to buy but I had my children with me and refused to do that), never stealing to support my habit, etc. etc.

So, maybe I am the odd man out here, but I take full responsibility for the things I did do during my addiction that were wrong (e.g. lying about whether I had quit or not). I have to say that my period of lying didn't last that long, because I got exhausted by it and just told my wife that I couldn't make it through the withdrawal. If she wanted to leave that would have been up to her, but I provided every material thing a spouse could have ever wanted. I also provided emotional support to her throughout her trials and tribulations, which were many.

As far as remorse goes, none of us have access to your husband's mind. I was quite remorseful about my using, and loathed discussing it with anyone because I was so ashamed about it. I think I would have rather had a discussion about masturbation with my parents when I was a teenager before I would want to discuss my addiction with people in my life now. For me, I accomplished a lot throughout my life, but addiction was this huge black mark on my record. I still feel like a complete piece of **** for allowing myself to become a heroin addict.

As far as facing up to what an addict has done I think it is a natural defense mechanism to blot those parts out of our consciousness as much as possible. Compared with a lot of the other addicts that I read about on here I didn't scratch the surface on the horrific acts that they committed, but I still have a tremendous amount of remorse and self-loathing for the things that I did do. There is only so much self-hatred a person can take at once though, and for many folks I don't think it would be possible to face up to everything they did all at once. If they did so it would likely lead to a swift suicide.

One possible reason for him being able to apologize when he is sober is because he has made an effort to better himself, and has taken concrete steps that he can cling to. For me, I had to get to a point where I had taken action to make amends for some of the things in my past before I could get to the point where I could really accept what I had done. It is difficult to describe, but it is very rare to find someone anywhere that identifies as a 'bad' person. All of the justifications / rationalizations, etc. are there so that someone can still identify as a 'good' person despite a myriad of actions that contradict that image of a 'good' person. It is only after a person has had some time to change themselves into a better person that they can accept the fact that they were a 'bad' person in the past. Once someone is able to differentiate between their current, improved self and their 'bad' self in the past the justifications / rationalizations are no longer needed, and they can slip away. For me personally, it would have been impossible to accept everything I had done at the same time that I was actively using, because over most of that time I didn't think it was possible to quit. It would have led to overwhelming, terminal guilt. If you look at the order of the steps in AA/NA you will see that there is a reason for the order of them, and I think that making amends comes later because the person has to build themselves up before being able to cross the bridge of atonement.

This is all just my opinion based on personal experience.

tartel

opiophobe, thank you.
reading your stuff, i feel like i have some insight to some things i hadn't before. especially the part about facing upto what they have done and the self loathing - i once started telling AH how i felt when he was actively using - and i couldn't stop. i went on and on, until he physically covered his ears and asked me to give him a few minutes. he was trembling and i saw that i had really affected him. i stopped, of course, but i've always wondered why he wasn't willing to listen, if he'd genuinely wanted to get better.
i'm seeing signs of a genuine attempt at recovery from him this time (he emails me occasionally). i hope he sorts himself out. i'm at peace with the idea of letting our relationship go, but he is struggling with it. i want to make it easier for him, as it is for me too. it would be healthier for him to be sober if he saw it as a positive step for the future.
opiophobe, your entry seems honest. i suppose that is the difference between real recovery and what i've seen so far. thank you for that. you've told me a lot of things i needed to know.

thank u for this statement - i thought about how i reacted to his relapses (i guess a quality of the "suffering codependent") was probably like taking his face and shoving into his toilet bowl, too much too soon. the reaction of a martyr trying to get some kind of validation for their own control of someone.

glitterdeva

Thank you both! Exactly - there is a difference in REAL recovery and half-as* attempts. My AH nowhere near this state. The words that come out of his mouth completely and totally contradict what he is actually doing. Nothing but words, because he doesn't want it, he likeS h more then he doesn't like what it does to him or to me. Opiophobe's post made me stop and you know, I am just staring at the screen.

And yes, validation for their own control of someone - true characteristic of co-dependancy..

Feeling

Your story sounds very similar to my husband's. His addiction is with pain medication which stems from knee surgery and other injuries that occurred after. He has been open with me about his addiction, doesn't lie or steal and has always supported the family very well financially. He is always trying to taper down to get off the meds but has been unsuccessful over the 15 years of using. He is very remorseful about his using and loathes the thought of anyone ever knowing about it. From your point of view, how does a wife help her husband or can't she? We have been married for 35 years and I don't want to give up on him but I don't want this to kill him either. Was there anything your wife did that helped you or was there something that you feel would have helped? Thanks