Relationship advice- How to handle an "occasional" recreational drug using g/f?

[cartervt2k]

So, I started seeing a girl a couple of months ago. She's different than me in a lot of ways, but none of which really bother me except for her "occasional" drug use part. This was a topic that came up when we first started dating, but the thing that bothered me is that she admitted to me that she'll occasionally "slip up" and do coke. She said she used to do pot and mushrooms but doesn't do them anymore. I tried to get her to quantify how often she "slipped up" and she told me that she's done coke about 10 times (she's 24 now). As someone who smoked his share of weed in high school and early on in college, I know that people tend to under-exaggerate things like this, but still, I know she doesn't do drugs with any kind of regularity.

When I was in my early 20's, I had a couple of friends who used to smoke a lot of pot and kind of turned me off to the whole thing and made me decide to stop altogether. These days, I'm a pretty easy-going guy about a lot of things, but about have a really tough time dating someone who can't say 100%, "I don't do drugs." Anyway, after dating her a couple of months it's apparent to me she has some friends who are still very much into the drug scene. I don't have a problem hanging out with them and don't care if they do any drugs around me - I just don't want any part of it. Still, I think it's enough to influence her whenever she hangs out with them.

She asked me to come along and hang out with a bunch of them about a month ago. She warned me that there may be some drugs, and I was fine with it. We got along well and they liked me. One of her friends gave me a little pressure to try and do some E and Pot, but he finally started to back off when he saw it was a lost cause. She didn't do any of that crap but did take a hit from a bowl before she went to bed. I had been drinking so it upset me at the time, and it still does irk me to this day because she said she doesn't do that stuff. Anyway, I made the mistake of mentioning that incident to her tonight, and it spiraled into a fight. (Things were already pretty heated and thought better than to remind her that she told me she doesn't smoke pot anymore.) Basically, she told me that she was bothered because she felt that I thought she was some kind of crackhead junkie because she uses drugs on a rare occasion. I tried to convey to her that I don't think that at all, but I have my own dispositions about pot and drugs in general, and I have a tough time with people who use drugs because of the people I've known who have used them, I normally associate them with losers. Besides, I also told her that I'm into running and staying healthy, and drugs don't fit in with my lifestyle.

I want to come out and give her an ultimatum by saying if she wants to use drugs, if even only the occasional bowl with a friend, that's fine, but I can't be with someone who does - ever. The problem is I'm about as worried that she'll say she'll never do them again than she'll tell me I'm an intolerant ******* and that we're through together. I feel like that even if she agrees never to use them again, if she doesn't see anything wrong with the occasional recreational use and doesn't feel there's anything wrong with it, she'll be more likely to "slip up", especially if she feels the reason is B.S. to begin with.

Bringing this situation to a head does kind of scare me though because I start thinking that maybe I am being an intolerant ******* about everything. I start thinking maybe smoking a little weed once in a while isn't that bad after all. I've never done coke before, and it's unquestionably more dangerous than weed, but if you only use it once in a blue moon, is there really any harm in that?

Please, any help is appreciated. I just don't know where to go from here and don't want to get myself wrapped up any further in this relationship if it's never going to work. Thanks in advance!

[Gabe]

Carter, I'll let you make your own decision.
Read some of the stories here at Sober Recovery on the Stories of Recovery board.
Go to an open NA meeting and listen to the people there.
They all started off as occasional drug users too.
I don't think you'd be posting here if you didn't already have some sort of red flag about her drug use.
All I can suggest is that you pay attention to your gut feeling on the subject.

[journeygal]

Hi Carter.

You're not an intolerant *******. Even if you were, so what? It's good to have principles and stick to them. I think it saves us from a lot of heartache down the road.

I'm married to an addict and its been quite the struggle, but I could not stay with him if he didn't think he had a problem. It's hard enough being in a relationship with an addict who's not in denial. I'm not saying your g/f's occasional use will spiral into something more down the road, but her cavalier attitude is something to be concerned about.

I wish you all the best.

[a_believer]

Obviously only you know what to do and how you really feel. Reading your posing it sounds like you really do feel strongly about not doing drugs. That is fine, hell that's great! Why comprimise your true beliefs? Don't do the drugs just to apease your girlfriend or so that you won't feel like a stick in th mudd. I think part of growing up and "finding ourselves" (I assume you are in your 20's or early 30's if you are dating a 24 year old?) is realizing and enacting our own set of beliefs. You know yours so you are on the right path. Don't comprimise your beliefs, you are to good for that.

[goffredo]

Dear member

I can only talk of my own experience and it doesn't mean it'll be the same for you, I'm just sharing...
Ultimatums don't work, I often gave one which i was never able to carry out and that only gave me low self esteem and guilt. Think how you would feel if someone gives you an ultimatum, on something they don't like, especially on something you don't see anything wrong with...
I am with a recovering alcoholic and addict but when I started going out with her, she told me that she was doing coke occasionally with her friends. It was a bit of fun, just a laugh, that's all. I didn't know what to do coke really meant and it didn't bother me very much at first. Then I started to realise that EACH TIME we went out with her friends or just us two, she was doing it and drinking massively. It started to bother me. At that stage the drinking was not a problem because with coke, there were no effects of typical drunk behaviour: she never stumbled, slurred her speech, never sick and so no. However, I realised I wasn't having fun as her friends and her where going continuously to the toilet and coming out looking and acting as a different person, talking all night, not making sense of it all, I felt alone and out of place in a room full of people and there was no connection between her and me. Then I also started to experience the after coke effects which would last for about 2 or 3 days after the event: mood swings, irritability, absent-minded, sleeping all day, edgy. Again at first I thought it was me. when I started to talk to her about it, she replied with the usual: you just came intl my life, you can't tell me what to do, it's just a bit of fun, I don't do it very much, it's a laugh, you're too stict, judgmental, boring, I used to do so much before, now I have greatly reduced it and only do it occasionally, you talk to me as if I'm the prostitute on the pavement, I don't just do that with my friends, we talk and do other things... This is called DENIAL.
Later on in the relationship, the coke thing became a cause for arguments, tears and desperation. She started to lie to me as to when and how much she was doing it, only for me to see reality, always and always painful. Then there was the period when she used to say that i was being difficukt and that i didn't like her friends; that I was being paranoid; other times that she wouldn't do it and then end up in the toilet 5 minutes after saying that; Often she used to say to me when we were going out that there might be some drugs and I always said I was fine as long as I wasn't doing them but I never was. then there was a period she stopped doing it but kept on drinking the same amount of alcohol. This is when i realised she was an alcoholic too and now we would experience the effect of alcohol too. She's in recovery now, one day at a time.
My experience tells me that you're not intolerant just because you don't want to do drugs or feel uncomfortable about her doing it. Listen to your insticts, if you feel uneasy, there is a reason. I don't believe i can enjoy the compnay of drug users if I don't do drugs/alcohol as we just end up being on different planets! i don't believe in the occasional drug use too, there's always more to it than they say. My partner used to associate good time with coke and alcohol so that each time we went out she was actually doing it (how is that occasional?) and she found it impossible to have fun otherwise. i felt isolated because when her friends realised I wasn't doing any of it, they started not to want me around, were upset witrh my partner if I was going out with them as it meant they had to go to the toilet to do it but without me there they could have done it on the table in the kitchen! See how it goes but I would be very careful and as I said before, listen to your instict.

Love Jo

[cartervt2k]

All-

Thanks for the advice/feedback. This is really a tough decision for me.

Unfortunately, my gut tells me that I shouldn't waste my time with a girl who has anything less than a zero tolerance policy on drugs because I'll never be able to make her realize any level of drug use is a bad idea. My heart tells me, however, there's something there between us and could see this relationship materializing into something long-term.

I think I know her well enough so that I have no reason to suspect she runs off and uses when I have my back turned and don't believe she ever goes out and buys them on her own. She's like me in the sense that it she doesn't really seem to have an addictive personality at all. After all, when I used to smoke pot, I never felt like I was out of control of my habit and my life, that I could stop anytime, and I eventually did out of my own volition. When I consider those things, it doesn't really set off any cause for immediate concern, but I'll always be worried that even very rare use could turn into something else, as it has for many other people. (Insert, "I'm not like those people." cliche here.) I've already met some of her friends who are frequent drug users, so I don't think it's that much of a stretch. Fortunately, they live a few hours away, so I don't have to worry about her spending much time with them. I haven't met all of her friends who live in the area though, so I really don't know what they're like as far as drug use.

We're pretty different people from a lifestyle and political standpoint. She's a vegetarian, smoker, and left-leaning politically. I can barely go a meal without eating meat, non-smoker and distance runner, gun owner, and lean right politically. I wished we could talk about the subject calmly, but if I bring it up she'll cop this "here we go again" attitude like I'm crazy for making a mountain out of a molehill because she may smoke up "like 2 times a year". I think she gets the impression that I'm some kind of reactionary who needs to temper his views and stop being so paranoid.

In the heat of our argument the other night I remember her saying that she felt like I was trying to control her and if that if she were put in a situation where drugs were around that would only want to make her do it more. I know that sounds like something your typical adict would say, but again, it kind of makes sense because if she ever forbode me from doing something I thought was no big deal, I'd probably want to do it that much more. I told her that I didn't want her to feel like I was trying to control her and that all the other differences we have, I couldn't care less about, but this is one thing that really concerns me, to which she says again to stop let it bothering me.

Maybe the best approach is to see how the relationship develops otherwise. I mean, if things were to stop going well for other reasons, I guess that solves my problem for me. I do fear, however, that a day will come where she'll be around some of her drug using friends while I'm not around, and I'll worry if she'll do any. I figure either she'll tell me did and start this whole mess over again, not tell me (it's no big deal, right?), or fly off the handle if I were to ask while making her feel like I don't trust her. I hate the idea of having to face that situation, and thinking about it makes me wonder if I should even bother pursuing this. It's just frustrating.

[beauphoria]

I admire your maturity in thinking this through.

You're young and smart and you're figuring out what you want in a relationship.

It sounds to me like there are just a few too many "little things" that are different about you two to be serious about a long term commitment.

I would really think very hard about it before investing too much there...