Originally Posted by
ncdeac 
I did the exact same thing. The worse my AH drug use got, the more I pulled away from everybody. I would let the phone ring, never answer the door, quit making plans and basically just let the world go by while I stayed inside my dark house completely depressed. It was all I could do to get through an 8 hour work day pretending like everything in my life was hunky dory, at the end of that day I would just hole up. I knew at the time it wasn't healthy, but I think I was giving all I had at work and just didn't have anything else to give.
Sounds like me, when I was living with the addict, I kept what was going on a secret-I didn't feel comfortable telling anyone about the problem, and I didn't invite people over, cause I never knew how the addict was gonna act. I didn't like to leave the apt. to go out with friends much cause I felt like I had to "watch over" him to try to control his using and to make sure he didn't invite crackheads off the street into the apt. (I now know there was no point in that). I felt like I led a double life, I would go to work and look at all the 'normal' people around me and think, 'if they only knew.." Now that he is gone, I get together with my old friends more, some of them still know nothing about what was going on. It's nice to come here and be able to hear others' stories and know that I'm not alone with what I went through. I have yet to attend an alanon meeting. I am gonna try to go this week. I would like to meet some new people, but it is hard sometimes. Especially when your shy and trying to be sober.
Maybe try taking a class, being involved in going back to school at a later age in life helped my self esteem and helps keep my mind off the crap I went through.