kyteach74

I could use some help here...

He's been clean 4 years...through the help of NA. Our relationship moved a little faster than my relationships normally do, although he still has his own place he basically lives with me...make that lived until Sunday night.

Throughout the relationship, whenever we had a disagreement and I didn't deal with it as efficiently as he did, I would hear, "well, you don't have a program to deal with things like I do."

Or after he left Sunday night - after picking a fight and packing his things out of the blue - he called on Monday and told me he had done some inventorying, talked to his sponsor and realized that he needed to apologize for picking the fight intentionally to have a reason to leave, and that we had more to talk about face to face, but that he wasn't ready yet, he still had some more step work to do and needed to spend some time with some other addicts and talk to his sponsor.

I never knew him as an addict, nor have I ever known anyone in active addiction that I know of, but I worked very hard to understand all of the steps and the literature. I was reading the basic text and I read the Just for Today everyday. But now I have a few questions...

1. Can someone who has never been an addict REALLY understand/be in a relationship with an addict?
2. If we work this out and I ever really find out why he bailed, am I having a relationship with him, am I having a relationship with him and NA?

I'm open to any and all help here...I was trying but I never felt like I understood.