Needsomechge

I don't want this to come off like I am cover up by enabling behavior at all, but I do want to clarify that I think I exaggerated a bit about paying his bills for the next 10 months. When he first entered rehab, I had to pay to to get him out of his apartment (break his lease /9huge pain in the ass w/ the landlord), get carpets professional cleaned, have a cleaning service come in, and pack up all his stuff and then get it plus his furniture into storage. All the things that one dreads, even when they are moving themselves! It was so sudden he agreed to treatment, and entered rehab, that I never really processed it (as far as my feelings or what I was really doing) and just reacted to the situation at hand... he was gone... and somehow he needed to get out of that apartment and get his bills turned off.

After a month of reading here and going to meetings I probably wouldn't of been so quick to feel like I needed to jump and get those things done right away...but I had none of the wisdom I have learned here to help me think before I act, or not act at all. What I paid for, I am over, truly, it is done and I can put it behind me, I don't expect anything from it, (yea I did hope he would be thankful I make sure his outside life didn't crumble when he entered the program...and I think he truly is)

I have thought many times the last week about the comments some of you left about my "true intentions", and in this instance, my true intentions were do act out of the genuineness of my heart. However, I am not saying that there are not other times I look back on and things I have done when you are absolutely right, my intentions were not so innocent, and I did things because I wanted something in return. Mostly that was too feel loved or needed. How pathetic of me, but its the truth.

Now, after month one, I am not continuing to take on all of his financial responsibilites. I certainly took my fair share in the first few weeks of this all, and feel that was more than I needed to do. If his family thinks they need to be the ones participating at his "family programs" then they should be the ones stuck with the mess he left back where we lived in SD. I know the importantce of family, my family means the world to me. But I still am very bitter that this program puts such a HUGE emphasis on the "family's involvment", without considering which people this addict's addiction had had the greatest impact on. The family now gets to play "savior", when they never knew there son was completely out of control with his addiction until I got the courage to call and tell them. I think family programs are very important in the recovery process, but I feel very betrayed by it all. It was not his family who had to deal with all of the lies, the manipulation, always covering up, having their life savings drained into this addict and his disease. I GOT HIM TO AGREE TO GO TO REHAB, I BETRAYED MY BEST FRIENDS TRUST AND FINALLY TOLD HIS PARENTS HOW OUT OF CONTROL HIS LIFE WAS. He has been lving with me the last 4 years, not his parents, they don't even know what his addiction downward spiral was like.

So here is how I see it: I went through the days of hell, the worry my addict was going to die, overdose, kill himself more nights than I can count. I saw him turn into a whole different person, and tried so hard to fight it, I saw him unable to walk, to talk, to go out in public. I loaned him over $3k to make his rent and pay his car insurance. I felt used, but hopeless to walkaway. No one else seemed to know, or if they did they turned a blind eye. After losing my brother to a overdose 5 yrs ago, I couldn't just walk away and say screw it, do things your way. I did that with George, my brother, and less than a month later my mom found him ODed on cocaine in his apartment. I am not trying to use this as an excuse for my enabling behavior, I just want you to recognize why I am such an idiot-- I couldn't save George, but maybe I can save my addict now?!? False hope- but its whats been mind screwing me. I . Anyway, there things I did for my addict I do know they were all enabling him, but please believe me, I never knew that until this last month, and if i could make I would change it, but I really thought i was helping him.

Before I lose everyone on here- my point is, does anyone agree with why i feel so abandoned by his program, when they want the family so involved, but what about the best friends whose BEEN the addicts family the last four years they have been fighting addiction and the family was not involved in his life. The point of a family program is to make the addict understand how he has let down those who care about him most, and work to save the family relationship. I have read their family manual i found online, and I just don't understand how his family can honestly answer those questions- or if they do, how their answers would portray a true picture of whats my addicts addiction has caused on those who love him the most, and those who HAVE for the last 4 years been by his side. I know 10x more than anyone in his family knows about him, and his mother is constantly calling mne to ask me information about her son. It just goes to show.

I lost a lot to get my addict into the program he is today, but I would do it all over again, he needed a new start. But I certainly didn't go through all the torture the past 3 months to get him into the program he is in now, to have the door slammed into my face once they took him in. My addict and I will tell you that the relationship we feel we need to work on the most is the one with ourselves (well behind our own relationships with our own HP). But not at where he is. I can't see the value of not allowing my addict and I to communicate for 10 months, its like they only want to force us out of each others lives. Would God want to rip apart two best friends who had always watched over one another, had the most loyal, supportive, and real bond between them health? When the one friend who put everything, everything, they had into getting their addictive friend into the program to then just be shund away from being able to participate in any part of his healing best friends recovery? As that best friend, I can't say I would of pushed him into recovery like I did if I would of known that recovery, at least this particular one, would isolate me from all contact from my best friend for 10 months, while allowing family to come every weekend. They call themselves a family there at the program.. and they are not blood relatives, so they obviously see that people can become family without a blood tie. Completely hypocritical, and in my mind this policy alienates the enrollees from keeping even those healthy outside relationships they had prior to rehab. Many not many of them had just positive people, but some do. I deserve a little more respect from his program considering the role I played in his life, not his family, they abandoned him, but now they get to play the martyrs