Hi Everyone- I have just joined and this is my very first post. I have looked around the forums and have seen a lot of advice and support from people who understand exactly what I am going through. I am here because I need some clarity. So here is my story..
I am 24 and my boyfriend is 27. We have been together for 5 years now and he is almost 60 days sober. I am not really sure the length of his addiction but he was snorting "roxies". For a long time now he has gone to great lengths to hide his addiction, and it didn't help that myself and his family have been very naive about this whole situation. He had opened up to us that he had a problem and needed help about a year ago, and chose to go on suboxone. He was on the suboxone for about 7 months then had said he didn't like the way it was making him feel and just wanted to be clean of everything. So he started tapering himself off the suboxone and at some point went back to drugs. Then this past summer he had really opened up to all of us and made it known how bad it was. Within 2 days of all of this he was on a plane to Florida to rehab. He was away for 38 days, 8 days of detox and 30 days of rehab. We talked every day while he was gone, he was able to use the phone for 20 minutes every night. And I wrote him one letter every day he was gone. We have had our ups and downs in terms of our relationship but a lot of that was due to his lying and sneaking around constantly trying to hide what was really going on. The entire time he was in rehab I had this happy feeling that this was it, he's really going to get sober and change his life for the better then all the pieces will just fall into place with us. This is finally our fresh start. I was willing to stick by him and support him through this difficult time, as well as let go of all the resentment and anger towards everything in the past and completely start over with a clean slate. So he finally came home from rehab and everything was amazing, for the first two nights. It was so incredible to see him again after being away from him for 38 days and he looked so much better too! By the third day home he started with the bouts of anger, and was having some "stomach" issues. I knew this transition back home would be difficult and now this is it, make it or break it. Before I go on, I have to make it known that I am completely 100% sober. I always have been and always intend to be. I do not drink or do any drugs what so ever, and never have. For some reason I just never got sucked into that teenage party scene and never had the desire to drink or do drugs. Ok so back to the boyfriend. The first week he was home I had checked his bank account (I know I shouldn't have but its an old habit of checking things for myself!) and on there it said their was a ATM withdraw of $200 and another of $400 posted on that first Monday he was home. This could have been over the weekend and just didn't post until monday because of the bank system, so I pretended I needed some help with my car payment and asked him to borrow money. He then told me that he didn't have any money right now- that he had to pay his brother back $200 for the plane ticket home from rehab, so I had then made it known that his account says different then that. He of course said that he didn't take out $400 he only took out $200 to pay his brother back, which threw up a bit of a red flag to me because if this was my account that said there was that amount of money taken out I would immediately call the bank to see what happened. However, he said he would call the bank but he still hasn't. Over the next few weeks he became more and more distant from me. I tried suggesting fun, sober things we could go do, such as go bowling or go for a walk down by the beach, playing board games, anything! But he didn't really seem very interested. After about 2 weeks that he was home I had only seen him 3 or 4 times if that. We would talk or text through out the day but he didn't seem too interested in seeing me. Then the weekend of his second weekend he was home he had asked me to come over to watch football however I was in the middle of doing some work for school so I said no but suggested that he come over my house instead (Yes, we both still live with our parents.) So he ended up staying home and barely talked to me the rest of the night. Then all of a sudden I had this strange intuition and knew something was up. I had called him and he had said that he was going to sleep, but I could hear he wasn't home. So after asking a million times, he finally told me the truth that he was out at the bar at applebees with a group of people who he really shouldn't be with fresh out of rehab! Of course I got upset and to sum it up he said he had a few drinks but he didn't use any drugs, and he knows drinking can be dangerous but he's set on not doing any drugs and continuing with his recovery. I did call his mom to make sure we were all on the same page and told her how he was out a bar with certain people, and I had also told her about the $400. After he got word of me telling her about the bank situation he flipped out. Telling me to call her right now and tell his family that it was a bank error, but I wouldn't lie for him. So he had started with the mean words, saying he wanted nothing to do with me, I backstabbed him, bla bla bla. A few days later we calmly talked and he said that he does love me but he needs some time and space, and needs to be able to have freedom and not have to worry about calling me or seeing me. Of course this completely broke my heart, and started my head to spin with every thought you could think of. Not knowing exactly what was going on, if we were going to get back together, why doesn't he love me, when you love someone you don't want to be away from them especially when you're going through something so hard as he is.
I was driving myself crazy, so I bought the book "healing the addicted brain" and read it in one day! I thought that maybe it would give me some clarity and help me understand what he was going through. He has told me that he is having a lot of emotions, anger, terrible anxiety, and depression. He has also said that he keeps hurting everyone so he is just keeping to himself for now. Now I am completely torn between thinking he has relapsed and is trying to push me away so I don't find out, and thinking he really just needs to sort things out with himself and doesn't want the added stress of trying to be a good boyfriend (even though I have made is perfectly clear I support him and am trying to understand to the best of my ability, I don't expect anything from him other than honesty.) I have read a lot of the threads on this site and have seen a lot of recovering addicts say that they wouldn't have been able to do it without the support of their significant other. We are not 15 years old, we are both grown adults and have been together for a long time. I could sit here all day expressing all the different thoughts that go through my head. I do truly love this man with all my heart and am trying to be patient. I just can't understand why me of all people he would need to push away. I am the only completely sober person he knows! Like I said earlier I do not drink or use any drugs, not even on occasion or holiday. At weddings I toast with soda! lol. If anyone can try to help me understand I would so greatly appreciate it. I'm sure there will be some of you that will tell me to run in the opposite direction, but I would never do that to him. I have loved him unconditionally for the past 5 years and will continue to support him whether we are together or not.
