Thinking about differences...
I know I just posted the above..but I started thinking about something else...
After two years of ups and downs, highs and lows--I stop to ask myself a question I have never really thought to ask myself. Is his irratic behavior really just the drugs? The (very few) times that he has been clean, he is, like I've said, an angel, sweet, loving, generous--perfect. But my mother hates him; thinks he is evil. She said "drugs don't change a person THAT much". I have fought her and fought her on this for years. But now I just have to wonder if she could possibly be right. How much of this is his personality? How much is the effects of the drugs?
I wonder if anyone has experienced the extremes in personalities that I have..and then got through it..forgave the addict..and lived to tell a happy ending. I have often feared I would not make it out of the argument alive. How much of it did I bring upon myself? Maybe if I had just shut my mouth and 'yes'd' him to death, he would not have become so violent. I knew what I was doing each time the violence occurred--I was letting my own anger get the best of me, and I was antagonizing him.
Do all opiate addicts get violent while they are coming down off of their high? Or is it something in his personality that he cannot control? If I stayed with him, would I have regretted it EVEN IF he remained clean?