I remember when I had to walk away from the addict I loved, and people who tried to help me would encourage me by telling me I just dodged a disaster, it was God protecting me, that life just did me a favor. They wanted me to feel better, so they said these things.
But their words just didn't help me. I was in too much pain. I saw my abf not as a disaster, but as someone so unique and extraordinary that i thought he was irreplaceable. I could not see myself as fortunate or protected, now that he was gone. (And I walked away from him only because he had made it clear I was unimportant to him. Not because I had any special strength but only because I had given up and could not stay for more pain).
So I can't tell you you are fortunate. I didn't feel that way in my pain. I hurt too much, at first.
All I can share is that I stayed away. I told myself I would not contact him, I would not find out about anything happening in his life, I would block all information and I would force myself to stay away. I knew it was the best thing and I did it. I was nauseous all the time and cried constantly but I was determined I would stay away from him.
I knew, in my gut and from recovery, that I am powerless to control a drug addict. I knew he had a mental disease, that he was driven by extreme selfish and self-centered thinking, and that other people did not matter to him unless they in some way supported and encouraged his addiction.
I am determined I will not, ever, enable an addict. And putting up with his narcissism and indifference would have been not only enabling him to his destruction, but I would have been--just he was-- extremely selfish and narcissistic.
I would have wanted him to be with me for ME. Even though it is an absolute fact that enablers keep the addiction thriving while it eats up the addict. If I had enabled him in order to keep him, I would have been as selfish as he is in his addiction.
You are not enabling him today. Hold your head high. In spite of terrible grief and devastation, you are choosing to do the right thing because it is the right thing for you BOTH.
The other girl in the picture: she is helping him to his grave if she does not make abstinence a requirement for relationship. It is sadly unlikely that she will do that right thing. She will likely help hasten him on his path of destruction. To be with him she will have to be okay with his drugging. Those are his terms.
Those terms are not acceptable to you. Hold your head high.
God has not abandoned you. Allow your story more time, tell yourself you will get through the days no matter what, and you will see: more will be revealed. Just survive and you will know more.
Eat well, wrap up and sleep, sit with friends who will let you cry and won't preach at you, and you will understand more, by and by.