Thank you so much for the depth of this post. Your comment about opiate addiction rounding out the sharp edges really hit me. It made the awfulness of living with someone who is constantly medicated so vivid.
And your describing the loneliness of living that way. And that you are okay now with "alone", you can do "alone." I am alone and I admit I am not very good at it, I miss having someone to talk with in bed late at night about the day's events, someone to tell me everything is going to be okay. I miss the intimacy.
But "alone" is for me not like the torture of living with someone who is indifferent or cold or dismissive. We are not made to be treated that way. We shrivel.
I just want to wish you all the best as you begin to make yourself a new home and a fresh start. I hope you will still have time to visit SR and support the people in pain who come here and who cannot imagine leaving yet can no longer handle staying with an active addict. You are right about the need to allow others to be confused or paralyzed while we simultaneously remind them of the reality of addiction, the basics of addiction, so they do not hold out false hope that they can fix the addict with their love or can endure years of neglect from someone who refuses to try to get sober without being destroyed in some way. We have to tell the truth but also remember, with humility, how much we loved our addicts whom we could not change and how long it took most of us to leave them when they would not change.
Thanks again.