You didn't cause it. You can't cure it. You can't control it.
When I first started reading these boards, this was my mantra. When he tries to suck you in and make you feel guilty, keep saying this to yourself.
I'm worried about this idea of 'concentrating on myself'. That was something I never learned very well, I'm not very good at it. I know I can learn, and that I need to. There is a therapist at school I'm going to start seeing tomorrow. But I can't imagine just sitting by the sidelines and watching him take this journey on his own, boy...that really sounded like the inner 'mom' in me - huh?
The sad fact is that there is NOTHING you can do to care for or love him out of this disease. If love were enough, we wouldn't live with addiction.
Self care is about taking that energy that you sink into him and his addiction -- which you can't cure or control -- and putting it towards yourself, to calm your anxiety, to fill up your tank, to help you achieve goals in your life that take the sidelines because of living with addiction. If he is committed to get addiction out of his life, he will figure this out. If your wish is to stay with him through this process, your goal will be to love and support his journey with a sense of emotional detachment from the outcome. You don't have relationships with people's potential, you have relationships with people as they are today. Things are what they are.
I wonder about you in a caring profession like veterinary work. Those of us who find ourselves in relationships with addicts also find out through time that we are predisposed to relationships with addicts. There's something about us that's drawn to fixer uppers. Keep repeating: You didn't cause it. You can't cure it. You can't control it.
I got together with my STBXAH when I was about 23. He was a heavy drinker (which I thought was kind of fun -- no more!) and had had addiction problems in the past (so I thought). Today I am 32, he is 35, and he is in his fifth rehab, and I am home caring for two children and have filed for divorce. There is nothing I can do for him in this regard. What I've realized is that while every addict is different and every addiction present differently, there's nothing about my AH that makes him better or worse or more "worth it" than anyone else. This is a cunning disease that takes smart, wonderful people down every day.
If I knew then what I know now, I would not have entered a relationship with him, married him, merged bank accounts with him, hung my personal and professional goals on his support that never appeared, tried "helping" him by taking over his life responsibilities for him, introduced him to my son, had another child with him, let go of my goals big and small to care of him, shared credit cards, I mean, I could go on and on.
What would your life look like if you broke up with him and he moved out? Really! Good and bad. What that you're holding on to is reality and what is fantasy and/or his unrealized potential?
I've been where you are. It sucks. Stick around here and keep reading. And YES, self-care. Yes, self-care. Yes, yes, yes.