My girlfriend is an addict (heroin and cocaine mostly, but benzodiazepines as well on occasion), and we've been together for a little over 6 years. She's been struggling with her addiction the entire time, using more often than not. I accepted her for who she was, and chose to stand by her until she was ready to stop. That time came when she found out she was pregnant... which wasn't until she was already 5 months along and started showing, because she rarely had her period because of the drug use. She immediately went to detox, and started suboxone maintenance the day after she found out. She relapsed once for three days at 6 months. Which I feel had a lot to do with the fact that most of the people (including one counselor) at the outpatient program she was in was still using. But she got back on track after that, and delivered a healthy baby boy. He did show minor symptoms of withdrawal for the first few days, but not enough to require medication. She relapsed again three days after giving birth, when someone she knew called her and talked her into coming out... she was gone for two days, and then admitted herself to the hospital after attempting to overdose. Back to detox again, and now she's again in the same out patient program.
Since leaving the detox she's been living with her parents, as I have custody of our son, and DCF will not allow her to live with him (or see him unsupervised). Now she won't see me either, or talk to me (just the occasional text message), because she feels I'm a trigger.
Obviously our son needs his mother, and I still love her and want to be with her, but I'm at a loss as to how to deal with this trigger issue... and it's very rare for me to not know how to handle things, so this is very frustrating for me.
For the record, I don't use, and never have (I get random drug tests at work). I rarely even drink socially. Although I do suffer from Secondary Traumatic Stress Disorder from my job, but I deal with it without medication... well, except for nicotine... but I did switch to an electronic cigarette 4 years ago, and feel 100% better since doing so.
So how's that for a first post?
