Fior

Oh. Well. Maybe I misread. I didn't go back and look at all the previous posts.
But I can also understand how jarring that might feel. My AXBF was a lot "edgier" when he was clean as well (nothin' there to dull the edginess). He was never ever mean to me when he was clean, but a lot of our then coworkers found him to be so. Unsurprisingly, they all find him to be really cool and nice now that he's using again. That was pretty jarring for me as well, although I suppose I experienced it in reverse.

But dealing with someone you don't know is hard. Either way you look at it. I don't know the particulars of this relationship, obviously. You can want your friend back without the complication of addiction for them. Sometimes it's hard to realize that you cannot divorce the person's behavior and the drugs (i.e. The Nice Dude does heroin--the nice dude part is great, the heroin part not so much, The Mean Dude is clean and likely mean because he's struggling--The clean part is good, but the struggling and the mean is no good). I understand that. It was hard for me too (although I experienced it backwards)

And you are correct, he may see her as a "part of his life with addiction" and just wants to cut all ties to that. And you are also correct in that any relationship with an addict is no cake walk.