What to do about a relapse-prone friendship?
TL;DR at the bottom.
I sincerely apologize in advance for the length of this, it’s just nice to be able to share everything. I’ve been in the rooms for a little over a year, but I’m still in very early recovery from what was mainly a methamphetamine addiction. At the time these events began I had about 5 months sober. The friend in question, K (real initial/name will not be used) had about 100 days, and her DOC was also meth. We met briefly a year ago, reconnected several months ago, and have become very close. I consider her to be like a second mother and best friend to me. Our county has only one NA meeting that meets once a week, so to supplement we go to the only AA meeting available on the other nights. The AA group, which we consider our home group, has been more than happy to support us regardless of our DOC. We both have sponsors and are working the steps, and together we go to a meeting every night.
I’d normally bring an issue like this to my home group, but it’s such a small town and an even smaller recovery community that even if I left names out everyone would know who I was talking about- her and I are practically a package deal at this point.
Tuesday the 5th I woke up to several missed calls from K, so I immediately contacted her to make sure she was alright. She told me she had relapsed the night before. I tried to talk her into getting rid of the remainder of what she’d bought and coming to a meeting, but she said she needed to finish what she had. K has a history of ending up in unsafe situations/injuring herself while high, so I offered to stay with her for the night and essentially trip-sit. I’ve rethought this offer probably a thousand times since then, and while I know that it was an utterly stupid decision I can say with complete honesty that when I made the offer I had no intention of using with her. But I’m nowhere near “recovered enough” to safely do something like that, and I don’t believe I ever will be.
Once I got to her place and she started using I didn’t last ten minutes. Any conviction I had about sobriety went out the window, and we ended up on a binge until Saturday the 9th. That Saturday afternoon we had a conversation about what we wanted from our lives and agreed that this wasn’t it. We drove two hours to get to an NA meeting, and the next day returned to our regularly scheduled meetings (we spoke about the relapse and received what I felt was a lot of helpful advice.)
Since then, for the past week or so, I’ve struggled with the idea of our friendship. While I blame only myself for my relapse and acknowledge that I made several poor decisions leading up to it, I haven’t felt sure that I’m putting myself in a healthy position by having a friend who calls me as soon as she has meth.
I put those thoughts aside because we’ve been going to nightly meetings, and are (I thought) very honest with each other about our cravings, urges, etc.
Last night I went out of town; I made sure that she was set up with internet to access an online meeting and that I was as well. This afternoon I texted her to check in and she told me that she relapsed again last night, and I’m not 100% sure that she wasn’t still high when we talked.
I’m her ride to meetings, partly due to the lack of public transportation in our area and partly due to the fact that she’s nearly always the only female at our meeting, and doesn’t feel comfortable getting a ride with one of the other men. We’re also incredibly close; I have an enormous amount of love for her, and she’s helped me through a very hard few months.
But I also don’t know how to stay sober with her around. The thought of going to pick her up for a meeting and there potentially being meth at her place scares me, because I know myself and “just saying no” isn’t in my repertoire. And whether or not she’s still relapsing, she maintains regular contact with people she’s used with, and it seems like it’s almost contagious; as if it will inevitably lead to another relapse for her and, eventually, me.
I’m worried about cutting her off from rides to meetings or potentially alienating her from our (very small) recovery community. I’m scared to lose my friendship with her, but I’m terrified of relapsing. I don’t think I have another one in me.
TL; DR my NA friend is using again and I’m scared to leave her and even more scared to relapse.