Elysian

Hi everyone,
I wrote a post a month or so ago about dating someone in early recovery from drug addiction. (I'll call him 'B'.) We broke up in October and decided to get back together. We broke up because we were both scared that being in a relationship in early recovery (he was 3 months clean at the time) would be detrimental to his recovery. After a month apart, B told me it doesnt feel this way, that he would rather be with me than not, and he doesnt feel like I affect his sobriety in any negative way. While this is nice to hear, I do understand that he's still so early into this (now almost 5 months) and still at risk for relapse. And I have to see if I'm able to handle it if it does happen in the near future ...

But the reason I'm writing now, is because he's depressed. I've been depressed before, and he describes it in a very similar way. Feeling numb, unhappy, hopeless, at times suicidal. Isolating himself from everyone. Feeling a ton of guilt and shame, about everything in his past, and about letting down his friends and family, and me, like not being able to give me everything he thinks I deserve ...

I'm mostly worried that because he's very serious about recovery and does not want to take any medication like antidepressants, is he just destined for long-term depression? Is depression a very common thing in recovery? How long is it supposed to last? This has been like 2 months now. He has days where he feels really good, but they don't last. The next day he can be right back to a very very dark place.

I know that I cannot do anything about this, I want to complement his life, I cant fix his depression. But I care about him so much and it does hurt me to see him struggle. I'm just looking for some hope here I guess. Like, will this get better for him? He did abuse drugs for years. So maybe it'll take years before he's healthy-minded again?

Thanks for reading,