I want to help him but I don't know if I can
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Join Date: Sep 2012
Location: Cascade, Montana
Posts: 6
I want to help him but I don't know if I can
I originally posted this in the new to addiction and recovery section, and someone suggested that I come to the sections instead. So here's my story: I was in a relationship with a recovered meth addict for 4 years, he'd only been clean for 6-12 months when I met him, but everything went wonderful for us in fact we got married and had a son. This was my first time ever being around someone with an addiction, and it did scare me, but we had good communication and he was able to tell me when he had cravings and we were able to work through it and he never had a relapse. A year and a half ago he was killed in a car wreck and my son and I were both injured. I'm sorry if this is too much information but I wanted to give a little backstory to the situation I'm in now. While I was still in the hospital a guy that I was friend with and dated before came to visit me. It ment allot to me then, though he has since told me he was high at the time. Anyhow we didnt see each other or have any communication till about 8 months ago. I ran into him by accident and we started talking alot, and now that has developed into a real relationship. He has a meth addiction but hes trying to recover. We have been very open about it. Hes used 4 times since we started talking, and each time hes told me about it and promised to try harder. I have already found so much good info on this site that has helped me to better understand his addiction, but I still have so many questions. How does meth addiction work? What are the best ways to help him in his recovery, and should I even be trying? what are the signs of continuing meth use? I would truly appreciate all the support and advice people can give especially if they've been in a situation similar to mine. Thank you.
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Join Date: Jul 2012
Posts: 499
People in active addiction (which he is if he's using, as you said) and people in early recovery make terrible partners and parents. If he were working a program of active recovery like he is trying to convince you that he is he would know that starting a romantic relationship right now is a very bad idea. He needs to focus only on himself and his recovery if he really wants to get clean. That has to take priority over everything else.
If your son is a minor child I would keep him as far away from this guy as possible.
There is nothing you can do to help him recover, he has to do it all himself. But it's a good idea for you to get your own support in the form of al/nar-anon meetings, personal therapy, and communities like this one.
I'm sorry I don't have better advice than that, addiction destroys everything in its path. It hurts the addict, and it hurts us, watching the addict destroy themselves. I'm sorry you're going through this.
If your son is a minor child I would keep him as far away from this guy as possible.
There is nothing you can do to help him recover, he has to do it all himself. But it's a good idea for you to get your own support in the form of al/nar-anon meetings, personal therapy, and communities like this one.
I'm sorry I don't have better advice than that, addiction destroys everything in its path. It hurts the addict, and it hurts us, watching the addict destroy themselves. I'm sorry you're going through this.
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Join Date: Apr 2007
Location: Seattle, WA
Posts: 3,335
Heartandsoul. Welcome. I hope you will keep reading and look for help for yourself in peoples stories and posts. One thing you will learn on this site is that you can't help an addict get clean. They have to do that all on their own. And usually, they have to do it all alone or with the help of other recovering addicts. Girlfriends and parents don't usually help. They usually make things worse by enabling.
I'm so sorry for your pain and tragedy. And I'm sorry for your little boy. Losing a husband and a father is such a tragedy. I don't think you should get serious with an active drug user. What do you think?
There is no such thing as "trying" to recover from meth addiction (or any other addiction for that matter). You either are in recovery or you are out. When you are in recovery you do not use drugs. You attend meetings. You do whatever it takes to stay clean. And you stay out of relationships - until you are clean for at least a year. Because staying clean is the only thing that matters. And relationships take focus and concentration away from your number one priority of staying clean.
You will do what you are going to do. But know this: You cannot save him. You cannot help him.
Again, I'm sorry for your pain. But a relationship with an active meth addict will not cure it. Get support. Focus on your little boy. on yourself. I can't imagine how wounded you must feel.
One thing addict do consistently is LIE. So if someone tells you that they have used 4 times, I guarantee you that it's probably 4 times that many times. And meth addicts use for long periods of time. So that doesn't mean that he just used 4 little lines over the last 4 months. That means he got seriously high, using quantities of meth (which is the nastiest most synthetic and brain damaging drug out there) for days on end without sleep.
I don't think you can go wrong if you put all your focus into your little boy right now, and stay away from people who have a recent history of active drug addiction.
I'm so sorry for your pain and tragedy. And I'm sorry for your little boy. Losing a husband and a father is such a tragedy. I don't think you should get serious with an active drug user. What do you think?
There is no such thing as "trying" to recover from meth addiction (or any other addiction for that matter). You either are in recovery or you are out. When you are in recovery you do not use drugs. You attend meetings. You do whatever it takes to stay clean. And you stay out of relationships - until you are clean for at least a year. Because staying clean is the only thing that matters. And relationships take focus and concentration away from your number one priority of staying clean.
You will do what you are going to do. But know this: You cannot save him. You cannot help him.
Again, I'm sorry for your pain. But a relationship with an active meth addict will not cure it. Get support. Focus on your little boy. on yourself. I can't imagine how wounded you must feel.
One thing addict do consistently is LIE. So if someone tells you that they have used 4 times, I guarantee you that it's probably 4 times that many times. And meth addicts use for long periods of time. So that doesn't mean that he just used 4 little lines over the last 4 months. That means he got seriously high, using quantities of meth (which is the nastiest most synthetic and brain damaging drug out there) for days on end without sleep.
I don't think you can go wrong if you put all your focus into your little boy right now, and stay away from people who have a recent history of active drug addiction.
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Join Date: Jul 2012
Posts: 793
Welcome to SR. I am glad you found this forum. Please, please take to heart the polite cautionary suggestions and the overt "run as fast as you can in the other direction" comments you will likely find here in the next couple days. People on this board have experiences and wisdom that can (and have) collectively save the lives of those of us with addicted loved ones, children included.
If you were my daughter or my friend, I would suggest that you NOT pursue this relationship any further! My RAD used heroin, but I have learned here that meth is in a league of its own with regards to recovery and in its tendency towards violent behavior. Not what you want for your small child, I'd expect. And know too that LIES go with the territory of addiction to a degree you can't imagine! The addicted brain will do and say anything to keep using and hiding.
If he gets clean, stays clean, and is still interested in you (and most of all interested in the best possible care of your son), maybe you could date again...but that is a long time off in the future, according to what I have learned here.
Take good care. So sorry for your troubles and grief over the loss of your husband.
If you were my daughter or my friend, I would suggest that you NOT pursue this relationship any further! My RAD used heroin, but I have learned here that meth is in a league of its own with regards to recovery and in its tendency towards violent behavior. Not what you want for your small child, I'd expect. And know too that LIES go with the territory of addiction to a degree you can't imagine! The addicted brain will do and say anything to keep using and hiding.
If he gets clean, stays clean, and is still interested in you (and most of all interested in the best possible care of your son), maybe you could date again...but that is a long time off in the future, according to what I have learned here.
Take good care. So sorry for your troubles and grief over the loss of your husband.
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Join Date: Feb 2008
Location: Chicago area
Posts: 4,269
Most municipal Police have a special protocol for handling Meth addicts who are "tweaking" when the Meth addict has not slept in 3-15 days. The protocol is necessary because Meth addicts are highly prone to spontaneous violence.
Addiction rewires the brain to sustain and protect it. Lying and manipulation are the tools of addiction. If a Meth addict admits to 4X, reality is likely a multiple of this. Meth causes serious brain damage.
There is nothing you can say or do that will cause an addict to stop. You are not that powerful. None of us are.
Talk is cheap and it's just noice when it comes out of someone who is addicted to drugs.
Your job is to protect you minor child. What about hanging out with someone in active addiction is good for your child?
If the two of you are sexually active, please get yourself checked out for HIV and STDs.
Addiction rewires the brain to sustain and protect it. Lying and manipulation are the tools of addiction. If a Meth addict admits to 4X, reality is likely a multiple of this. Meth causes serious brain damage.
There is nothing you can say or do that will cause an addict to stop. You are not that powerful. None of us are.
Talk is cheap and it's just noice when it comes out of someone who is addicted to drugs.
Your job is to protect you minor child. What about hanging out with someone in active addiction is good for your child?
If the two of you are sexually active, please get yourself checked out for HIV and STDs.
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Thread Starter
Join Date: Sep 2012
Location: Cascade, Montana
Posts: 6
I read the post on new people here feel like others are being to harsh, when its just them telling it like it is from the things they have gone through, and I get that. I guesses I'd like to add a little more ifo. First off, when we first started talking again, as friends, I was very depressed, and he helped me alot, mostly by listening when I needed to talk or cry about my husband. I didn't mean to fall in love with him, it just happened naturally through the talking and friendship. Second, while it is a real relationship, we don't see each other more than twice a month, because of him having a good job in one town and me choosing to live near family in a town 2 hours away. We have discussed and agreed that we will not live together unless we are married, and that marriage is not even an option with the way things stand now. We have also agreed to totally stop sexual relations because we realize it is not healthy for either of us right now. I do love him, and I would like our relationship to grow into more than it is now. Is it wrong for me to try to help him while keeping our relationship as it is now? I know that if it were just me I wouldn't be asking anyone advice, I would stay with him, I might not even have the strength to walk away. But I know, and I've made it very clear to him, that my son is the most important thing in my life and I will never do anything to harm or endanger him, and anyone else who does will be out of both our lives completely and totally. Is running really my only option?
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Join Date: Jan 2012
Location: new moon road
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Welcome to SR, heartandsoul, and I hope we can be of support and strength to you in this difficult situation. You have lost your beloved husband less than two years ago, and now you are in love with a meth addict. You also have a child who has lost a father. So life for you is by no means easy right now.
I have never known a meth addict, but my marriage years ago to a late-stage alcoholic is what has given me the experience, strength and hope to share with you now.
What I know about addicts, from my own experience and from extensive reading, is that the disease of addiction will allow the addict to have any outside experience or relationship or family or job he chooses, as long as one rule is always strictly adhered to: no one and nothing must ever come between the addict and the drug. Anyone or anything that comes between the addict and the drug will be eliminated from the addict's life.
Your friend is still in active addiction, and though he has a desire to be a recovering addict and clean and sober of all mind-altering substances--of which methamphetamine is especially powerful--he is not a recovering addict today. And you have wisely chosen to keep some distance and to seek advice. Good for you. Many of us here plunged right into relationships with active addicts--many of us had small children when we did so, too--and I'm sure many of us wish a million times over we had done what you are doing now.
You have been reading the forum so likely you already understand what it means to enable an addict. You likely already understand that there is not one thing you can do to help him get clean or stay clean and sober. You cannot control his addict thinking and addict behavior nor can you reform his spiritual life nor can you replace for him the years of maturing which he has lost to drug abuse. Step One for you is as it is for us all:
we are powerless over drug addicts.
Your love will make no difference to his desire to get clean. The reason is the basic biological fact of addiction: it is a compulsive drive to use drugs which cannot be controlled by the addict himself nor by anyone close to him. The definition of addiction is loss of control. Even if an addict wants to stop, he finds himself using again and again, against his will.
As noted above, meth is a particularly dangerous drug as it is a powerful stimulant and increases aggression and sexual predatory behaviors. The addict feels invincible when he uses. He is not kind, he is not tender, he is like an animal.
My understanding is that like cocaine addicts, meth addicts go on drug runs, binges which last nonstop for a number of days and then they crash. The destruction they can wreak during a binge knows no bounds. Prisons are filled with meth addicts who committed horrible acts of violence while high and often psychotic (a complete break with reality). This is a deadly person to bring into a child's life.
If you wish to remain a friend to this man and wait and see what time brings for him, then you are wise to (a) see him away from your child and never bring him into the child's life unless he has a solid two years' clean (and if there is a relapse, again, two years' clean must be demonstrated) and (b) refrain from a sexual relationship. It is extremely likely he is engaging in sex with other addicts while on his runs and cannot be faithful to you nor sexually a safe partner.
Time will reveal to you what you need to know, and those boundaries will keep you safe as you wait for your higher power to show you the way. If you do not keep those boundaries, your life will become a nightmare. It is not possible to have a safe, loving, healthy daily intimate life with a meth addict.
If you google "Nar-Anon" and your state, you may find a meeting you can attend weekly for mutual support among loved ones of drug addicts.
I understand that this man came into your life in a time of deep grief and shock, and sat with you in that hard time, and became a friend. But dear, you must understand that when he is high, he will be someone else altogether.
I have never known a meth addict, but my marriage years ago to a late-stage alcoholic is what has given me the experience, strength and hope to share with you now.
What I know about addicts, from my own experience and from extensive reading, is that the disease of addiction will allow the addict to have any outside experience or relationship or family or job he chooses, as long as one rule is always strictly adhered to: no one and nothing must ever come between the addict and the drug. Anyone or anything that comes between the addict and the drug will be eliminated from the addict's life.
Your friend is still in active addiction, and though he has a desire to be a recovering addict and clean and sober of all mind-altering substances--of which methamphetamine is especially powerful--he is not a recovering addict today. And you have wisely chosen to keep some distance and to seek advice. Good for you. Many of us here plunged right into relationships with active addicts--many of us had small children when we did so, too--and I'm sure many of us wish a million times over we had done what you are doing now.
You have been reading the forum so likely you already understand what it means to enable an addict. You likely already understand that there is not one thing you can do to help him get clean or stay clean and sober. You cannot control his addict thinking and addict behavior nor can you reform his spiritual life nor can you replace for him the years of maturing which he has lost to drug abuse. Step One for you is as it is for us all:
we are powerless over drug addicts.
Your love will make no difference to his desire to get clean. The reason is the basic biological fact of addiction: it is a compulsive drive to use drugs which cannot be controlled by the addict himself nor by anyone close to him. The definition of addiction is loss of control. Even if an addict wants to stop, he finds himself using again and again, against his will.
As noted above, meth is a particularly dangerous drug as it is a powerful stimulant and increases aggression and sexual predatory behaviors. The addict feels invincible when he uses. He is not kind, he is not tender, he is like an animal.
My understanding is that like cocaine addicts, meth addicts go on drug runs, binges which last nonstop for a number of days and then they crash. The destruction they can wreak during a binge knows no bounds. Prisons are filled with meth addicts who committed horrible acts of violence while high and often psychotic (a complete break with reality). This is a deadly person to bring into a child's life.
If you wish to remain a friend to this man and wait and see what time brings for him, then you are wise to (a) see him away from your child and never bring him into the child's life unless he has a solid two years' clean (and if there is a relapse, again, two years' clean must be demonstrated) and (b) refrain from a sexual relationship. It is extremely likely he is engaging in sex with other addicts while on his runs and cannot be faithful to you nor sexually a safe partner.
Time will reveal to you what you need to know, and those boundaries will keep you safe as you wait for your higher power to show you the way. If you do not keep those boundaries, your life will become a nightmare. It is not possible to have a safe, loving, healthy daily intimate life with a meth addict.
If you google "Nar-Anon" and your state, you may find a meeting you can attend weekly for mutual support among loved ones of drug addicts.
I understand that this man came into your life in a time of deep grief and shock, and sat with you in that hard time, and became a friend. But dear, you must understand that when he is high, he will be someone else altogether.
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Join Date: May 2009
Location: Land of Cotton
Posts: 3,433
I would just like to urge you to read these two VERY important articles. Then read them again.
Addiction, Lies and Relationships
http://www.soberrecovery.com/forums/...ml#post2865142
Addiction, Lies and Relationships
http://www.soberrecovery.com/forums/...ml#post2865142
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Join Date: Mar 2012
Location: MI
Posts: 452
Heartandsoul, welcome to the forum. In April, I lost my 19-year-old AS indirectly as a result of his drug addiction. He was a heroin addict who had spiraled down hard for the preceding six months, with one outpatient and two inpatient rehab attempts all resulting in failure almost immediately upon release. He ended up being murdered when his drug addiction caused him to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. I loved him dearly and still struggle every day with grief over the last miserable months of his life and his death.
After his last inpatient rehab stay, we moved him into a sober living home. On that first day, we met a young man there who reminded me of my AS, except that he was in recovery. Also a heroin addict, soft-spoken, similar in looks and demeanor. I thought, here's a guy my AS can be friends with - PERFECT. Except that he was going out of town that day for the weekend, and by the time he returned, my AS had been kicked out for using.
Since my AS's death, I have run into that young man a couple of times. He's now managing a recovery home just around the corner from my house - I've seen him at the gym I go to, and at a "addiction recovery" event. Recently, he and I met for lunch, and talked for several hours. We've become friends. And here is the point of my overly long story - I am SO DRAWN to this kid!! I want to be close friends with him. I want to text him every day. And by the way, I am 50 years old.
Kind of odd that I want to make this young man a part of my life, right? It's like I want to adopt him or something. But it's not really odd - I want my AS back. This kid reminds me of my AS, and quite frankly (as strange as it sounds), the fact that he is a heroin addict makes him that much more attractive to me. Is it the codie in me coming out? Or is it just that this kid is the closest thing to my AS that I've found? Whatever, I recognize that it isn't healthy for me to pursue this relationship. I can't resist a certain amount of communication with him, but I am mostly keeping my distance, and I know that eventually the powerful urge I feel to connect with this kid will fade. Because truly, it's not this kid (as nice as he is) who I want to connect with. I want my son back.
Is it possible that the reason you feel so drawn to your meth-addict friend is because this is the closest thing you've found to your beloved husband? And the very fact that he is a meth addict makes him all the more attractive because (as sick as it sounds) this same issue was an important part of the bond you shared with your husband?
After his last inpatient rehab stay, we moved him into a sober living home. On that first day, we met a young man there who reminded me of my AS, except that he was in recovery. Also a heroin addict, soft-spoken, similar in looks and demeanor. I thought, here's a guy my AS can be friends with - PERFECT. Except that he was going out of town that day for the weekend, and by the time he returned, my AS had been kicked out for using.
Since my AS's death, I have run into that young man a couple of times. He's now managing a recovery home just around the corner from my house - I've seen him at the gym I go to, and at a "addiction recovery" event. Recently, he and I met for lunch, and talked for several hours. We've become friends. And here is the point of my overly long story - I am SO DRAWN to this kid!! I want to be close friends with him. I want to text him every day. And by the way, I am 50 years old.
Kind of odd that I want to make this young man a part of my life, right? It's like I want to adopt him or something. But it's not really odd - I want my AS back. This kid reminds me of my AS, and quite frankly (as strange as it sounds), the fact that he is a heroin addict makes him that much more attractive to me. Is it the codie in me coming out? Or is it just that this kid is the closest thing to my AS that I've found? Whatever, I recognize that it isn't healthy for me to pursue this relationship. I can't resist a certain amount of communication with him, but I am mostly keeping my distance, and I know that eventually the powerful urge I feel to connect with this kid will fade. Because truly, it's not this kid (as nice as he is) who I want to connect with. I want my son back.
Is it possible that the reason you feel so drawn to your meth-addict friend is because this is the closest thing you've found to your beloved husband? And the very fact that he is a meth addict makes him all the more attractive because (as sick as it sounds) this same issue was an important part of the bond you shared with your husband?
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