Tundock

Four days ago, my girlfriend of over a year called me from her meth supplier's phone to tell me she had fallen in love with him and she just thought she should be honest with me and there was no hard feelings.She hung up on me before I could even say a word. This is coming after 3 months of constant lies and and disappearing for days on end and keeping me up all night calling every cop in town wondering if she was okay. She had initially told me that this same guy(Drug dealer) was just a friend who was dying of cancer and according to the doctors he had just a couple of weeks left to live. He's obviously doing better now because she told me that story...well.. about 90 days ago. I moved to the Midwest a couple of months ago because I got a well paying job out there while she still lives in Pacific Northwest. I even bought her plane tickets on very short notice to come spend time with me after she begged me that she wanted to get away from her current environment and "drug using" friends. Four days before her scheduled flight she called to tell me she wouldn't be making the trip anymore, and then she disappeared for a whole week. My heart breaks not just for her but for her two kids who have come to like me a lot, yet she wouldn't even let me talk to them anymore. Last time I did, they told me the guy has been living with her for quite sometime and they don't like him at all because they fight all the time. In my attempt to move on, I sent her a letter the day after she called to basically wish her the best in her new relationship, not to ever contact me again and that I have forgiven her for everything.

But I'm still confused because there were a couple of times in the past three months that she sort of realized what she was doing and she would beg me for hours not to give up on her and she'll talk openly about everything she had done in the past couple of weeks. She would talk about how she felt completely lost and scared of what might happen to her. It was during one of this sober episodes that she begged me to figure out how to block her dealers numbers from ever contacting her again and get her plane tickets out of there ASAP. From the last call she made to me though, it seems she has completely lost it this time. I don't know what to do and I really care about this woman because prior to beginning her drug use, she had helped me in becoming a better and more positive individual. Her drug problems started after she paid a 2 weeks long visit to her mom who happens to be a major addict.

I will like to add that I'm finishing up my last semester of getting a degree in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science with a minor in Physics. And a part of me feels this was all my fault because I got so busy combining my new job with my school schedule that I literally pushed her to the side for days. I still called her everyday but I was just not really listening to her like I should have. Now I can barely function at work or at school without thinking about her, wondering what she's doing and if she's okay.

Any advice will be very much appreciated

Vale

Tundock,

I'll tell you all I have learned from a 3 year exposure to varsity addiction,and I'll try
my best to slant it toward your background.

It is a short circuiting of the brain's limbic (proto/reptilian center brain) system.All the
things we humans cling to (because we are human) are functions of the cortex where
all higher functioning takes place.

Things like love,thought,forming of intent,forecasting of
the probability clouds of probable outcomes that our actions lead to....all that is a total
non sequitor with addiction.

We want to know why.But it is the wrong question.Asked from the wrong perspective.
Things like infidelity/lying/total coldheartedness.....all have their counterparts in the cortex.
You can PLAN to cheat on your spouse,get what you want by lying---whilst calculating the
possible & probable outcomes and deciding if they are worth it.Cortical function can be
devious/heartbreaking/and even evil-----but at least it's HUMAN.

Addiction shares NONE of that process.The neural pathways are rewired to seek that 'squirt'
of dopamine AT ANY AND ALL COSTS.Not to be crude---but the best sex you've ever had---
comes in at maybe 9 units? This stuff gives you 200!
If you wire rats
up to have a direct neuro-electric feedback to their pleasure center---they will just sit
there and hit that lever until they expire of thirst.

They don't "care".Caring is a cortical function.Higher order thinking.

THATS why a Mom can abandon her kids.Why a son can rob his
family.An equisitely evolved and incredibly sophisticated 3 pound
biochemical computer--(brain).....one that can compose
the works of Mozart,or send probes to the edge
of interstellar space----is reduced to a single stimulus
seeking automaton.

The limbic system our 'higher brain' is formed around is common to most chordates,
it is primordial;it's primal machinations operate FAR below conscious thought---and it will
prevail without fail whenever ANY conflict arises with the cortex....the thing that makes us
'human'. It is as pointless as arguing with a shark that has just taken your leg off and is
maneuvering in an instinctual/low probabilty-of-detection loop to finish you off.It is
not amenable to any negotiations whatsoever---it wants the REST of your protein.

I am not saying in any way that drug addicts are not human.
What I am saying is that their cortex is being held hostage to a
limbic system gone haywire.

My best advice is to stop trying to make anything she does 'make sense'.It won't,
and never will as long as she remains in active addiction.A 100,000 gauss magnetic
field has been applied to her hard drive---and a crowbar has shorted out her power
supply.The sharp odor of i-squared-r (delicate circuits shorted out) permeates the air.

Repairable? Yes.In theory.At exorbitant cost in time/emotional pain/suffering and
resources.Or you can just go to Fry's---get a new one at 1/1000th the cost.The saying
"you can't get the poop back in the horse" comes to mind.

More than you can imagine----I wish it were not so.I wish I could
"get mad" at the person that (I allowed) to use me for a long time----
hoping she would "wake up" & escape "the lifestyle".

But what purpose would anger serve against an essentially non-sentient
person? It'd be like seeing your puppy pee on the rug ---- and
swatting it's butt 9 hours later

(out of the blue--for no reason--in the puppy's mind).

Sadness is the only thing addiction brings....the mourning of a wasted
life---and the regret at the opening of a Pandora's box that seems virtually
impossible to close.

Best of luck.

Tundock

Thanks for your reply. i particularly loved the scientific references. very powerful analogies too.

Quantum Physics made a lot more sense to me than trying to understand the things she has subjected me to this past 3 months.

I'm slowly coming to the realization that getting mad at her for her actions hurts me a lot more than it does her and I really do want to help her get out. But the emotional and financial cost to me just keeps rising to unmanageable proportions.

crazybabie

and I really do want to help her get out.

Only she can help her it is really an inside job

You didn't cause it
You can't control it
You can't cure it

Vale

You are more than welcome,Tundock.It is my hope that
you do not repeat my ill fated voyage---more painful than
repeating differential equations in summer school (don't ask!)

For I (as you)...never expected to find such counterintuitive/
quantum-like nonsensical crap in the real world without taking a
trip to the LHC & watch them smack Gold nuclei into one another
at .9999999c.

Enough heavy/downer crap....how about a joke?

I walk into the ER after 3 years of this crap.
Doc takes a look at me,all scratched up & bloody and says

"What the hell happened to you?!"

"I tried to pet Schrödinger's cat!"

Vale

================================================== ===
Ok......it took you 3 months to figure out what it took me 3 years to.....
I can see already you are one helluva lot smarter than I am!!!!

Now we need to graph a function that integrates time,misery,brick walls,
and humor----we would be quadrillionaires!

Lily1918

Praying for you. Im sorry for your pain

Tundock

Believe me when I say that in the past 3 months I've spent countless nights staying up writing letters and sending texts messages, experimenting with different words and writing styles while trying to find that single magic word or phrase that will get through to her. Time that could have been spent writing software for my job, designing circuits and what not was spent doing this. My search for the breakthrough word ended in futility as you can see my friend.

Graphing such a function would indeed make us Quadrillionaires ...Finding that magic word or phrase that gets through to any addict and makes them change might do that too..

But i doubt that such a word exist because i should have found it during the course of my research if it did

As for your Schrodinger's cat...You can't pet that cat..We can never been even sure whether it's alive or dead..haha

Tundock

That is the only thing that seems to make any sense during this entire episode. So thanks

LSC1

You are in my prayers Tundock. Welcome to SR.
Seeya on chat

Vale

================================================== ======
>>>>>Believe me when I say that in the past 3 months I've spent countless nights staying up writing letters and sending texts messages, experimenting with different words and writing styles while trying to find that single magic word or phrase that will get through to her.<<<<<<<

I did,too.....so yes I very much believe you.Those last 3 months for me came
at the end of 2011....and I remember them well.Most of it (all of it in fact)....unsent.
In the end I had to get out of the way and let her find her own path,
as sad as the trajectory of that path was.Anything less would have been an
affront to her dignity.In all that time,with her ex husband (AND kids) calling
her every vile,hurtful,and hateful thing in the book---I'm glad we never shared a cross word.
They have to find their own path.Thinking we can do anything about it is
a disease of the ego.......akin to trying to divide by zero.

Vale

>>>>>>As for your Schrodinger's cat...You can't pet that cat..We can never been even sure whether it's alive or dead..haha<<<<<<<<

I beg to differ! You CAN try......
but all you get is clawed up AND the poison gas in your face!
It is bruising to the ego to hear the candy striper briefing the
MD within earshot...

"Another idiot with feline addiction lacerations!"