Alone10

Hi All

My boyfriend is a heroin addict. He's on suboxone but I've found out he's still using. I keep finding out different things from different sources, and everytime I confront him about it he lies to my face until he realises he may as well just admit it.

I've tried everything with him. I've tried being supportive, telling him I just want him to be truthful with me and that I won't get angry. I've tried being tough, telling him I won't put up with it any longer, threatening to pack my bags and leave.

He hasn't contributed anything to our joint account for well over a month. I'm left struggling to pay the bills (we're down to our last £50!!) while he's spending all his money paying for heroin for him and another girl he scores with! It's driving me crazy.

Does anyone have any tips? I really don't know what to do or how to help him. I worry about causing arguments, because I feel like that just pushes him out the door and off to score to take his mind off the arguments I've caused. Last time we had a row, he started with the suicide talking - sending me a text while I was at work saying he might as well just leave this life behind, maybe he'll be less of a waste of space in the next one, so of course I spent all day worrying about what he might do and feeling guilty.

Any advice on how other people deal with this would be much appreciated.

interrupted

Heroin is a bad, bad drug. Two of my family members are currently in the grip of this disgusting drug. He's manipulating you. His addiction comes first. It doesn't matter what you do, he will continue to use until he is ready to stop.

Perhaps try re-framing the situation. Currently you're thinking about what you can do to change his behavior, the answer to that is *nothing*. So instead it's better to focus on what you *can* change: your actions, and your reactions to his manipulation attempts. The only way to help him is to give him to God, the Universe, and Everything, and help yourself. Start valuing your own health and happiness as much as you have been valuing his. Start thinking about some boundaries that you might set, and a plan for how you will respond if those boundaries are violated.

Sometimes it helps to take drugs out of the picture entirely. In your case, drugs aside, his behavior (selfishness with household money, spending his time with another woman, guilt and manipulation) is still not something that would be acceptable to me. You have to decide what kind of relationship you want, decide whether he is meeting those needs or not, and decide what your response to the situation will be.

It sucks to be in the situation you're in. I'm sorry that you're having to deal with this, I know how hard it is to watch someone go down this path.

broken101

Alone,
First of all you are not alone, maybe you feel that way but I bet you have family and friends and us here at SR and of course your Higher Power.
This sounds familiar to me. My exbf was (and still maybe a heroin addict, last time I knew he used was August last year and he is very good at hiding it) he used also abusing suboxone. Same with the lies, cheating, money I am now stuck paying for his car $5000, an back overdraft of $700 our bed $500 and another credit card $2000 and that’s not including the times he told me his mom and brother were about to be evicted from their homes and I give him couple more grands to help them, the food, gas, cigarettes and the list goes on and on.

My tip is for you to run…run far away as you can if you stay or go back to him as I did over and over until January this year you will only be setting yourself up for disappointment, hurt, tears and financial ruins. I wish I had listen to all the advice given here and those of the people that loves and cares for me I would not be where I am today, hurting, depressed, financially in a s**t hole, broken hearted.
He is going to do what he is doing regardless if you leave or not….until he hit his rock bottom and is ready to change, and please don't listen to all the false suicide BS if he wants to kill himself he will but the truth is he ready doesn’t is his manipulation game to make you stay and pay for his addiction or contribute to it by allowing him a place to live, food etc
You cannot do anything but take care of yourself is this how you want the rest of your life to be?

Hugs from one broken hearted to another

crazybabie

Original poster was Nightsd:

I'm an addict and was addicted to heroin myself for years.

I remember lying to my boyfriend about my use. Everything I ever told him about my use was a lie.

Know this: from my own experience, addicts do not lie because they somehow get a sick pleasure from manipulating others. That simply isn't the case. We lie for one reason, and one reason only, and that is so we could continue to get high.

I felt terrible after I lied to my boyfriend about my use. I felt like the scum of the earth. But I was so incredibly hooked I had convinced myself that living without heroin would have made everything worse.

You see, here's the thing about us "manipulative" addicts. We aren't just lying and manipulating those around us. Were lying and manipulating ourselves. Our addictions are experts at manipulating our own minds so we continue using.

That said, I don't think your boyfriend will be able to stop any time soon. I truly believe that most heroin addicts need to hit a very low bottom before we can stop. Heroin creates in us such a powerful great feeling that it takes an equally low bottom before we truly realize we can no longer use. Most addicts need the immediate decision to quit to be made for them by their circumstances, like homelessness.

Your boyfriend is on the titanic. Whether you want to stay on the sinking ship with him or not is truly up to you. But as long as you don't use and as long as you don't enable him to use you shouldn't be harming him or yourself. You could actually be one of the few positive people in his life. He will never be able to quit for your sake. That is not to make him sound selfish. Most addicts can't even quit for their own sake.

You have to decide for yourself what to do. I've never met either of you. As a recovering addict myself, I don't think I could stay with an addict. The disease is too selfish. As much as he wishes he could, he will not be able to give you the amount of attention he feels he needs to give to heroin right now. Hopefully if you choose to leave him, it will make his descent towards his bottom much faster so he can quit soon.

Addiction is pretty selfish, but not by choice. I have been reading this forum a lot, and a lot of you relatives/spouses of addicts seem to think that we addicts gain some sick pleasure from lying, manipulating, and stealing from you. From my own experience, I hated doing all of those things. And I never do any of those things now that I'm sober. But in my addiction, I truly felt like I didn't even had a choice. I was convinced that if I didn't use I would die, somehow. So please don't demonize us. Addicts are going through our own personal, unique hell that by the grace of god you will never have to experience for yourselves.

allforcnm

I just got caught up on your posts, and saw your initial one on Newcomers. What I will share is based on my own experience. My husband was addicted to opiate based pain meds, he went through detox, rehab, and is now a year clean. When he was in rehab, I started working with a therapist. She was a really big help to me, and if you have that option I would suggest giving it a try. I saw that your boyfriend is in counseling, been trying to stop with the use of subs. My husband didn’t use subs so I don’t know a lot about that aspect. This site also has a lot of info on Substance Abuse forum, and also there is a forum for Subs and Methadone.

One thing I learned which has actually brought me a lot of peace.. when our loved ones are using drugs, abusing in whatever way… there are actual changes going on in their brain. The drug hijacks their normal behavior, and it over-rides normal behavior – like truth telling. Most of them are quite aware they are lying about the drug use, time gone missing, money missing… but they cannot help themselves. In their mind they are driven to protect their drug because they view it as a necessity. They also don’t want confrontation, to be made to feel guilty, to have arguments, to face their addiction, etc. Once I learned this, then I had peace knowing it truly had nothing to do with me. My husband wasn’t trying to hurt me, wasn’t lying because he didn’t respect me, or a million other things I imagined.

The fact that your boyfriend is using drugs, or is in recovery with the help of subs.. maybe slipping and sliding… whatever… try to look mainly at his behavior towards you, and decide how you really feel about it, and what is acceptable to you. Then you can begin to make changes to benefit you long term.

My therapist introduced me to a book called ‘Get Your Loved One Sober: Alternatives to Nagging, Pleading, and Threatening’ by Robert J. Meyers and Brenda L. Wolfe. The book is based on concepts from a program called Craft: Community Reinforcement and Family Training. Its basically about learning how to improve your life, avoid enabling drug use, avoid conflict, and utilizing positive reinforcement techniques with your loved one to support recovery. There is a Sticky Thread at the top of this forum called: Info For Family – National Institute of Drug Abuse. There is info here on the Craft program, and links to more resources. I have used this philosophy during my husband’s recovery, and found it very beneficial. If you have any questions on it, feel free to send me a p.message.

Alone10

Thanks interrupted, that's definitely given me something to think about. I know what I expect from a man - love, honesty, helping out around the house, contributing equally to bills etc etc. And he knows that I expect these of him, but I haven't actually thought through what to do when he breaks these boundaries - I just seem to wing it every time and let him get away with too much. I'm making things far too easy on him. It's time to set some rules, stick to them and start looking after my own wellbeing.

Alone10

broken101 - I have lovely friends and family, but I can't tell them about all of this. They hated my partner to start with (the alarm bells should have rang then, I should ALWAYS trust my family and friends when it comes to what and who is best for me), and they worry about me a lot; I don't want to add to their worry with all of this. So it's nice to know that there are people on here that understand. It gets hard bottling everything up all the time.

I'm sorry that your ex-bf left you with so much debt. I worry about mine doing the same. He rings me up asking for the pin number to our joint account, pretending that his card's been refused and he needs to pay for petrol, but then I find out he's used our money to buy heroin for him and the girl he uses with. He already transferred all his debts over to our joint account, so now as well as me paying for our mortgage and bills, I'm having to cover all his debts too. He's now talking about buying a van on finance!!!! He has been working and earning quite a bit lately (supposedly!), I've yet to see any of it transferred into our account though, so I wonder who'll end up covering the finance payments. No way in hell. I've made a decision that I am no longer helping him. I'm going to tell him to transfer his personal debts back to his personal account, and I'm not giving him our joint account card anymore.

It sounds silly but as much as I want to leave him, I'm scared to. I'm scared to have this house all on my own, I feel like I can't afford it financially on my own - although when I think of it realistically, I already am!! The only problem with kicking him out is that his parents contributed £3,000 to our deposit so I'll have to pay all of that back. I also owe my aunty £3,000 which she contributed too (although she's not putting any pressure on me for it back, so she'll understand - but I really want to pay her back as soon as possible. It's her money and she should be enjoying it in her retirement). I kind of feel like I'm in a financial mess right now, but it looks like it's going to be even worse if he leaves. 'Out of the frying pan and into the fire' springs to mind!

Alone10

Thanks for that crazybabie. I regularly feel like his lying and deceitful behaviour is a personal attack on me. I feel like he just sees me as some stupid girl; too stupid to uncover all his lies, and just someone he can use for money and a roof over his head. But whenever I confront him about a lie I've found out, I can see the shame written all over his face. He just looks crushed, not because he's been found out, but just because he's ashamed of how he keeps messing up.

Part of me does feel like he genuinely does want to get off heroin, but I guess I can never truly understand just what a hold it has on him because I'm not an addict myself. I keep trying to compare it to me trying to give up cigarettes. I have tried and failed to give up countless times. If I find it so hard to just give up nicotine, how much harder must it be for him to give up heroin?!

Alone10

Thanks allforcnm. I have been looking into some sort of counselling, or group sessions that I can attend in my area. Haven't found one yet, but I will keep looking.

Yes, my boyfriend does say that's the reason he lies - because he doesn't want me to know, he's ashamed and he's scared of losing me so he sneaks about doing it behind my back. In a way, it's nice because I can almost pretend it's not happening. But then when I do find out, it just hurts even more that he's lied to me all along when I've specifically asked him to be truthful to me. We're supposed to be in this together, but I feel like he shuts me out and has this secret life that I know nothing about.

I read about that book on someone's blog yesterday and will definitely check it out. The only thing though is that it sounds like it's all about turning a blind eye to it all, putting on a show and creating a nice happy home environment and just pretending all that bad stuff isn't happening. It just sounds like my boyfriend's going to be able to go out, use heroin, then come home to me, to a happy home and no arguments. On the other hand, I can see how him coming home to me having a go at him and shouting at him for his behaviour doesn't help either, it just pushes him to want to go out and get his fix. At the minute, I just have conflicting ideas about how best to do things. I don't want to be all happy, loving and smiley (very difficult the way I'm feeling right now!) because it's almost as if I'm condoning his behaviour. But I don't want to live with all this anger, distrust and misery anymore, because it's not helping either of us.

crazybabie

I offer this piece of advice because I care not to upset you if it were me I would be checked for STD'S my husband doesn't do heroin but I still get tested there are so many things that can go with drug use


There are online meetings if you can't get to one and I see your worried about paying back the amount his aunt applied for the deposit if you were to have him move my question is when are you gonna worry about taking care of you? Don't get me wrong I understand what your saying I also like paying my bills and anyone I owe... the thing is sometimes things have to wait and IMO we should not be what waits.

A wise poster here always says there are options we just may not like them.


It took me a long time to stop feeling like the lies and use for that matter were not personal I know that feeling it took me throwing myself in recovery for me.

Alone10

Thanks, those books are definitely going on my "To purchase list". I've had a read up on the women the book is aimed at and it sounds like me. Too scared to leave because I'm scared to be alone, I think that's the top and bottom of it. I thought I'd met my Mr Right, but now that his true colours have started to show, instead of walking away from a relationship which clearly isn't right, I'm hanging on and trying to change him.

No upset whatsoever taken from your comment about getting checked for STDs. I have actually been thinking about that and been meaning to make an appointment. He promises me that he never shares needles and he's careful, but I can't trust him and it's better to be safe than sorry where my health is concerned!

allforcnm

Its usually best to take time and think things through before taking action, so give yourself whatever time you need to make decisions.

Part of the whole process is analyzing the relationship and what your getting out of it, maybe its not worth continuing.

Then look at behaviors that might be enabling his drug use, and try to stop these. For example, your paying all the bills while he spends money on drugs. Not good for either of you, and taking away what should be equality in your realationship.

Establish boundaries on what types of behavior you will allow into your life. And realize, you have the power to end the relationship anytime.

The Positive reinforcement techniques are only used when you actually feel positive about the behaviors of your boyfriend and/or your interactions together. Its also about recognizing his efforts, improvements (if any). Its very much against creating a fake happy environment, or keeping a blind eye. You never reinforce negative, or undesired behavior because your right; that would be fake. And I don't think you can even have a successful relationship unless your staying true to yourself.

I have a couple of examples, but I will send you a p.message instead of derailing the thread onto this topic. You can also look up reviews of the book on Amazon.

LoveMeNow

Alone, I would strongly recommend focusing your energy and time on healing YOU first before I did anything else. Reading Codependent No More is a great place to start. Alanon and Naranon are great supports groups too.

pianogirl1193

One of to biggest things I learned is not to state a threat or boundary if you don't intend/think you are able to follow through. Saying "If you use one more time, I'm leaving" and then not following through tells him that he can't take you seriously. That doesn't mean that is your boundary.. Just an example. I certianly can't tell you what to do. But be careful with what you say! Say what you mean and mean what you say! I love that.

Also, i broke up with my EXABF of 2 years in february because I couldn't handle the lies and using anymore. It took so much time for me to get to that point where I was strong enough to do it. And it was still the hardest thing I have ever done! He was my drug and I was terrified of being alone and without him. Anyway I'm tired and that story didn't really have a point haha not sure if I'm making sense but I was just trying to say I've been there and it is horrible. You don't need to make any decisions now though. Just know that you cannot make him stop... I wish love was enough to make them stop... But it's not. hang in there