Right on!
 

I'm a grateful recovering addict, and I can tell you this is precisely how the disease of addiction attacks and progressively destroys the addict (and in-turn, his or her loved ones) from within.

I credit the saviing of my life to my finding Narcotics Anonymous.

My marriage is still in a shambles, but I still hold slim hopes that that too can be saved some day.

If you're looking for an easy-to-read and extremely accurate and revealing look into the Addicts mind...get the book "The Addictive Personality" by Craig Nakken. It was given to me by a drug treatment counselor, and it is the best book about addiction I have ever found. It was like the writer had spent two years living in my head. It is an amazing book, and only 113 pages long!

I am emailing this link to my wife, I hope she gets something out of it.

Clean and sober for 5 months next week. I will be attending NA meetings for the rest of my life. It has truly changed my life in every respect.

If you're an addict, find a local NA meeting, it could save your life, and the people there will love you unconditionally, because they know what you're going through, because they've been through it themselves!

Good luck to everyone!





:funjump:

Wow! I've been looking for a place to come regarding my sisters addiction. Looks like I found it and you said everything my family has been going thru. I'm glad I found this!

Living with an addict is so destructive to a none user. I have searched for understanding and perspective for so long regarding my relationship with a heroin addict. I love her so much, she is out of my life right now but I think of her every day. Her behaviour and drug use destroyed me. I wanted closure and perspective thank you so much for giving me both. I so want to move forward and heal my life.

This is my story with my Daughter!
 

I read this and I saw everything in it that I, my husband and all the other members of our family and all my daughters "used to be" friends have seen.
I've seen the downward spiral happening, going from bad to worse, and then getting even worse, and have finally, have been able to let go. It was extremely hard because my teenage grandson is living in her world and when she gets arrested he believes all the stories she tells him. He really believes that there is a big conspiracy amongst the neighbors, the police in their town, and all the people who were her closest friends after she got rid of her family first, and then her real friends, and adopted a whole new set of friends who were much more "interesting" than all of us. So she's in big time denial and her paranoia and her lying just grow and grow and at some point he's going to realize his Mom has been lying to him all along. I think he knows, but he's desperate to believe her.
She's isolated herself from first her family, then all her closest friends. She used to have two businesses with a big income, a Beamer, a nice home in a nice neighborhood, and slowly but surely she's lost it all. Well really she didn't lose it..she gave it away willingly. She still has the home, but if she doesn't turn around soon and take her life in another direction, she'll lose that too. Then all she'll have left is her son, and if she goes to jail she'll lose him too. And that is what she is facing right now. She was very beautiful, smart, funny, successful....everything anyone would want in a daughter. I bragged about her constantly and she always talked about people who got addicted to drugs as "such losers". And now there she is. She told me I was being too intrusive in her life and tyring to control her, because I was trying to expose to her the truth about the people who she had living in that house with her for the felons and thugs they were. She didn't care! I presented her with evidence in black and white and she dismissed it all.
Now every time I see her , which is only in a courtroom or in the occasional mistaken phone call, she is blaming me and my husband, and her former employees, and anyone else who ever cared for her for her predicament. Especially me though. I seem to make a very good target, and I did start buying it for a while, which almost cost me my mental health. Fortunately I began taking care of myself first and working on doing what I needed to do to preserve my sanity. I'm doing everything I can, but the helplessness is the hardest thing for me. Knowing there is nothing I can do for her until she decides she wants to do something. I sure wish there were a narcanon meeting anywhere near me, but I know there aren't very many in CA.
None near where I live I don't think.
What does it take to start a group like that? I think it would be something I would be interested in doing.
I'd be interested to hear from other parents of grown children who are now or have gone through the same situation who might give me some tips that worked for them.

Welcome, Praying4Help

My son is a recovering addict who was in and out of recovery for over 10 years, so I know the heartache you feel.

Sadly, there is nothing we can do to change them. We have a saying that we "didn't cause it, can't control it and can't cure it" (the 3 C's), and it is so true. Your daughter is blaming you because to face the truth and blame herself is just to painful right now, but I promise you that you are in no way responsible for her addiction or for her recovery. Only she can take responsibility for either, and only when she is ready.

We can do things for ourselves though that will help us work through this, and Nar-Anon is a great start. I will try to find meetings in your area and get back to you posting them. If Nar-Anon is difficult to find, then try Al-Anon or CoDA, two other similar 12-step programs that are about US, the codependent and the substance really isn't relevant.

Until I worked a program for me and found my own recovery, which gave me the strength to let go of my son's addiction, I spent my days in darkness, always worried, always anxious, and always trying to control him and his circumstance. Once I let go and let God, he found his own way and today he is clean and working his own program.

We are happy to have you join us on our journey, and we are walking with you as you find your way back to sanity and peace.

Please feel free to begin your own thread so that others can see you better and welcome you too. You are no longer alone. There are many "mom's" here who share your pain and who would be happy to share their experience, strength and hope.

Hugs and prayers for you and your daughter.

Ann

reply to moms
 

It is so good to hear a mom's perspective. I am a sister of an addict. I sometimes get so frustrated :lighter: with my parents for what they keep doing for my sister. All I see is them supporting her habit by continuing to give things to her. I do see what it is especially doing to my mom and her mental health and it's not good, considering she also has Parkinsons. All I feel I can do is sit back and watch it kill my whole family. It is so hard! :Flush: We also do not have a naranon around here. Yes, we have alanon and I've tried that, just felt out of place. Just wasn't the right place to be. I've tried to convince my parents to go, but that's like talking to a brick wall. :wall: I'm at my wits end. She's lost everything, including recently losing her son. Thought that might open her eyes. Nope! She told my parents she just got a job. But I have yet to see her show up. Plus I don't know how she could possibly pass their drug test. Just wish I knew where her head was when she got started with all this. I can't imagine!

Chris

Wish I'd found this site 2 yrs ago!
 

How are you doing now, Phyllis? How old is your daughter and how is she at this point? Mine is in so much trouble I don't see how she'll ever get out without having to do at least some jail time, but if that happens, at least maybe she will be forced to do rehab, which may or may not bring her back to us. I was awestruck by the article posted by MG as well. I couldn't have described it better, and it was exactly right on, except that my daughter is still at the point where she denies any wrongdoing.
Laura

Thanks for sharing, Chris!
 

Chris,
Thank you for your message. As a mom, I think our first instinct is to try to protect our children from harm whether they want our help or not. In the case of a grown child who is living out of the home and has been on their own for so many years it is harder to see what is going on until it has already happened. There's no way you can see it coming, even if the child is living at home. Life is all about choices. When they choose to use, they don't know it, but they choose to drag the whole family into the darkness of their addictive behavior. It's inevitable, as they are still a part of the family unit as an arm is attached to a body. You can't just chop it off, but if it gets infected, it affects the whole body, and that's the way it is in a family. The addiction touches each family member in one way or another, but the Mother and the Father seem to be affected the most, and most prominently the Moms, it seems. My husband is really saddened over our daughter's addiction, and the miserable life she has now as a result, but men deal with those things differently than women. Even women are very different in their individual ways of dealing with this. But the universal theme running through these posts by Moms is that "mother bear" instinct seems to prevail. We want to protect from harm, and then we find out it's futile. The love the addict develops for the drug seems to be more overpowering than any love they ever had for their parents or their siblings, or even their own child/children.
What I haven't shared thus far is that I also went through this with my youngest son but he's been clean now for 3 years and his life is looking up and improved greatly. There were contributing factors with him that we discovered later. He started using when he was about 20-21, but after a year or so he had a near-fatal, head-on car crash while driving under the influence. His head was so badly damaged that the surgeons (I found out much later) had had to make a choice as to whether to just let him go, or to try to save him. Thankfully, they decided to try to save him but we went through a long wait wondering if he would come out of his coma and whether he would be able to walk or see again, or speak....
Long story short, he suffered traumatic brain injury, a back fracture. His skull was compared to a bag of potato chips if you smashed it. Broken pieces that needed to be put back together, and where the pieces were too small they used titanium plates and screws. His eyes had to be put back in the sockets and we had to hope they would re-attach themselves and he'd be able to move them and see again. An incision was made from the top of one ear clear over the top of his head and over to the top of the other ear, and the skin pulled forward in order to put his head back together. God's grace prevailed and he survived, came out of the coma, was able to see, speak, walk, though his sense of smell and taste are forever gone. His memory of things far back is great, but his short term memory is a problem. If he doesn't keep a notebook with him and write things down he'll forget to do them. But he was alive. That should have been his "rock bottom" I would have thought. But after he went through all the physical rehab and was out of the hospital he went right back to using meth which was his drug of choice. He went on, using for several years getting into trouble here and there for stealing money on jobs and such. As a result of his injuries he isn't able to hold a steady job. But stealing sure doesn't help to keep jobs either, plus, duh, it's illegal! He had been out of touch for a very long time...a year at least we heard nothing and knew nothing, but I figured "no news was good news". And then he came back into this area again with a girlfriend (user also). My daughter had her business' at that time and her home and hired him to work for her since he needed a job. I offered for he and his girlfriend to live with us and they did. It got old real quick. It went on for a long time and then he got arrested being in the wrong place at the wrong time when a drug bust went on. He was faced with either doing jail time or doing Rehab.
He really was ready to do rehab. He dumped the girlfriend and all his "friends" from the drug days and really worked the rehab program. He was very proud of himself, went back to the church he grew up in, and met a nice Christian girl who loves him as much as he loves her, married her, and they are living a nice lfe. He is able to be a proper father now to the 2 little girls he had back in his younger days with a former girlfreind and things are good, but I am fully aware as much as he is that it is a day by day thing. One day at a time.
So, I've been through this Hell before.
But each situation is different. I think all parents enable the addict at first thinking they will help them some way to see that the choices they are making are the wrong ones. But the addict never appreciates or sees the love, it's only perceived as criticism and control. Those are words my daughter likes to use a lot. "C " words. I like the 3 "C"'s I've learned reading these posts. I will make them part of my every day meditations..."didn't Cause it", "Can't Control it", "Can't Cure it".
Maybe you can share this site with your Mom by printing out some of the posts you feel she might relate to. I know how helpless you must feel loving your Mom so much and with her having Parkinson's that would seem enough to deal with and then to have her having to deal with all the stages of an addictive daughter's behavior also seems more than one could handle.
Write and share as much as you like, we're here to listen!
L

Man,
I was just getting ready for bed and came across this thread! Wow you have a gift of writing you should really do somthing to forward that to each and every addict and co-de you know, I mean, You have helped me tremendously. Thank you and May God Bless You!!

Thanks, Songbird!!
 

:smile: I'm glad you liked my very long post....I tend start out meaning to keep it brief, but I don't seem to be able to convey my thoughts "in short". I think I use too many words, but so far haven't been able to stop myself.
Just this once, I will. :tapedshut
Thanks!
Laura

Thank you
 

Thank you so much for your posting. I love a cocaine addict and am just starting to ask for help. I have been trying to support and help him for the two years I've known him. So many times I've tried to leave him and save myself and every time, I come back because I want to believe he doesn't mean to hurt me. I guess he really doesn't mean to hurt me. It's just his addiction. Still, it all leaves me weakened, with a lowered self-esteem because I keep going back on my own promises to myself, and unsure of how to take my next steps. Thank you for giving me something to turn to when I feel my strength caving in.

Morning Glory,
A million thank yous for this thread. This board was suggested to me by a friend, and I'm so thankful. This is exactly the reminder that I needed at this time. My daughter is suffering and although I know it's addiction--it is still so difficult. My husband and I have been trying to help her for so long. Every chance we get to say or do the right thing--we do. It is obvious now that it falls on deaf ears. The addiction wants to live on. She is not ready--not even to read your post, although I will print it out, not so much for her as for us! I'm finding it difficult at this time to detach with love. I've lost sight of what that is--or how to go about it. That is the reason for which I am here today--insight. We've just received another call from her--needing. We said no, not this time. I find this so very difficult to do and so here I sit with my pain and my tears, feeling as though I'm abandoning my child. Yet another call and this time in anger, blaming us for some other dillusional reason. Not at all taking responsibility for her actions. I feel gutted once again--the tears and the pain are for her still. I'm having a really difficult time taking care of me. So once again I thank-you. I will keep coming back to this board for relief.

Sonnybee

Feeling a bit washed-out
 

Well, this was really refreshing to see. It is a comfirmation of the conclusion I came to about my husband just days ago. That is ...that he is insane. I almost lost my mind in the process, was even close to harming him. I has started attacking him physically, but I never broke his flesh. I put him out of my house 6 mos after we married. Tried it again 3 mos later only for it to last 6 weeks. His verbal, mental and emotional abuse was even more heightened than my physical. He is now in prison (again), blames me of course for his spiral downward (again). He was out on parole from a 20 year sentence, did 8.5. Now with the new case and violation of parole that he was 1 month shy of completing for 2 years, he has been found guilty of violating and has to complete the 10 years:yikes: This was what I expected to happen. We basically only stayed together for 7 mos of the 2 years. I had to pull myself together for our 10 year-old and I knew that it was already over, just had to wait to see the results of this mess. I was clueless that this was the problem in the beginning b4 he did the 8.5 years. I am convinced about the bare truth of the addict. I was very hard living with that--I commend some of you whose story I have read to have been able to live with the horrors. I mentally and emotionally could not survive it. My peace was entirely too important to valuable to me. I am really glad to find this web-site, I know that I needed some additional healing and information to be able to close out this chapter in my and my childs life. I could not understand nor rationalize the addictive behavior until I read this snapshot of the addict. He was a crack user. It was very hard watching him destroy. I just thank the Lord that I did not have the addicts gene in me to become one of those persons. It is a very sad thing to be classified as one even worse to be one. I pray for the release of the power of addiction from all who are affected by this. Pray that it can stop before it is too late. May wisdom be your true and safe guide, for the good of those that at risk of all things that matter. I now am without the man I truly loved and our child is without their father. Our child will be grown by the time he is released from prison. However, I will be proceeding with the divorce, this one was a bit too much for me. I am glad I did not dance with this as if what I knew for myself wasn't true. This article has made me feel even more releaved that I let go the way that I did. The way he communicates from prison still denotes the very real fact that HE IS AN ADDICT. Whats makes this even more horrible is that this is his 5th time doing time. It doesn't matter what you think--its what you know to be real. You can wish for your loved one to be free and normal but the trith of the matter smacks you in the face. It's what you do with what you know. Take care of yourselves codies. Others are depending on you too. :feedback:
Much success to you and your families. Thank you so much for being here.

Welcome all!

We can all relate to the pain you're going through.

It really does get better even if our loved ones aren't in recovery yet. We can learn to let go with love and learn to have healthy boundaries. We can learn to free ourselves from guilt and worry.

Please keep reading and posting. It really works.

Hugs to all,
MG

Hi everyone. I am new here and found this site by researching meth addiction. I just found out that my husband of 7 years is a user. I was completely caught off guard, I have never been a user or around any users. I feel like I am dreaming, like I will wake up and everything will be back to normal. He says that he quit, that he is doing it for himself, because he felt like it was hurting his health. It has been 5 days since he quit, and I can see how hard it is for him, he is so tired and his eyes hurt, he is so miserable, I know I cant help him, and that is the hardest part for me, I see him hurting and want to help. I am a fixer, if something is not working, I will fix it. I cant fix him, so I hurt for him. I hurt for my two small children who will hurt the most if he cant stop. I know how it started and I know that he took the steps to get rid of the people in his life who helped it start and who helped it continue. As I read I see that he was just in the beginning of the disease, and I hope that it was soon enough that it will be just a little easier on him. He has been addicted in the past to other drugs, like cocaine, and was able to quit that, this was all before I knew him, and over 10 years ago, I just hope he has the courage and will power to quit this time, if not I cannot stay with him, I cant allow my children to be around it or to feel the effects. Thank you all for your words they help so much.

All sounds so familiar...except that my man, Russell says that he will leave me if I go back to using...I have & continue to stand by his side at all costs no matter what...so isn't it ironic that he'll leave (run the other way were his exact words) me if I went back out? Okay, just checking out all of ya'll's threads!! Thanks!! Love ya'll!!

addiction lies and relationships
 

good evening to all. this is my first post.. i have to also say wow to mg.
i am not sure how to state my story, but i will try.. my husband of 8 years is an alcoholic, but i think a very unusal one, and sometimes when i hear others problemsm, that are affected by people they love who drink, i think i have no right to complain.. my husband is what i would call an office meeting drinker.. for lack of a better way to say it.. he is fine until i am not there to police him and then he drinks till he cannot walk. he was sober for 2 years and did go to aa . but about 6 years ago he decided he was cured and could socially drink.. i never believed him but watched him have an occasional glass of wine for months until the first company meeting where i was not around and he fell hard.. i knew then that nothing changed he had just found a new way to romance alcohol. now i walk on eggshells trying to set up saftey nets before he tells me about the next meeting knowing what it will mean. they happen twice a year. the rest of the time i avoid all weddings and social events so he will not ger drunk. i am very careful about who we are around because so many people seem to get together to just drink. i avoid neighborhood bbq's, whatever. we stay to ourselves to stay safe.. i am growing weary of this lifestlye and am tired of babysitting.
i did look for an alanon meeting and i am going to start going once a week for me.. i know its up to him to stop and him to see his problem. but i am having a hard time letting him fall flat on his face.. he has a very high bottom as they say, and is very sober 85% of our marriage. but i feel he has been very lucky and one day he will get a dwi, or hurt someone and i know i have to stop preventing it... i need some support and advise. thank you

after reading this thread, things are clearer than they were and I am starting to understand. Some of the confusion is starting to clear.

I am going to go to alanon meetings because there are no naranon meetings in my area and continue to read and take in as much as I can on this website.

Mungg

I have just read the original post (am new to this group) and the part that got me was the "...This means that in addiction there is always infidelity to other love objects such as spouses and family..." I have told him before that meth is the "other woman" and that he is "cheating" on me with his addiction. He thought it was funny. But it's the exact same. He is emotionally detached from me, our sex life suffers (he gets it online all night while he's tweaking), he's never home, he calls after work and has to "be somewhere". He lies, he's secretive....it's the exact same as infidelity.

Why is it so clear to me when my husband is about to relapse, to the point that I could write it down to the day two weks before it occurs, but he is so blind--or either so willingly blinded--that he remains in denial?