fritillary

Hi All,

This is my first time posting here. I wanted to ask advice of people who are familiar with the world of addiction, and of loving an addict, which is something my friends do not have much experience with.

I'll try to make a long story shorter -- but it's still long! When I was 24, I started a relationship with a long-time friend from college that I had lost touch with for a few years. He admitted to having a crush on me all through college, and I admitted to the same, and when we got into a relationship, it was like it was meant to be. We had very similar perspectives on the world, our odd senses of humor that nobody else seems to appreciate matched perfectly, we loved each other so much and talked about our future, marriage, kids etc. He told me I was "as close to perfect as it gets" for him, asked me when I thought we should get married. We were together for 4 years.

I had moved in with him the last year of our relationship as I was finishing up grad school. We intended to move across the country when I was done. During this time, I saw how he would spend his entire day on the couch, watching tv, not doing much of anything, feeling depressed, drinking beer and wine to “help him sleep”, and getting angry at me for weird reasons. I talked to him about it several times, told him I was concerned, that maybe he should see a doctor. This went on for months, until one night I woke up to the sound of him throwing his bodyweight against the walls of the hallway and he was so drunk that one side of his face was drooping. The next day, I confronted him about it, and about the fact that he had been getting drunk a lot by himself lately after I went to bed. He finally came clean to me – told me that he was not an alcoholic, but a drug addict. In fact, he had been addicted to prescription opiates for years. Just a week before, he finally got off of them (while taking a series of other things to help him get through the withdrawal). Though he had tried to quit several times before and failed after a couple of days, this was the longest he had been without them. But, he insisted, he was not an alcoholic.

This was of course shocking to me – I had no idea that he had a drug problem. He was very good at hiding it. I was actually very relieved when he finally told me. It explained so much, and his sincere expression of his desire to get better gave me so much hope. In the wake of his honesty, I felt so much closer to him. Then things quickly went downhill. He replaced his drug abuse with alcohol abuse. He was mixing it with sleeping pills, Xanax, etc., and would become very scary. He would say awful things to me and scary things about himself (“I’m a monster,” “I drink to make the sober part of me die”), things that he had no recollection of the next day. After months of this, and after he embarrassed me at a friend’s wedding and tried to make me get in the car with him while he was drunk, and after all the promises he would make to me during the day and then break at night, I couldn't handle it anymore. I desperately did not want to leave him, but my heart sort of just let him go. It was like he died.

I was not as stable as I thought I was at this point, and stupidly got into another relationship just a few weeks later. I know, really really dumb. I had misinterpreted my anger at my ex as me being over him. Being with this new person, and actually developing feelings for him, really delayed my emotionally dealing with my breakup. I didn’t even care what happened to my ex at this point. We exchanged a couple of emails here and there, but did not have much communication.

Last October, a year and a few months after our breakup, I was thinking about my ex, and decided to ask him if he wanted to catch up over coffee sometime. He wrote back to me, and told me that he had finally accepted he was an alcoholic, that he was going to AA meetings (only for about a month at that time, which was the longest he had been sober), that he was deeply remorseful for what he had done. He said he didn’t realize at the time how much he was hurting everyone around him. He also told me that he’s seeing someone. He started seeing her while he was still an active alcoholic.

I wanted to see him because he was sober, because I could finally tell him how much he hurt me, and he would finally be able to understand. Seeing him was very hard. We both cried, he apologized profusely, told me how much he missed me and how much love he had for me, we both admitted that we probably don’t love our current partners as much as we should, but we never really figured out the “where do we go from here.” Since then, I have expressed to him that I still have very strong feelings for him and wanted to know if he thought we would ever have a second chance. He did not reciprocate. He said that he’s still not well, that he doesn’t think he’s any good for me, that we already gave our relationship a chance for 4 years and it didn’t work out. He said that his current relationship is far from perfect, and that he’s in it mainly because he got sober while in it, but sometimes wonders if he should be in a relationship at all.

I don’t know what to do. My current relationship is falling apart, as well it should, since it is not fair to my partner that I still have feelings like this for someone else. He treats me wonderfully, but I’m just not feeling the connection and love with him. I want to love him, but I can’t. I've begun going through the motions of breaking up with him. The delayed devastation of my former relationship is finally hitting me and I’m so so heartbroken. It hurts so much that I tried so hard for so long to get through this with him, only for him to end up with someone else and, after only a few months, get sober while with her. I think he’s afraid that if he leaves that relationship, he’ll relapse. He was sober for almost 90 days after we saw each other, had a minor relapse, and now is close to being sober for another 90 days again. The past couple of months, I decided to have zero contact with him in hopes that it would help me get over him. But my feelings have not changed at all. He left me a voicemail on my birthday last week, it got my hopes up, I called him back, and upon hearing that he has not changed his mind about our relationship, it crushed me again.

I feel like our relationship didn’t have a fair chance the first time around, because the few issues that we had could not have been solved while I was in the dark about his substance abuse. I truly feel that were we to try it again, knowing what we know now, that we would make it work. We had such a strong foundation and so much love. And I know that getting back together with a recovering alcoholic/drug addict carries so many risks. But I can’t convince myself that it’s a bad idea. I can’t convince myself that I don’t love him. I can’t convince myself that I should move on. Is there still a chance for us?

Ugh. Help?

justrae83

Omg! Your relationship to your ex is like mine as fair as feelings go. When he stopped being man I love do to prescription pills and alcohol it is like he died. The old man was gone and this shell of who he was remained. I was with my ex for 6 years and he went back and forth with sobriety. He finally choose another girl and his addiction. There is always a part of me that wishes he would want to get better and be with me but, I have to remind myself even if he got sober and we tried again if this new girl dosent work out, I would have to gamble my life on the HOPES he would change. Sigh

Pelican

Welcome to the SR family!

Thanks for taking the time to introduce yourself to us. I hope you will continue to come back to read and post as much as needed.

I encourage you to read some of the older permanent posts (called stickies) at the top of the forum page. They contain some of our stories, and loads of wisdom.

Your story reminds me of myself. How I kept going back to the addict. How I kept embracing the dream of what could be. I kept finding things to be too easy with the new guy in my life. Then I read an interesting article that describes how the loved one of an addict can become addicted to the drama. I call it my brain on drama. I will share the article with you:

"Originally Posted by cynical one

The Brain Chemistry of Being a Loved One
~Lori Pate
B.A Psychology
University of Texas at Austin

Many people who have loved an addict have felt like they were going insane from all the chaos, worry, regret, fear, anger, confusion and more that comes with caring for someone who is in active drug addiction.

It seems reasonable that if the addict would just stop using, everything would return to normal and a happy life would resume. There is usually more going on though. There are chemical changes happening not just in the brain of the addict, but also in the brain of the loved one.

"What? I'm not the crazy one! The addict in my life is the only one going crazy, not me!"

That isn't always true. The chemical changes in the brain of a loved one should be understood to help speed recovery. Chemical changes in the brain of someone who is constantly in a state of stress, fear, anxiety and anger are not insignificant and are accompanied by withdrawal symptoms just like an addict who stops using.

The brain uses chemical messengers, called neurotransmitters, to allow us to feel feelings. Hunger, thirst, desire, satisfaction, frustration, fear and every human emotion are felt by the activity of chemical messengers in the brain. The most important messenger in this situation is norepinephrine (also known as adrenaline).

Norepinephrine is known as the "fight or flight" chemical messenger. This chemical is what causes us to feel a rush of energy when faced with a dangerous situation. Proper activity and levels of this messenger help humans get and keep themselves safe from harm. This chemical gives us the super-human abilities to outrun an attacker or think quickly in an emergency.

When a dangerous situation is perceived, norepinephrine is released in the brain. Receptors in the brain have "parking spaces" for the chemical to "park" in, which deliver the message. Once the chemical is plugged in, we feel a burst of energy, and a drive to get ourselves safe, take action, run or fight.

After the event is over, the messenger is released from the parking spot, and recycled to use again later. We begin to feel calmer and safer. The rush subsides. Heart rates return to normal. The feelings of fear and anxiety subside.

This happens all the time in all healthy humans.

But the human brain does not like constant stimulation. As soon as we are excited from a chemical message, the brain goes to work to return levels to normal. There are several mechanisms that work to do this. First, the chemicals are picked up by "reuptake" chemicals. Think of them like a tow truck. They are constantly floating around, looking for a chemical to tow back home. Recycling the chemicals restores levels to normal.

If constant stimulation occurs, causing constant chemical messages, recycling isn't enough. So the brain, in its effort to regain a normal balance, will begin destroying the chemicals permanently. If we are constantly in fight or flight mode, the brain determines that we have too many "fight or flight" messengers, so destroys them.

For someone who actually has too much adrenaline in their brain, this is helpful. But for someone who is constantly in a situation where they really are put under stress, and are triggered to respond to fear over and over, the destruction of their chemical messengers begins to cause a brain chemistry imbalance.

There is a third mechanism that the brain uses to restore balance. After recycling and destroying the messenger chemicals, if the brain is still being over-stimulated, it will destroy the parking spaces that the chemicals plug into. These are called dendrites. Once a dendrite is destroyed,it can not be repaired. It will never again receive the chemical message it was designed to receive. It is like yanking out the phone cord of a phone that won't stop ringing. It will never ring again.

When a loved one is in a constant state of worry and fear, the brain first experiences stimulation. It feels imperative for the loved one to take action, sometimes desperate action, in an attempt to remedy the fearful situation. If this stimulation continues day after day, the brain can not tolerate the constant stimulation and starts taking action to regain balance. Adrenaline is destroyed. Receptors are destroyed.

This is when the insanity of being a loved one really takes off. The loved one is no longer chemically balanced. Several things happen at this point:

****Things that used to signal danger no longer feel so dangerous. There simply aren't enough "danger" chemicals or receptors to accurately convey the appropriate feelings. At this point loved ones may begin accepting very dangerous situations as OK. For example they may feel it is a good idea to track down a loved one at a dealer's house, or accept a loved one who is violent and abusive in their home. They may make a choice to allow a dangerous person to be around their children. This is not because the loved one just isn't making good choices. More accurately it is because their brain chemistry has been altered by the constant chaos, and they no longer have the right feelings that would initiate safe choices. Unacceptable behavior doesn't feel as truly dangerous as it is. ****

Still, some loved ones are aware enough to know they should stop being in a dangerous situation. When the loved one stops contact with the addict in their life, that is when withdrawal sets in.

Withdrawal occurs when the brain is accustomed to a particular level of chemical activity, and that level is suddenly reduced.

A loved one who has become accustomed to constant stimulation from fear and concern, who then suddenly finds themselves in a safe, calm environment, will feel withdrawal because their brains have adjusted to a high level of adrenaline.

Withdrawal symptoms cause the loved one to feel quite uncomfortable. They will feel sad, have sleep problems, and feel that something is missing or just not quite right. This will cause the loved one to feel a desire to reach back out to the chaos they were accustomed to. The chaos will cause a hit of adrenaline to occur. This is the exact same cycle that an active drug addict goes through: stimulation followed by withdrawal. Withdrawal feelings cause a desire to be stimulated again, because the brain does not like extremes.

Because the loved one who has undergone chemical changes has lower than normal adrenaline activity in the brain, they will crave stimulation. They will feel an overwhelming desire to "check on" the addict, or to take a phone call even though they know it will not have the end result of a pleasant conversation. They will engage in arguments that they know have no possibility of being resolved while the addict in their life is still in active addiction. The will feel drawn back to the fear and worry they just escaped.

An extreme example of this is seen when a battered spouse continues to return to their abuser despite having other options.

This is the brain chemistry side of the chaos cycle of being a loved one.

So does it ever get better?

Yes! It absolutely can get better.

The human body can make more adrenaline, to replace what was destroyed when under constant stress. Not quickly, but slowly, it can replenish the levels of adrenaline so that the person feels normal, without needing chaos in their life to achieve a balance.

The human body makes neurochemicals from our food intake. A healthy, protein rich diet gives the body the building blocks it needs to make more adrenaline. Regular light exercise, a normal sleep pattern, a safe environment, and a healthy diet will help the brain recover."

I found the best thing I could do for myself, was to spend time getting to know me. What it is that I need from myself, and what I want from a relationship.

Willybluedog

Welcome to you, glad you are here, I hope you will find your way to counseling and al-anon, both will help you gain knowledge about alcoholism and co-dependency which is critical to making sound decisions.

I get that you love him, but remember, the person you love is not who this guy is, he was on something the whole time you were together, the longest he has stayed sober is 90 days, the alcohol and drugs still have a hold on his brain. There is no telling where his head will be after a whole year of recovery (no slips).

You need to work on your recovery and let him work on his, if (and that is the key word here) you both get yourselves to the right place, then you both will have the blinders off and can make good decisions about relationships.

I hope everything works out for both of you, if you need to talk, or you just want to come back and rant at him, lifes unfairness, whatever, this is the place to do that.

Best of luck to you,

Big hugs,

Bill

fritillary

Thank you all so much for your responses -- every one of your replies has helped. I think the thing that I am most stuck on with all this, is that I still feel like the person my ex was before his addiction took over, the person I truly believe he is, is the person I want as my partner in life. If I could somehow be convinced that that person I remember and am still in love with is not the person he actually is, I think that would help me a lot. I'm always thinking that the horrible things he said and did while using were not really him, but were instead the drugs or alcohol talking. Is this really true, though? Or is the person that came out when he was drunk a significant part of who he really is? I used to tell him the next day the scary things he said while drunk, and he would have no recollection of them and would assure me that whatever he said certainly wasn't reflective of how he actually felt. I've heard a bit about the personality duality of an addict, and some people say that the drunk is not the actual person, while others say that it is. Is there any good information on this?

I actually do feel pretty secure about myself in most other aspects of my life, and have found peace with some other pretty awful life events. I know that I don't NEED my ex. But I sure do miss him dearly.

blwninthewind

We codies go to what we know.
I would suggest you make no major decisions, except to stay the hell away from your ex. Good Lord, you dodged a bullet and got out once why go for two???

visit Alanon.
For some people we are not happy unless we have the chaos and turmoil of a difficult relationship....and that is OUR sickness.

This is not where you want to go.
20 yr veteran here and if you were my kid I would duct tape you to my kitchen chair if it meant keeping you away from a relationship with an addict. Seriously...
It is the choice between having a healthy and fulfilling life and constant chaos and pain...
Choose better. Visit Alanon to help you find out WHY the addict is so appealing to you....and learn to make better choices.

StarCat

XABF (alcoholic ex-boyfriend) used to rant and rave and scream at me when he was drunk, and then the next day not only would he not remember most of it, he would fawn all over me and tell me what a wonderful person I was and how he didn't mean any of the things he said to me. I, too, used to ask these same questions.

I eventually came to the realization that in my case XABF's verbal and emotional abuse was obvious when he was drunk... but when he was not completely intoxicated he used other methods to control me and isolate me from friends and family. I did not realize this until I had regained personal space, as the drunken rager was obvious to spot but the more subtle manipulations were not.

I came to the realization that alcohol reduced his inhibitions, and that mean-spirited abuser I saw when drunk was a part of his personality, just a part that he had hidden deep when he had the mental capacity to do so.
I also realized that when he told me the next day that he didn't mean any of those abusive things he said to me, that part was true. He did not mean them, he did not believe them, he just wanted to reduce my self-esteem to ensure I would remain in the relationship with him.

This was my experience with this situation. Your mileage may vary, of course.

nodaybut2day

You cannot divorce the drunk man from the sober one. They are one and the same person, simply two sides of the same coin. Do you love and accept this person totally and completely, as he is today? Because that is the only person he is currently willing to be.

IMO, when we search for answers about whether or not the drugs/booze are doing the talking, we are searching to absolve the other person of a responsibility that is entirely theirs. In the end, whenever your partner gets drunk and acts like an @ss, he CHOOSES to take that glass or that bottle and chug it down. No one has a gun to his head forcing him to drink. So he is choosing, and of course, there are consequences to that choice.

And, being cynical, I find it rather "convenient" that he doesn't remember anything he said or did...seems like a rather easy excuse to pull out when you don't want to have to own up to certain things...

nicam

YES YES YES!!! This is exactly it. Thank you for this.

CodeNameGiggles

I can only share from my experience, but it was eye opening to me to realize, in the midst of my husband's stint in detox 9 years into our marriage, 13 years into our relationship, that he had always been an addict. It was just building up over time.

So many things on your post resemble things I went through - my husband wasn't an alcoholic, he was using Valium to function without drinking during the day or when I'd catch him (but he wasn't abusing his Valium either). And, again from my own experience, my husband was different after 90 days of recovery, and again another 90 days after that with no relapse, so if he's relapsing, he's just kick starting that chemical imbalance in his brain again. One of the medical team while he was detoxing told me it can take up for a year for the effects of the addiction to rewire the brain back. I didn't believe that at the time - I do now.

I agree with nodaybut2day that you can't really separate those two sides of the coin. Because regardless of whether he remembers, you do.

justrae83

THIS IS EXACLLY HOW I FEEL...I love the idea of what we could of had. I love the person he is when he was sober, but i had to keep reminding myself that even if We got back together, i would be banking my whole life on the hopes that he would change. He always used to yell at me and say STOP BRINGING UP MY PAST....well, when you keep repeting the same mistakes over and over and over...HOW THE HECK can you belive they will change in the future. I still cry everyday and night even though its been almost 2 months. I understand you miss him, so Do I. YOU ARE NOT ALONE....if you ever want to text me to compare notes leave me a message ha ha. I to hope one day this will pass....I LOVE HIM SO MUCH that even though he did this to me, the lies, addiction...leaving me for another women, i still want him. NOW THAT IS SICK...i am working on going to therepy and getting into alonon and ready books on codependency. GOOD LUCK. god bless