secondchancex3

I am so lost right now and I would really, really appreciate any advice anyone can give me. Heres the story:
I've been with my boyfriend for a little over 3.5 years. We met our senior year of high school and have been together since then. The first two years were great! We would drink, as typical high school/college kids do, but that was it. (He didn't go to college, I went to community college before moving on to a four year school.) Things started going badly when he left his full time chef job to work with some people he knew from high school. He started using percocet 30s periodically, then every day, then multiple times a day. I experimented with them, decided I didn't like how they made me feel, a stopped. Around this time his drinking got really bad and I sort of stayed the same. Time passed, he developed a problem with percs that his family and I supported him through- he had relapsed and recovered multiple times in a span of 6 months. Then his drinking finally took its toll in september of 2014 and he fell asleep at the wheel and crashed into a building. Not harmed, but with a bac of .31. He was also in the middle of a relapse at the time, and apparently had perks in the car but got rid of them. Now I was furious and upset but thought that everyone makes mistakes, this is not a deal breaker. He went through the legal motions and was granted ARD, which was great. But over the summer he started using perks again and then moved on to heroin. I had no idea and I feel like a **** up for not knowing. His heroin use got out of control but then he "got clean" and I believed him. That is until he got arrested for od'ing in his car. He had 12 bags of heroin. He essentially blamed it on me because we had gotten in a fight that night because I didn't believe he was clean. I was out of my mind with panic when he didn't pick up the phone the next dy and when his dad asked me where he was. I thought he was dead, but he was in jail. I was in my car going to hunt down his dealers when he texted me. So that happened, I stayed with him because I didn't think it was right for me to leave just because of his addiction, like I was weak for not wanting to stay with an addict. I was in the mind set of "he can get past this, this is a bump in the road but I know he can do better than this." I was kind of getting over that second arrest, he claimed he was clean and in IOP but then last week he got arrested for another DUI, this time .28. He had the nerve to have the police drop him off at my house at 3 am. He blamed the police for pulling him over yada yada yada. All this week we've been fighting over his three arrests. He tells me I don't understand addiction, says what kind of person am I for not being able to support him, that I don't care, that I'm a hypocrite for being mad. And the cherry on top of this **** cake is I just found out he used the sunday after his arrest and this past wednesday. He lied and didn't tell me because he "didn't want to hurt me" and I ended up finding out tonight when his mom told me.
I'm just so done with everything. I feel like an awful person for wanting to break up with him, but nothing he has done in the past year has shown that he cares about me, the future, anything. I've given everything I can to him. Every single god damn thing I do, he's in the back of my mind, because I thought we had a future together and now I just don't know. And it's now clear he hasn't thought of me in well over a year. I thought I was supportive but apparently not. I want to believe he can sort this out and beat his alcoholism and drug addiction but I keep flip flopping on it. On one hand, he says he's going on some opiate and alcohol blocking drug and that will help him, but on the other hand I can't stop thinking that he'll just use or drink again when the going gets tough. I keep going over to talk to him with the intention on telling him I need a break, but it always ends with me feeling like I'm just giving up on him, that I'm a bad support and girlfriend, and that if I do leave him he'll end up killing himself with drugs. I'm just so stuck. I don't know what to do. Does it make me a horrible person for wanting to leave? I want to support him but I honestly don't see a future where I can forget the lies and the hurtful words. But feeling this is making me feel like a ****** human. I have to think of myself, I know, but it's so much more complicated than that.
Edit: he claims he only has a problem with liquour, not beer. I told him he can choose drinking or me and he said he wont promise he wont drink beer down the road. He used to drink a bottle of vodka in two nights. I don't know what he's doing now, he says he doesn't drink but I don't know if I can believe it.
I'll be 21 in a week but I feel like I'm 50 years old.
Please, any advice is needed. Thanks.

teatreeoil007

So, is it really clear he hasn't thought of you in well over a year? If that is true, it sounds like you are hurt by it. But it may not even be true, you know. If he hasn't thought of you in well over a year and if that is really true, then I don't see why you would feel guilty about anything. Don't let guilt rule your decisions. That's a terrible way to live you life. And if I know most folks, they don't really want you to stay with them because you "feel bad" if you don't.

Be well.

secondchancex3

I say he hasn't thought about me in about a year because of his actions. I guess I'm thinking that if he really did care about like he says he wouldn't continue to drink and use on and off. Like, if he cared about me he would think about the future-his as well as ours.
I feel guilty because I feel like I'm required to stand by him and support him because we've been together for so long. I don't want to throw away the past almost 4 years of my life but so far he hasn't shown me that the next few years will be any different. But theres my dilemma. What if they are?

Lilro

RUN>>>>>>>>>

S- take it from an old lady, run, run as fast as you can AWAY from this train wreck of a boyfriend. You have your whole life ahead of you.

FeelingGreat

You've given him plenty of support, plus multiple chances. I wonder if you have a picture in your head about love being unconditional? Well it ain't. What it should be is mutual, and for the past year it's been one sided. You love him, and he loves his addictions.

You sound like an intelligent and motivated person with a great future, so unlink yourself from him and go your own way. He may well be sorry, make many promises and tell you he needs you, but they're just words when you put them against addiction. Actions are the only things that count.

You have your whole life ahead of you and he has the chance to become an adult himself, but not with you. It has to come from himself.

sugarbear1

He's not ready to stay stopped and doesn't add much to this relationship.....why not cut ties and move forward with your life, get to know you well and raise the bar on the next relationship?

Forget the manipulative talk he's doing, that is just a technique alkies and addicts use on those closest to them....

Let him figure out his life and become a whole person

Love and Hugs to you

redatlanta

I feel guilty because I feel like I'm required to stand by him and support him because we've been together for so long. I don't want to throw away the past almost 4 years of my life but so far he hasn't shown me that the next few years will be any different. But theres my dilemma. What if they are?

Add another digit to that number 4 - how about 14 years, how about 24, how about 40? There are plenty people on here that can claim those numbers.

What if? Its a terrible and dangerous game to play. Because if you guess wrong you could be the one with the bigger number on here adding kids into the mix or perhaps not having kids because you don't want them to have an alcoholic/addict father.

I'm just so done with everything. I feel like an awful person for wanting to break up with him, but nothing he has done in the past year has shown that he cares about me, the future, anything. True - but be honest about what he is showing you - he is doing that you know - what he cares about is getting drunk and high. Period. Accept this and your path will be easier.

On one hand, he says he's going on some opiate and alcohol blocking drug and that will help him, but on the other hand I can't stop thinking that he'll just use or drink again when the going gets tough. But he has not done this. Take some time to read about the usage of suboxone and antabuse which are the drugs he is referencing. These are aids only they WILL NOT get him sober. My husband recently detoxed from pain management and we looked into suboxone. My personal opinion is its a great drug for DETOX, but it has some side effects as well as is addictive itself (and you might look on this forum about what its like to get off suboxone - its very hard).

I keep going over to talk to him with the intention on telling him I need a break, but it always ends with me feeling like I'm just giving up on him, that I'm a bad support and girlfriend, and that if I do leave him he'll end up killing himself with drugs. I'm just so stuck. You don't have the power to make him kill himself he can do that right now with your support and unfortunately people do it often rather intentional, or accidental. Your "support" NOW is not keeping him sober. 3 DUI, and an arrest with 12 bags of heroin (he's dealing I assume??) - exactly how is your support curbed his behavior in anyway? It hasn't. What you are is a codenpendent/enabler did you ever think that perhaps that you continue to support him and stick with him is actually more damaging to him than if you left? Its certainly without question damaging YOU.

I'll be 21 in a week but I feel like I'm 50 years old.
Please, any advice is needed. Thanks. In a blink of an eye you could be 50 years old and feel like you are 200. Advice? Move along my friend. This is not relationship material, this is a tsunami. You cannot help this person, you can only help yourself.

Tentindependent

Required by who?

Pia

I lost 13 years because i felt guilty and ashamed. I learned to go with my gut and stop trying to go against it.
Work on you and leave him to do whatever. He will keep showing his true colors. It may not,be what you want but it is his. No need to feel bad for saving yourself.

doggonecarl

Four years is a long time, but a long time in the past. You have to think about the future. Read your post again, as if a stranger had written it. That's your future. Don't waste it, not a single minute of it, on an addict. You are young with your whole life ahead of you. A life that can be free of the drama and chaos of loving an addict. A heroin addict. Is that the life you envisioned?

secondchancex3

I needed to hear this. Thank you so much. I just keep working myself up into a guilty frenzy but you're right. This opiate blocker isn't a magical cure all. He can easily just not take it one day, use or drink, and then lie about it. I guess what I feel most guilty about is the fact that he now seems to want to get better, but when I think about it he said the same things the past two arrests.

secondchancex3

Myself? Him? His parents? I'm hard on myself about this but I keep hearing his parents say stuff like "she cares about you so much, she's stayed with you through all of this, think of your future with her."

atalose

And there will be a 4th and 5th and 6th chance unless you break this very unhealthy thinking you have going on.

You say it’s been a year since he has really thought about you, about your feelings – well what about you? Why haven’t you thought about you? Why have you accepted so little for so long?

He said something to make you feel guilty about maybe leaving him, that’s what addicts do – they manipulate, lie, guilt, steal and they do it over and over and over again for as long as someone gives them that chance.

It really is true – that at some point it STOPS being about them and their addiction, their behaviors, their drugs, their lies, their manipulation and it becomes all about US and our why’s of why we continue to stay and tolerate such unloving hurtful behaviors.

If addiction could be cured with love and support there wouldn't be an addiction issue, there wouldn't be a need for rehabs or meetings or counseling. None of us would even be here talking about it today.

I hope you stick around and I hope you come to a better understanding of addiction and how powerless you or any of us are over it.

secondchancex3

I know I'm staying for the wrong reasons. I no longer feel much happiness in this relationship, it's mainly fear, hurt, dissapointment. But like I said, everything I've done, I've done with him in the back of my mind. It's a hard habit to break.

SparkleKitty

No one is ever required to stay in a relationship that is making them unhappy and leaving them unsatisfied. I imagine his parents would be disappointed if their son's primary caretaker was no longer around and they had to pick up the slack, but that is their problem, not yours.

secondchancex3

I guess I do. I always preach that the present isn't forever, that whatever **** you're in may feel like it's never going to end but before you know it 5 years have passed. I am young, but I feel like I've aged a hundred years with all of this stress.

Pia

I say this in a caring fashion. " He is happy with the way things are only you are not happy."

I tried so hard to fix someone that didn't want to be fixed only manipulate me. I was miserable at the end of the day he is gone and I was left with the shattering facts that I tried and tried and tried until I had nothing left and didn't recognize myself.

Read the other posts on this form you will gain insight. We get it !!

redatlanta

Let's be honest, do you think your parents would say the same about him? What do your parents think about him? 3 DUI heroin user?

And his parents may be very nice people, and you may like them, but as long as you are in the picture it relieves some to most of the burden off of them. Don't think that isn't part of this, or part of the reason they guilt you and I know they do. "Think of your future with her" - what about YOUR FUTURE WITH HIM? Looks bleak to me.

Run honey, run just as fast as you can. Please spend some time reading the stories on the forums including the addiction forum cause he has an opiate problem as well. Nasty things opiates. You are way too young to be dealing with this crap - its above your pay grade.

Why don't you tell your bf to look you up after he has successfully attended a recovery program, and stayed sober a year?

Pia

You are way too young to be dealing with this crap - its above your pay gra.

I did the math I was 24ish when I started dating my addict. Nov will be 14 years yikes!!
I wasn't much older than you are now. please really think about what you want out of life. Do it now before another minute goes by. Are you reading any books? If not please pick up Codependant No more .

Thomas45

He is blaming the consequences of his addiction on you and not on himself.

He is blaming the consequences of his addiction on the police for doing their job and keeping other drivers safe, and not on himself.

He is blame shifting and isn't owning responsibility for the fact that his addiction is negatively affecting his life. He could have easily killed another driver at .28. If he crashed into a family car and killed a newborn baby, would it be the family's fault for being on the road at the same time as him? That means he isn't ready for recovery, no matter how many rehabs or programs or detoxes he goes through. He isn't accepting HIS part of the blame for protecting and perpetuating HIS addiction. It isn't your addiction, and it isn't the police officer's addiction.

I would say trust your gut feeling. From what you've described, it sounds to me like he has been more than willing to lie to people about being clean in order to protect his addiction. He wants the best of both worlds, he wants to continue abusing drugs and alcohol, but he also wants to keep you at his side and he's willing to guilt trip you into staying if necessary.

The problem with this logic is twofold: 1, that he is already killing himself with drugs, and 2, that the manual for healthy relationships doesn't state that being a 'good girlfriend' means you have to stay with someone out of a sense of obligation to fix them. His road to addiction is a result of choices that he made out of his own free will, and his road to recovery can only be a result of choices that he makes, again of his own free will. Whether or not you were experimenting with him in the past doesn't change the fact that he had full conscious control over the choices he made that led him here.

To answer your original question of "how many second chances do I give", only you can answer that for yourself. You will give as many second chances as you choose to until you decide you aren't willing to give any more. There's no hard and fast line in the sand that we can draw for you, because it all depends on what you are willing to tolerate in your relationship. If you decide you can't tolerate what's going on any more, then that would be the time to move on and not look back.

And that aside, 21 is still quite young. We call ourselves 'adults' at that age, but in truth our minds will continue to develop and change well into our 30's. Statistically speaking, you are likely to go through multiple personality changing phases through your mid to late 20's, and the person you end up being on an intellectual and emotional level can be completely unrecognizable from the 21 year old version of you. At your age, it is far better to have positive influences in your life rather than negative ones.