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-   -   New here...Anyone living with a marijuana addict? (https://www.soberrecovery.com/forums/friends-family-substance-abusers/231136-new-here-anyone-living-marijuana-addict.html)

mkb87 07-07-2011 04:40 AM

New here...Anyone living with a marijuana addict?
 
I am. My husband was an amazing man until he started getting into drugs. In the past year he has experimented with crack, crystal meth, and pills, but marijuana and that "fake weed"/herbal incense they sell "not for human consumption" are his DOCs. Up until about a week ago, he had been clean for a month, I believe, and before that, a month or two.

I have been an enabler in the past, and I am also a recovering addict (crack and methadone) since May of 2009. I quit everything cold turkey when my husband and I met. I thought he just smoked weed socially, since I had never known anyone who was actually addicted to it, and at that time socially smoking weed didn't bother me. I don't smoke it myself because I don't really get high off of it, just feel sick to my stomach. So weed is not a trigger for me, although now that I have children I don't like to be around it, and I always thought my husband would stop using it socially after our kids were born, but he didn't...he started doing it more!

I think I hurt more people in the past by enabling their addictions than I did by using.

I don't want to enable anymore, but I already see myself doing it...

My husband went to jail for paraphernalia this week. He swears that if they test the pipe all they will find is that "legal weed" he has been smoking, but I don't know. If he pleads not guilty and they don't find anything illegal in his pipe, the charge may get thrown out. Or maybe not, since that stuff is meant to be used as incense and not smoked, so he would be using it illegally, anyway (I think). All of that will play out in court eventually. I bonded him out. I let him since in there while I was at work so waiting on him to get out wouldn't make me late or rob me of time with the kids during the day. He normally stays home with the kids since he's disabled, but I don't feel safe with him doing that, anymore, since I know for sure he's been using behind my back, probably around them (they are 1 and a newborn). I have a babysitter for the time being, but I'm not sure how long.

He says he wants help. This was his first time going to jail, and other than driving while suspended (license suspended for child support, which is now paid), he has never been in any kind of legal trouble. He said that he cried when he was being booked in, that he sat and stared at the walls the whole time he was in jail and wouldn't eat or talk to anybody, etc. He says he really thought I wouldn't get him out or be there for him when he did get out.

As far as helping him, I don't know where to start...there is not a lot out there for marijuana addiction, it seems like. Most people (myself included before I found out about him and started doing research) don't even believe it's addictive. He has Medicare, and we don't have anything close to the money to be able to pay out of pocket, so it's hard to find a rehab that will take him. I get that I can only help him if he wants the help, but I am still at a loss. I really don't know what to do now.

Ann 07-07-2011 11:19 AM

Welcome to SR, I'm glad you found us and joined in.

I'm sorry about his addiction. Marijuana is too often excused by people as being the least of addictions, when in fact it can steal the soul of the addict just the same as any other drug, and it has ruined many marriages and families along the way.

I bailed my son out of jail once only. He made promises of how he would change and cried about what a lesson he had learned and how awful it was in there...blah blah blah...because he wasn't out an hour and he was using again. I never did it again, and the world didn't end when my son was in jail.

Make yourself comfortable and take a read around. You will find many who have been where you are and who will share what worked for them.

We can't save our addicted loved ones, but we can let change begin with us and how we handle our side of the street.

Hugs

hope213 07-07-2011 06:53 PM

welcome..i am glad u found us. pot is a drug so it is not acceptable. set your bountries & mean them. there is alot of people here that can tell you how pot can lead to other drugs. read around & keep coming back.

Kindeyes 07-07-2011 09:13 PM

Welcome to SR.....I'm glad you found us. I hope you find comfort here.

I was married to a marijuana addict many years ago (28ish+ to be exact-lol). There are very specific behaviors associated with addiction regardless of the drug of choice. For me, it's not that the addict uses drugs..........it's the behaviors and what it does to them and everyone around them. I couldn't take it. The behaviors eventually made my love change and melt away. And when the thought of leaving him was less painful than the thought of staying with him....I got out. I divorced him.

Luckily we have choices. We can decide to stay miserable in a marriage with an addict. We can choose to find serenity whether the addict is using or not and stay in the marriage . We can choose to get out of the marriage and move toward a different future. Lots of choices but often when we're in the middle of it, it feels like ther are no choices at all.

I hope you stick around. There is a lot of insight that can be gained by reading the perspectives of the codependents and recovering addicts here on SR.

You are not alone.

gentle hugs
ke

mkb87 07-09-2011 01:03 AM

I am cautiously optimistic. I don't know how long "scared straight" can last, though. He told me the other day that rock bottom for him was sitting in jail and thinking that when he got out, the kids and I would be gone. I apologized for enabling him for the past two years and told him that I would bond him out only once, and that from now on, if he screwed up, he had to deal with it himself.

Today we were talking about a friend of mine who has never smoked marijuana and was asking those of us who have what it was like, and when I told my husband what I told her, he said "Yeah, one joint and you're hooked." So I think he understands that he does have a problem with marijuana. Before he said things like "Well, I've been smoking pot since I was a little kid, and it's just part of who I am, and I'll never change." I think he was eight when he first tried it. Makes me so mad that someone would do that to a child. One of his pothead friends is no longer allowed at our home (well, none of them are now, but this one was booted out a long time ago), because he once said that when my daughter is a teenager he was going to get high with her. At the time she was an infant. So sad that so many people think drugs are a rite of passage. I had friends in high school whose parents threw "pot parties" for them and their friends as a "safe" way to get high. I wonder how many of them are addicts now, to pot or anything else. My husband's parents do not approve of illegal drugs, but he is an ACOA, and his family is in denial about their other kids' drug and alcohol problems in addition to his alcoholic parent's drinking problem (the parent has since quit drinking but said it was due to health problems not related to alcohol).

My husband has a number of physical and mental health problems that he is not dealing with, so I believe he is self-medicating with marijuana, but he is still in denial about THOSE problems. I really need to see a psychiatrist myself (for depression, anxiety, and insomnia--basically the things I used to self-medicate for and have had trouble dealing with since I got sober), so I am going to tell him that I'm going, and if he wants to go with me and make his own appointment, he can. I can't do it this week because I spent a large chunk of my paycheck on his bond, but next week I can.

I don't know how to be supportive of his desire to change (if indeed it is a genuine desire, which I think it is) without enabling him any further.

kmangel 07-10-2011 04:01 AM

I think you'll know where your husband's heart is with regards to his getting help soon enough. If he wants to leave marijuana behind, he'll need to get on it right away. The window of opportunity is before him what with having just spent some time in jail. If too much time passes, the window will close and he'll forget how he hated that experience and he'll be back to where he was before he went to jail and want to smoke his weed again. You can't make him get help. He'll either want to do it or he wont and if he doesn't then you know where you stand--right back where you were before he went to jail. Be prepared to make stick your resolve to follow through with what you've decided to do should he decide he doesn't want to get help.


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