EnglishGarden

Hello everybody,
I am not new to recovery. I married an alcoholic many years ago and when that marriage ended I joined Al-Anon and have many years in that program.

Last night I attended my first Nar-Anon meeting. It was in a town I find a little scary, in a neighborhood I found a little scary, and the meeting was scary. For me.

I went because I am trying to heal from the effects a recovering heroin addict has had on my life. Something in me said to go sit in Nar-Anon instead of Al-Anon. That maybe there I would find whatever is missing that has kept me from healing.

I had never sat in a room in which people talked about their addicts in prison or recently released from prison. I had never heard, face to face, people talk about their children's overdose on needle heroin. I had never heard, face to face, people talk about trying to get the Dept of Human Services to give them the children of their drug addicted sons and daughters. I had never sat, in person, in a room filled with people (about 40 in this meeting) dealing with drug addicts in their desperate families.

Al-Anon, all the years I have attended, had never had such dark stories. Sometimes there were people who had been hit by alcoholics. (I was hit, once. It's why I left). But somehow it all still made some kind of sense. The disease of alcoholism seemed somehow clear, to me. By that I mean, it did not seem sinister.

But I fell in love with a longtime recovering heroin addict. While I was with him, he had a terrible accident, was put on painkillers in the emergency room, and after that event, he changed. I don't know if he relapsed. But the addict personality, the selfishness, the blame-shifting, the grandiosity, and the long periods of silence began. I still don't know if he was a dry drunk, a narcissist, or if he was using.

All I know is that I have felt fractured since I parted from him. Like a china cup with a long crack down the side. And I did not feel I was moving toward the sanity and peace I needed, as I sat in my usual Al-Anon meeting week after week.

So I found a Nar-Anon meeting (they are rare) and I drove to a different town last night to attend.

I sat there, listening, and I said to myself, "You need to be here. This is a whole new world for you, it is/was his world, and you need to sit here and listen."

I could barely breathe sometimes, listening. I felt afraid. It was an underworld I was in now, and I wasn't sure if I was strong enough to face the reality of it. But I sat and I listened, grateful and humbled. In Al-Anon I have experience and can speak of real recovery from the effects of someone's alcoholism. But in Nar-Anon I knew I was a newcomer.

I know how to work a recovery program as the spouse of an alcoholic. I made beautiful changes in my life after that alcoholic marriage nearly 2 decades ago.

But I do not know how to be the loved one of a drug addict. And I am. The reality is that I am whether I ever hear from him again (and I hope I will). I belong to that room. It is a grim room. Much more grim than any Al-Anon meeting I have ever attended, and I have attended many different kinds of Al-Anon meetings in many different places. But Nar-Anon scared me. And I am going back next week to sit and listen, asking God to reveal to me why I feel I should be there now, at this time.

I left in the dark, in a scary neighborhood, in a scary town. The setting perfectly mirrored what I felt inside, and what I feared: the dark world of drug addiction, so different, for me, from the world of alcoholism. It seemed that Death sat in that Nar-Anon room with all of us. I never felt that in Al-Anon. Alcoholics seem to live forever. There are women in Al-Anon who have lived with alcoholic husbands for decades and decades. But in the Nar-Anon room there were few spouses, mostly parents of young addicts, and I figured it is probably because drugs kill people young. I don't think there are many heroin-using grandfathers out there.

I need Nar-Anon and I need this forum. My deep love for a heroin addict has so unsettled me and I do stay away, no contact, and I do all the right things I should for myself. But I feel a kind of electrocution inside. I moved on from an alcoholic and never looked back. But the heroin addict got deep inside me and I am still fractured.

I think new posters here, young and passionate and in some ways all-knowing about their drug addicted lovers, could use a good Nar-Anon meeting. I wish those meetings were everywhere. It would likely stun them into silence, and stun them into reaching out for serious, serious help and into following the direction of those who know how intimate Death and drugs truly are. The old-timers who speak from the gut and not the head.

Staying strong. God bless. Thank you all.

TiredandSpent

Wow, you described it perfectly. I had an alkie ex, and now a son just dipping his toe (or more likely in further than I know) into drugs. It's different, and you captured the difference eerily well. There is something ruthlessly evil about drug addiction that doesn't show up for a long time, if ever in alcoholism. It's understandable that it can be described as a demon possession.

I do both al anon and nar anon. I know what you are talking about. Thanks for putting into words what I sensed but couldn't identify.

dollydo

Great post, thank you!

Ann

One day soon, this dark room may bring you light.

I think our pain is different, but equally hurting and sad. Just like the pain of being a parent of an addict is different than that of being a spouse trying to raise children...both feel terrible pain but perhaps for different reasons.

Regardless of which kind of pain brought us here, or to our meetings, the wonderful thing is that we find support from those who truly understand and we find healing and peace.

I am glad you found a place where you can relate and feel at home.

Hugs

lesliej

Hi English.
I've been to a dark, heavy, depressing room, my third meeting of AA. I somehow sensed how different meetings could have completely different "characters" and my third one felt like a "sick" room. I in no way mean to discount your telling...the dark town, the dark hood, and the dark sense in that meeting.

When I started discovering more about my exABF's crack addiction I had a sense that, while I dealt with the demons of alcoholism, he was dealing with mack daddy devil.

Just lastnight I went to the HBO site that someone recommended and watched the Nora Volkow interview where she is describing (and showing with brain scans) the brain chemistry of addiction and craving. It is like the brain chemistry has been altered and the new chemistry has taken over like a devil alien. How does an addict, seeking recovery, successfully "cage" that craving. Hard work, lots of recovery support, strength of faith and a willingness for all of it.

I do remember, however, that the strength of my own demons were no small matter...they smashed my face OFF in a car, left me bruised and battered and sexually used, humiliated, demoralized, shamed...the list goes on.

Darkness, to me, feels like the compilation of hurt, fear and ignorance. And...obviously for good reason. I can write this from a certain point of view, because my ex is in a good solid place surrounded by recovery and seems to be once again on his way. Having someone out there slowly being killed by this untreated disease...in the clutch of the devil...sheds much deeper, darker, grief ridden shadows on it all.

I do find that, for my own hurt anyway, the scientific exploration and "enlightenment" of craving/relapse information, sheds a little more light of understanding and compassion on the whole situation. I think that my hurt, frustration and anger feed into the darkness of this disease.'

Also, when I use the word "ignorant"...I do not use it with judgement, I use it in the sense of "what we do not know" which is usually A LOT when it comes to addiction. But when we don't know why in the world our addict would EVER go back out and use...knowing that it would hurt us so much...that is important. (Why in the world did I wake up day after day from blackouts and still end up drinking, over and over and over?) We can't know unless we have experienced the craving, the brain scans at least give us a small amount of insight.

Shedding light upon what might have been an aspect of "ignorance" not knowing...will help to dispel the darkness. Meetings are meant to heal, and they need light. If the one you went to was too dark, then seek another...or bring light with you. In that way we as fellows, who have loved ones plagued by addiction, can help each other and ourselves from spiraling down in dark places.

Chino

There were times I knew I was seeing pure evil, when I looked into my daughter's eyes. I was looking straight into the Lizard Brain, something so primal and powerful it has ensured millions of years of evolution. A hijacked Lizard Brain, at that.

I memorized the narcotic addicted bran scans both times my daughter was in medical treatment. I wanted to remember what an already powerful beyond comprehension brain looked like, while it was hijacked by drugs.

I needed to do that so I'd remember she was operating at a kill or be killed level.

I needed to do that so I'd remember to listen to my own Lizard Brain, and ensure my own survival.

lightseeker

I had much the same experience with Alanon and Naranon. Both are about recovery but there are things that I can say at a Naranon meeting that I'd feel uncomfortable saying at Alanon (ie....how I felt when I reached into the side pocket of the car and came out with a syringe that a homeless man my husband did IV cocaine with had shared with him). The Naranon group gets me on a whole different level...I found it to be much darker with the difficulties/sitatuations that we were dealing with. I know that I needed a place where I didn't have to hide anything......the Naranon group were people that had seen the same underbelly of addiction as me.

Recovery is recovery but I do think that it helps to seek out people that share your same experiences...

sojourner

I know what you are talking about. Funny, when I got married to someone I knew might have an addiction problem, I thought I could hold my own because of having grown up with an alcoholic father. Wow, drug addiction is way darker. And I will never forget his eyes (dead, evil eyes) when he was high on cocaine and mad at me. Those eyes wanted to see my blood spilling on the ground.

Since I've moved, I've settled into an Alanon meeting that I like. But since reading your post, I know I need to also seek out Naranon meetings. They are different. They are where my son is at. People at those meetings regularly talk about the real fears and issues that I need to face.

EnglishGarden

Thank you for all the supportive feedback. In my codie way I worried I might offend someone by what I wrote. I am trying to learn to be okay just expressing my own truth and feeling that that's enough, even if others disagree.

If we've lived with an addict for any length of time, we become afraid to simply be ourselves and express our thoughts and feelings. We've been told often enough, in a variety of ways, what a disappointment we are. So we become afraid to be ourselves and especially afraid to make mistakes.

The Nar-Anon group had strong recovery, I heard it and could see it in their faces, and I was relieved about that because, since it hasn't the long history of Al-Anon, thus not as many old-timers, I wondered if it might seem less solid, less trustworthy.

But there were people there dealing with the hard stuff and managing to hang on to their belief in life and in the sacredness of their own lives and in the will of a Higher Power. There were hard stories, but there was also what we must have as much as the recovering addict must have: the belief that a power greater than ourselves can restore us to sanity and lead us out of the darkness and pain.

So there was both darkness and light. Thanks so much for your feedback.