hello-kitty

Didn't you just find drugs in your house? Were you being neurotic when you found them?

I wasn't. I don't do neurotic. Firm boundaries help with that. A crack pipe slipped right out of my ex's front pocket when he bent over to pick up his three year old son. Of course he lied and said it wasn't his... but my boundary was no drugs (actually it was no drugs or drug paraphenalia) in my house so it was easy for me to enforce it and kick him the heck out. I didn't care who's crack pipe it was. I just don't accept that stuff in my house - it's my boundary based on my personal value - no drugs around me or my kid. End of story.

dasiydoc

thanks for explaining. The way you wrote it was like he just came over to visit and there it was exposed, or you did a search in order to find it quickly. In your case, he wasnt good at hiding and it did indeed expose itself. he was not good at hide and go seek as a child I bet.

Lily1918

oh ya about the pastor. My guy is his grandson. His addiction is common knowledge there, and my enabling tendencies, but they love us. I've talked to other pastors who don't have the family connection for counsel, just cuz grandpa is very detached, but he's still grandpa. Im glad my post didn't upset you. I hate to be viewed as a bible thumper in a negative way, but those verses for me are why and I couldn't find a way to answer without them...

My mantra is edited from the old testament in the book of Joshua. There were many a time during my codie relapse while my guy was using over the holidays I threw him out on the back porch and locked him out for the night saying "Choose you yourself this day whom you will serve, whether its the false gods of your fathers over the river so be it, but as for me and my house, we will serve the lord." My intentions were good, but I always let him cry himself back in the next morning... :l it took him a full month to lock himself back up in treatment.

dasiydoc

No Liley you didnt offend me. Im not offended by anyone who shares what they believe, or what works for them. I have always went to church, and I cant quote a ton of verses, but I often think of biblical references in different situations. And I think a persons spirituality can be of help in many aspects of life.
I was looking at the christians in recovery forum a while back, but they dont have a lot of people posting, and again everyone seems to know more exact verses than me and can reference them like 'poof' I cant do that with a ton of accuracy.

I must have missed that part where your BF grandpa is the pastor. I guess that would be a different type of situation to talk to him. I think I will maybe call the church tomorrow and ask for an appointment, maybe briefly explain and see if he has any experience or wisdom to impart. cant hurt can it?

thanks .

dasiydoc

Why I would allow a person that uses drugs into my life?

It is simple for me. My boyfriend is a person first and a drug user after that. To God, my boyfriend is a person first, and a drug user second or third or fourth… or whatever. He is a good person, a great person, who I enjoy being with. I do not think he intended to get addicted to cocaine. He is doing a bad thing because the drug has invaded his mind and his body. With his being highly functional, it hasn’t trickled down to have a negative effect on me that has caused me the need to detach either physically or emotionally.

I don’t say to myself, well I am sick, or morally bankrupt, or have poor values because I am interacting with a person that no matter how great they are - have allowed themselves to be sucked into this addiction to an illegal drug, and worse they have not yet found the strength to break free of it. (Although he has been working with an addiction doctor for a month now and so to me he is facing his problem head on & has a great chance to solve it… in time).

In my case, I have to also consider what it says about me if I were to detach physically, or even limit my emotional level of contact, because I think these actions also speaks to morals, and my personal values.

It is different for people who stick around and allow physical or emotional abuse to occur out of fear of leaving, a misguided sense of love, or whatever. I am not doing that. I don’t let his problems affect me emotionally and never have in the year + that we have been together. I read the stickys and I bought the codependent book that was suggested, and it all reinforced what I already thought, Im not a codependent. I would miss him and suffer a broken heart if I had to leave him, but I would get over it in time. I can live on my own without a problem. I have been fine this week while we were separated. I wont lie and say that I didn’t miss him, but I also wont say I was obsessed with thoughts of him. I plunk down right in the middle. While I may be letting some risk into my life because of the illegality of the use, or what could happen if he was under the influence and driving and I didn’t know it, or because I may suffer a greater loss if I continue to have stronger feelings for him and then have to breakup, well those are things that I alone get to decide. If I know the risks and if I am not delusional in understanding the risk, then it is “my choice”.

There are some very smart, helpful, compassionate people here and if my boyfriend gets worse then I will need your help in facing hard choices. If he sticks with treatment, then I will support him and I want to learn how to do that in a consistently healthy way for both of us. I think some of you can help me with this by sharing your experiences.

I want to again thank everyone. Many things have been said, and they have helped me think things through in my own way. Things maybe I would not have thought of. Ive never had to have boundaries before, not spoken ones with anyone. But now I guess I do for ME.

Hanna

I normally do want to say "run" but feel differently about your situation because I understand, with the information you have in front of you, why you are sticking it out with him. I also think if things change you know where to find help and what to do. Your exposure to risk is more limited at the moment because you don't live together or share finances, etc.

After we traded messages I looked at the situation from a different perspective. I'm not in your shoes! People easily forget that here. Sometimes it feels like we traded obsessing about our loved one to obsessing about "strangers" on the Internet, demanding they do what we think they should do, expecting them to learn from our experience and apply what we tell them to their own situation.

So I actually understand your course of action completely. I don't know what will happen but I think you are educated enough to make the decisions you are making. In another life I might have done it the same way and the only reason I would not now is I feel like I've done my time with respect to dealing with addictions, recovery or not.

I hope the right person will love and support my brother in the same way!

allforcnm

There are so many variables when you are talking about addiction, and recovery. It is not mentioned much on this forum but the Stage of Addiction that a person falls in makes a huge difference. I agree with Hanna, based on everything that you have shared, your boyfriend is in a very early stage of addiction. It doesnt sound like his behavior is bad, or has become unacceptable to you. What is most important, is that you seem to have a good understanding of what is acceptable behavior towards you, and knowing this, you wont allow yourself to get steamrolled if he were to change for the worse.

With my husband, he was also highly functional: never lost his job, paid all the bills, BUT his behavior became unacceptable to me when he started staying out late with his drug friends from work, lying about it. That was our main issue. There was never any agression, or even vicious fighting, but yes we did argue.
And for me, at that point I just didnt want to live that way with him out til 3am.
Honestly, knowing what I know now, I dont think I would have told him to leave and go do his thing in the same timeframe. But whats done is done. He eventaully asked for help, is doing well, and we are back together.

The way you phrased your feelings toward your boyfriend are beautiful.

dasiydoc

Thank you Hanna and Allfor - your support is WONDERFUL

Hanna, I have enjoyed talking with you off line too. That is a good point about your brother. And you know when I first found this site it was because my BF was looking at different treatments, and I thought there would be a lot of discussion here about that type of thing. BUT one of the things I miss now on this site is other than discussions about removing codependency from ourselves, there is not much talk about peoples experiences in being with someone who is going through recovery, or supporting them when they have a long recovery like your brother. I am reading and learning about positive reinforcements, positive affirmations, and like with the boundary I set, Im trying to learn healthy ways to communicate while understanding that right now my boyfriend does have a lot of emotions inside him that he is only now learning to cope with. I want to be sensitive to this, but also true to myself and my needs. There are a few people, like Allfor who I have also talked to off line about her experiences, but I wish there was more sharing on the forum. Do you think things like that woudl be helpful to someone like your brothers potential new love?