What to do when your primary support person *goes out*?
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Join Date: Jun 2008
Location: CA
Posts: 357
What to do when your primary support person *goes out*?
This probably belongs on the "codie" thread, but I thought I'd open it up to a larger audience....
Today is day 13 for me (not that I'm counting, lol). Both sober and then not-so-sober, I've been working at extricating myself from a very unhealthy (platonic), codie relationship over the last few years.
The week after I got out of the hospital (medical detox), my "person" decided to go out on a coke and pot binge. He does this occasionally (every 4 or 5 months), and it is usually isolated to one night. This time, he has gone out repeatedly over the last few weeks and I think he is out again today. He says, "I am a former addict and am prone to transgressions."
I know what I need to do: focus on my own recovery and let him be. I don't even want to be sitting here today worrying about where he is and whether or not he's alright. I would be a terrible hypocrite to focus my anger and disappointment on him, but I can't deny that it is there.
He was the one who had the "hard line" speech for me about how addiction was ruining my life and how I needed to stop immediately at all costs. He claims it was stressful to "attend me in getting sober" and while he did go to the hospital with me, he has been mostly absent during these first sober days.
I appreciate all that he has done for me, but I wonder why he is using the excuse of my recovery as a reason to go out and use himself? I can't help but feel a bit betrayed and "confused". He is asking me to be his support, but it isn't easy to see him f*ed up when I am fighting like crazy to build my life up again. Although it is really none of my business, it feels a bit like sabotage.
:wtf2
Today is day 13 for me (not that I'm counting, lol). Both sober and then not-so-sober, I've been working at extricating myself from a very unhealthy (platonic), codie relationship over the last few years.
The week after I got out of the hospital (medical detox), my "person" decided to go out on a coke and pot binge. He does this occasionally (every 4 or 5 months), and it is usually isolated to one night. This time, he has gone out repeatedly over the last few weeks and I think he is out again today. He says, "I am a former addict and am prone to transgressions."
I know what I need to do: focus on my own recovery and let him be. I don't even want to be sitting here today worrying about where he is and whether or not he's alright. I would be a terrible hypocrite to focus my anger and disappointment on him, but I can't deny that it is there.
He was the one who had the "hard line" speech for me about how addiction was ruining my life and how I needed to stop immediately at all costs. He claims it was stressful to "attend me in getting sober" and while he did go to the hospital with me, he has been mostly absent during these first sober days.
I appreciate all that he has done for me, but I wonder why he is using the excuse of my recovery as a reason to go out and use himself? I can't help but feel a bit betrayed and "confused". He is asking me to be his support, but it isn't easy to see him f*ed up when I am fighting like crazy to build my life up again. Although it is really none of my business, it feels a bit like sabotage.
:wtf2
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Join Date: Apr 2007
Location: Australia
Posts: 211,435
Soos,
I'm sorry but the truth is - bluntly - you can never depend on an active user (he's using - he's not a 'former user')
He might be a great guy - he might be a wonderful help - noone can empathise or give 'the speech' like an addict - but when he's using?
His primary aim, like mine was and yours was, is to get wasted.
Everything else - everyone else - is a distant second.
You know as well as I do...any excuse will do - he may even believe that the stress of helping you is the reason he's using again. But it's not.
We use cos we're addicted.
Damn straight.
D
I'm sorry but the truth is - bluntly - you can never depend on an active user (he's using - he's not a 'former user')
He might be a great guy - he might be a wonderful help - noone can empathise or give 'the speech' like an addict - but when he's using?
His primary aim, like mine was and yours was, is to get wasted.
Everything else - everyone else - is a distant second.
You know as well as I do...any excuse will do - he may even believe that the stress of helping you is the reason he's using again. But it's not.
We use cos we're addicted.
I know what I need to do: focus on my own recovery and let him be
D
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Join Date: Aug 2003
Location: Dancing in the Light
Posts: 61,502
Soosie, all I can say is that it took ALL my energy focusing on me, to be able to get through the early days. I think for me, depending on someone else's support would have been very negative. I felt very alone when I began recovery, and it was bittersweet. It gave me the courage to know that 'I' could do this.
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Thread Starter
Join Date: Jun 2008
Location: CA
Posts: 357
Thanks for your support D and Anna~
I know what you are both saying is *spot on*. Somehow it feels a little hypocritical to go from active addiction to minimal tolerance in under two weeks. I know this is a simple boundary issue, but when he showed up high the other night, he was quick to remind me that he's always been there for me, sober or intoxicated (manipulative I know). I just want to feel clean right now. It's tough to do this alone and to close the door, but when I looked into his blurry eyes, it reminded me of how lost I was myself. Where's the line between compassion and self-preservation?
I know what you are both saying is *spot on*. Somehow it feels a little hypocritical to go from active addiction to minimal tolerance in under two weeks. I know this is a simple boundary issue, but when he showed up high the other night, he was quick to remind me that he's always been there for me, sober or intoxicated (manipulative I know). I just want to feel clean right now. It's tough to do this alone and to close the door, but when I looked into his blurry eyes, it reminded me of how lost I was myself. Where's the line between compassion and self-preservation?
Administrator
Join Date: Apr 2007
Location: Australia
Posts: 211,435
It's tough to do this alone and to close the door, but when I looked into his blurry eyes, it reminded me of how lost I was myself. Where's the line between compassion and self-preservation?
I can be compassionate and caring - but when that compassion becomes of cost to me? I'm being codie - and that's not a good thing for me or the person or persons I care about.
Anna is smack dab on the money when she said
it took ALL my energy focusing on me, to be able to get through the early days.
You're fighting for your life here - use both hands.
You're no good to anyone dead.
And, you're never alone. Not with us around.
D
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Join Date: Sep 2007
Location: Atlanta
Posts: 31,179
(((Soosie)))
The quickest way for me to slide down that slippery slope in my addiction was to get all codie and get wrapped up in someone else's issues. Honestly...I have been robbed at gunpoint twice, hit WITH the gun, had 2 car wrecks, and numerous other things...never once did I think about using. Give me something I can get codie about (in other words, something or someone I want to control and can't) and I will want to use in a heartbeat.
You're in the early days, sweetie, and that makes it even more important to focus on you and only you. Think of this as a life or death issue, and it's your life that you're working on saving. No time for someone who isn't interested in saving his own, right now.
Hugs and prayers!
Amy
The quickest way for me to slide down that slippery slope in my addiction was to get all codie and get wrapped up in someone else's issues. Honestly...I have been robbed at gunpoint twice, hit WITH the gun, had 2 car wrecks, and numerous other things...never once did I think about using. Give me something I can get codie about (in other words, something or someone I want to control and can't) and I will want to use in a heartbeat.
You're in the early days, sweetie, and that makes it even more important to focus on you and only you. Think of this as a life or death issue, and it's your life that you're working on saving. No time for someone who isn't interested in saving his own, right now.
Hugs and prayers!
Amy
Member
Join Date: Jun 2009
Location: Saint Louis, MO
Posts: 285
Thanks for your post. The situation you are describing is not that all uncommon. Many people when they first get sober can only do two things, in terms of the steps, 1 and 12: admit they have a problem and help others. Truth is that this person can be both right in helping you, in everything they told you and have given you, and still struggling with the same disease themselves. It is wrong for him to imply that somehow helping you was stressful and contributed to his relapse. That is silly. It is really best to try and not let this situation play mind games with you in terms of your recovery. All you can do is work on you for now, and that's ok.
Heathen
Join Date: Mar 2009
Location: La La Land, USA
Posts: 2,567
When I got sober, I had to take all the toxic people out of my life. My sobriety had to be more important than anything else. The people I thought were "friends" in my drinking and using days vanished as we no longer had much in common, the rest I discontinued calling, because I had no interest in them as they weren't inherently supporting my new sober life.
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