My experience loving an addict

[justagirl]

What it feels like to love an addict- from my perspective:

Loving an addict led to the first time I ever felt like I couldn’t forgive someone for what they had done to me. I felt more betrayed by my boyfriend than I have ever felt. I had been lied to, cheated on, and had my feelings significantly hurt before, but it had never broken me this hard. It made it even harder that I understood the addiction was out of his control, if I felt like it was him intentionally hurting me I could have just hated him and that would be that, but I couldn’t hate him. Instead of being angry I had to try and be strong for this man that had hurt me so bad, lied to me and betrayed my trust. I had to forgive him because I knew the drug had consumed him to the point where he wasn’t visible anymore, he was buried somewhere deep down there under his addiction, and he needed help to find that person again. The problem for me was that I didn’t know how to help him, I didn’t know and still don’t know what it is like to be addicted to such a powerful drug. I don’t know what it is like to escape reality for so long that you don’t know how to function in every day situations anymore.

When he first started to have a problem with drugs I could feel him slipping further and further away from me, but I didn’t know what was happening. I had never known anyone with such an addiction, besides my father’s addiction to alcohol when I was younger. When you don’t know the real signs of addiction, and when you don’t want yourself to believe someone you love has such a problem it is easy to overlook the signs. I started questioning who he was and why I loved him, and this is a person who I had previously considered spending the rest of my life with. I thought that I was wrong about who I thought he was, he went from someone who was always there for me to someone who was constantly bailing on me, lying to me and even stealing from my family and I.

When the man I had completely fallen in love with finally decided to get help to become sober all I wanted to do was yell at him, I wanted to scream at him “how could you do this to me, and how could you do this to us”, but I knew he was facing a much larger battle and I could not do anything that might make this battle worse. I haven’t felt more torn or confused than I did at this time. I had to hold in my tears all the time, and I knew other people could see it in me. At first I wanted to stay with my boyfriend and try and help him get through this. After countless overdoses, trips to the emergency room, detox visits, and emotional roller coasters I needed to make a decision I sometimes consider selfish, I had to leave this man I was once so in love with because of the emotional rollercoaster I could no longer handle. When I told him I couldn’t be with him I said it was because he relapsed, that was certainly an easy thing to pin it on but in reality I couldn’t handle the emotions I felt towards him, I resented him, I was frustrated towards him, and I didn’t (maybe still don’t) know how to forgive him.

My ex- boyfriend and I still talk to each other. Today, more than a year and a half after we had stopped seeing each other for good he is just six months clean from drugs and alcohol. I recently saw him and began to see that man that I knew when I first met him. I saw more happiness and hope in him than I have in a very long time. I still struggle with my feelings towards him often. I struggle with forgiving him because I’m honestly a bit angry at him. I want to ask him how his day is, how he’s doing, is he happy, and sometimes I do, other times I stop myself because I feel as though I shouldn’t speak to someone who hurt my family and I so bad. I struggle the hardest when I think about how he is without drugs because he is a very kind, thoughtful, loving and considerate person. It is hard to explain to other people that you can still love someone who hurt you so bad. It is difficult when family members judge your decision to keep in contact with someone who is using a drug like heroin, who lied to you about it and who at one point made decisions that it seems like only a bad person would. It’s hard to show others that a good person is buried under all the drugs they have been taking, and are hardly visible anymore. It takes a lot of understanding of how drugs work, how they alter your actions, and how one bad decision can cause a lot of hurt. Even after trying to understand, like I have for so long, it can still be hard to forgive.

If you know someone who is struggling with an addiction please urge them to get help, it is frightening to know someone you love could be gone after just one more use. Addiction is real, and addiction kills.