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Treatment Supporting a spouse

What I meant was (and this is completely only my opinion and definitely not factual for everyone on the planet) its not healthy to be give and take, bad vs good moments, at least interpersonally. For me, I would rather both sides give and give, to each other, and through that shared energy achieve a mutual euphoria/satisfaction greater - a whole greater than the sum of its parts... if that makes sense. For me, this applies to both sex, love, and platonic friendship
 
Thanks everybody, this has been more helpful than I could have hoped.

Jordanwonder- best wishes to you and you boyfriend as you begin this journey. Wd is so terrible and it's really tough to watch someone you love going through it. But it doesn't last!
 
^No worries! Always glad to be able to share and I am still in awe at the power of this forum, and it's users, and how we are able to positively effect one another through such a simple yet breathtaking in its ingenuity, interface.
 
So glad you found some good info, Dunno! And you're right...WD is awful, but at least for most opioids, it runs its course quickly.

Best luck to you and your husband.
Sim
 
Dunno22, Try and remember that the all the crap that is an addict's life is just that crap. The fact that they have done the first thing in realizing they have a problem is sooo important. I have seen many great people taken by addiction and have also seen many who are beating it on a daily basis. The drugs and the behavior are but a symptom of the illness. It is the way We live that has to be changed. Just getting clean does nothing to protect them from the destruction only changing the life around them will. Be strong for Him but even stronger for Yourself. And if so inclined say a prayer. Mark
 
I keep looking forward to the day when this gets easier and wondering if that day will ever come. He was in WD all week and went out and used yesterday. He has an appointment on Monday to start a Suboxone program so hopefully he can really get some help there. I know that supporting him and loving him through it is the right thing to do but it breaks my heart trying to explain to my baby why daddy is too sick to play or why he's sleeping in his car. And even though he was detoxing all week and felt awful I got to see my best friend again, the guy I fell in love with, and then he used and disappeared again. Damn it sucks.
 
I feel so much for you. That's exactly what I miss - my best friend.

I'm sorry it didn't work out this time. Sending you both so much love and strength.
 
simco said:
I wanted to to edit a bit of what I said, in light of a good point you made...the traditional al-anon mantra of protecting yourself from a virulently ill spouse is mostly a one-size-fits-all answer to a highly individual set of problems. There's some truth to what they sell, but there's no substitute for following your instincts, along with a healthy dose of skepticism and observation of details on the ground. I just wanted to make sure that I separated my urging that you protect yourself from the often-adversarial dynamic that's commonly offered to folks in your position. Mainly, I just want you to take care of yourself. If nothing else, you can't support your husband if you're under water.
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I think that this is a very good illustration of how to use resources despite, as simco points out, the fact that they may be broad philosophies that cannot possibly encompass our human complexity. Since you are a mom, maybe you could relate it to parenting books you may have read that give you a broad philosophy and all sorts of strategies and you think, "Right, those don't sound like they apply to my kids at all." (I'm thinking about when I read and re-read Siblings Without Rivalry;)). The point is to absorb the broader message which I believe is not that the addict is "bad" and that you must be protected from her/him but that you must learn to protect yourself from your own lack of healthy boundaries (which is usually what brings us to al-anon in the first place). It is also important to remember at any meeting there will be a mix of people--some that understand that boundaries are set individually and others who think more simplistically and believe they are carved in stone. Defining for yourself what is enabling and what is supporting is the most difficult but crucial understanding you will have to come to in order to offer real support for your husband while offering your kids the best environment possible for their early development. Whether you use the 12-step approach or something more nuanced and comprehensive, don't fall into the trap of throwing the baby out with the bathwater. I would urge you to go cafeteria style: use what makes sense to you (whatever the source) and put the rest aside. Personally, I got a lot of insight into dynamics between my son and me through al-anon even though I did not ascribe to much of the format or the hard definitions of enabling.

Recovery, for the drug dependent person, as well as for their families is so fraught with shame and stigma that finding adequate language is difficult. One of the best things that you can do is to make sure that you are taking care of yourself and really advocating for your children's formative years; both require honest listening to your own highest self. Any help you can get (therapist, support group etc) I urge you to get. I'm glad that you found Bluelight and I hope the collective experience of our community can be a good source of support.<3
 
Thanks herbavore. I totally agree that I could stand to gain something from Al Anon or nar Anon, even if some of the principles are not in line with what I need or believe. I'm sorry, I didn't mean to indicate that these meetings could not be useful. In fact I would like to attend meetings but with two young children and no childcare it isn't the most practical undertaking at this point. I love the way you explained setting my own boundaries to define support vs. enabling. Really appreciate it!
 
Dunno...I'm not sure how things work in al-anon. But in both NA and AA meetings are classified as either 'open' or 'closed.' A closed meeting is for addicts/alcoholics only. But as the name implies, open meetings are free for anyone to attend...including kids. It's VERY common for people to bring kids along to open meetings. Now whether you want your kids exposed to that kind of thing is a separate question. But if you were ok with them coming with you, just check the website of your local NA 'area'. The website will explain which meetings are open.
 
I like how a mentor of mine defines an adult relationship. It is something like this:

Adults relationships consist of two people, where one is capable of depending on the other in times of need, while being there to be depended upon by the other in their own.

I feel like partnerships, romantically speaking, are very much a more intimate extension with that.

It's like how he talks French research into attachment theory, about how our relationships with all the people we know in our lives are made up of As, Bs, Cs and Ds.

The A is generally one person whom we devote, as an individual, the most amount of resources to in maintaining the relationship. The A is someone we can essentially be totally transparent with about our struggles and successes (or at least we are most transparent with our A than any of the others).

The Bs are those we generally have a 2-6 of whom we see at least on a weekly basis (and by see, I mean share our physical space with them, just close enough to read nuanced facial expressions but not necessarily physically close enough to make out rapid pupil dilation and constriction that changes automatically based on the emotions we are experiencing - where as we can train ourselves, particularly those of us who live in urban areas with lots of people, to mask our facial expressions). Unlike our A we do not tend to have an physically intimate relationship with. As individuals we devote less of our resources to Bs than As, but as a group we devote (or the happiest people seem to devote) more resources to our Bs than our A (it would seem the research indicates that most people dedicate most of their resources to their A in a very lopsided way, none or very little to Bs and the rest essentially to Cs). Bs are important to have when we cannot rely on our A to help us regulate our mood. We are more transparent with them about our lives than Cs or Ds but not as much as our A.

Cs are those we are close to but do not invest as much resources in individually or as a class and do not necessarily see on a weekly basis. Ds are more acquaintances or coworkers or something than anything, but still important to our social identity.

What I found interesting is how the happiest people in the studies they've done (across various cultures now, not just in France) seem to devote like (I'm probably getting the numbers a bit wrong, but you'll get the idea) like 30% of their resources in maintaining the relationship with their A, 60% of their resources maintain a relationship with 2-6 Bs and the rest of their resources maintaining their relationships with their Cs and Ds. This turned out to be a smaller group of people in the study however, with most people reporting lower levels of happiness correlating to those who devote all their resources to their A, Cs and Ds, and little to none to Bs.

Make of it what you will. I am note sure it defines everyone so perfectly in terms of the nature of the types of relationships we have, but the interesting thing for me is how happiness correlates to having multiple people we can rely on form meaningful support in our lives.

After all, what happens when we put all out efforts into maintaining a relationship with essentially only one person, out A, and that person becomes unavailable for whatever reason to help us when we need it. Who do we turn to? We don't have the kind of relationship with Cs or Ds that are really effective for productive emotional regulation. If we don't have any Bs and our A is unavailable, we're kind of fucked (and this is in my experience were things as opposed to people become important in regulating our mood; not necessarily in an unhealthy way, although it can easily devolve into such).

In my experience of recovery it wasn't until I built up a diversified support group of many various individuals I could rely on given the circumstances (and their availability to be relied upon, as we all have our own lives to live) that I was able to really start making serious progress.

I just find it all fascinating. If only I could explain it like my teacher though :\
 
Subozone is a good first step but it's not a fix all. Sub has no high to speak if so he's going to miss that. Thats c why I am a proponent of methadone for IV H users it does give some opiate feeling and kills cravings better IME. But I hope the sun helps him.
 
I think it also depends on how deeply they were involved in IV use.

If it was more a flirtatious thing than a lifestyle, buprenorphine can be very useful, but when it comes a really deeply entrenched part of our lives that has taken over to the point of being the primary thing that defines us, methadone is probably the better option (ideally we'd have heroin assisted treatment as they do in more enlightened places, but such is the situation where we find ourselves).
 
IV use tends to have several bad effects on people's habits (besides the obvious ones of introducing disease risk and increasing the odds of overdose). For instance, tolerance tends to snowball more quickly when needles are in the picture. Also, the near-immediate onset of the drug's effect after administration via injection tends to strength both physical dependence and the brain's equation of opioids with the reward system.

By the way, TPD...I was reading your post about A, B, C-type relationships, etc. Are you familiar with Brené Brown's work? In particular, her riffing on Teddy Roosevelt's "The Man in the Arena" speech is quite related to what you described. Might be worth checking out. Her books are good...tho she also has a bunch of TED talks on YouTube (I'm loath to recommend TED talks b/c I find that franchise intellectually vile, but that's my own cross to bear ;)).
 
Funny, I feel EXACTLY the same way about the TED talks franchise myself. It's like, I want to be able to enjoy it because there are plenty of people I enjoy the work of who have been on the show, but I just can't bring myself to stomach it for some reason. I guess I'm just a bit of a snob. But I am definitely interested in checking Brené Brown. Thanks simco :)

Dunno22 - It sounds like a buprenorphine program is a good step for him to be taking right now. Is it an IOP type program, and if so do you know what the specifics are?

I really benefited from an outpatient buprenorphine program like that, but after a certain point I needed more than just the medication and basics of abstinence based group therapy they provided. However, I was a pretty damaged individual. Hopefully a buprenorphine program is enough for your partner to sort out his drug issues, but chances are he will need more support to maintain long term stability than they alone can offer.
 
toothpastedog said:
Funny, I feel EXACTLY the same way about the TED talks franchise myself. It's like, I want to be able to enjoy it because there are plenty of people I enjoy the work of who have been on the show, but I just can't bring myself to stomach it for some reason. I guess I'm just a bit of a snob. But I am definitely interested in checking Brené Brown. Thanks simco :)
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Damn I added a couple of mindfulness TED talks to the MBHR thread a while ago. Hope you don't think they suck. lol
 
Not to derail this thread (sorry, Dunno!), but I didn't mean to overstate my dislike for TED talks. I just find them a little annoying. But they do get some wonderful speakers, no doubt about it.
 
F'Loki said:
Damn I added a couple of mindfulness TED talks to the MBHR thread a while ago. Hope you don't think they suck. lol
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Oh it's no worries! I was happy to see your contribution. I'm just a bit of snob :)
 
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