Dealing with family in sobriety

Ive been off heroin, meth, benzos for about 3 months, and off suboxone for about 3 weeks. I've been using various drugs off and on, mostly on, since I was 16-17, im 28 now. Initially I got a motel room and went through the worst of the heroin/benzo kick for about 3-4 days, I just couldn't stand the detox anymore and slowed the process down by taking 2mg subxone daily. After that motel stay my mom reluctantly agreed to let me stay with her and her husband of 8 or 9 years or so in the garage of their house. I tapered as much as I could with what little suboxone I had and came off it completely at .5mg about three weeks ago. I am still feeling not at all great, like I'm always in minor withdrawal, like I have a cold but am not actually sick, restlessness, and that burning feeling all over that makes it hard to appreciate any small amount of goodness in life. Some days are a step forward and some are a step back, but in general I feel like my physical and mental state is starting to improve.

Ok anyway, the situation at home is becoming untenable. My mom and stepdad want me to start working, like yesterday. I know I'm not ready and that it would be a recipe for relapse to try and enter a new work environment when I still feel so mentally agitated and physically weak and to have money to buy drugs with. I've expressed this several times but I suspect my progress isn't the real issue. She's married to a man she doesn't love, theyve never had sex with each other during the span of their entire relationship or show any affection whatsoever, they are both divorcees with children and I'm pretty sure they got married just to not be so horribly alone. They have no idea how to communicate with each other. They constantly are arguing, loudly and emotionally.

My mom has literally told me, that the sight of me laying about in this miserable garage, without a job, is so incredibly infuriating to her husband and to her to a lesser degree, that they are now considering divorce. This exact scenario has happened when I was younger, but now I'm old enough to see that this is a problem with their relationship, and I'm not responsible for my mom's unhappiness, as she has been for years since before I started using. But it's still difficult, when I hear them fighting every night, my mom crying like she did after she split with my father, and her explicitly telling me that this is my fault, that everything would be fine were it not for me being here. It brings up alot of old feelings from my my parents divorce, my mom was totally absent mentally for years and clearly depressed after that and she unloaded a lot of the negative emotions she had on me and my brother. And now it is happening again, except now there is no veil over her resentment of me for destroying her life, and shes not afraid to tell me that directly.

I just don't understand how I can possibly be making them so angry. This is the longest I've ever been sober, everyday I often like such shit and so full of anger and nastiness I can do nothing but just wait till it subsides and hope the next day will bring some modicum of relief. Its hard enough getting clean, why are they pushing me so hard to fully re-assimilate into society so quickly? I've had enough experience to know that I'm still too raw for that and doing so would almost certainly end in relapse, or me lashing out at someone or myself in some horrible way. I don't think I can survive a relapse, I can't seem to think clearly about why they so desperately want me to flirt with disaster.

I just need a reality check, maybe years of drug abuse has addled my mind and I'm not thinking clearly? I am not a financial strain on them at all, I literally stay out of sight while they are home because not doing so will incite another fight between them. I'm not doing anything other than learning how to live sober and let my brain normalize. I do my best to try to remain calm and composed while my mom berates me daily about what a leech and loser I'm being, how I'm taking advantage of them, and how her marriage is fucked up because of me. As if trying to recover in this miserable sweltering garage is a vacation for me. As if being in this incredibly uncomfortable and emotionally draining situation is preferable to living and working on my own.

I've done this, without the aid of any program or detox, just whiteknuckling it as they say. It's been so hard and I'm often amazed I haven't relapsed, and things are getting better body and mind wise, but my circumstances are rapidly deteriorating. I don't really know what to do. I need to stay sober, my life depends on it. But do I just let their marriage collapse? I know that is a ridiculous question and their problems shouldn't be mine. But they are doing their damnedest to make it my problem and maybe if I left at least it would improve things for my mom in the short term? I don't have anywhere to go or any money currently, I'm trying to find a way out because this is something I can't fix, and merely being here is jeopardizing my sobriety.

And also there's this undercurrent of anger I'm feeling but I don't say it, I feel like it would make things worse, even if worded in a civilized way. Feelings of just like fuck you for trying to put this on me. Fuck everyone in my family for being so absorbed in their own shitty relationships to see anything else, and to see how years of lashing out is hurting the people around them. Its been going on my whole life and now is no different. At least I'm fucking trying to change while you guys continue to fester in the same old bullshit. At least I'm trying to take responsibility and not blame a spouse, a child, or other loved one for my own shittiness. All I have is my family and I hate my family, I don't even know where to begin repairing that or to even just get away from that.

I desperately want to start my life again and get away from this, my mom and her husband want me to get the fuck out even moreso. It's just too soon and I'm feeling too exposed and uneven to have to get back to life like nothing ever happened. I'm slowly trying to build myself back up, and its working, im getting there. But it's like my mom want's me to haphazardly roll the dice just to appease her husband. I'm at a loss.

Parents never get divorced because of a child, they get divorced because thereally are issues with their relationship. That is incredibly fucked up she is laying that bullshit on you. Your struggle might have an effect on your folks, but you are in no way responsibly for their problems. Regardless of what they tell you, they're responsible for the drama they cultivate in their marriage.

The way your mother and I will assume her husvand treat you is totally and completely unacceptable. No child struggling with their young adult life deserves that kind of abuse. What they are doing is totally undeserved and innapropriate, totally irregardless of whatever mistakes you might have or be making.

It isn't just unhelpful if they really wanted to support you bettering yourself and getting that job and moving out, but it is clearly causing you serious hard, sowing the seeds of shame, self doubt and hatred in your mind. Nothing makes growing up, let alone recovery, less accessible than those kinds of negative self talk and difficult emotions.

Your parents are clearly very frustrated and disturbed with their personal lives, and you as the so called fucking up are the easy target for them to vent their frustrations on.

I will respond to the entirety of your post as soon as I get home later tonight. That things just really struck a chord with me as I'm a child of divorce and really struggled to get my life together as a young adult. Even though my folks were never that abusive with me, their inability to solve the problems of their marriage and personal lives later on in our lives did a real number on me.

So for the past 12 yrs you have been an addict? You have been clean for 3 weeks? There's always 3 sides to a story. I can't possibly imagine that you haven't been draining on your family. I mean come on? Drug addicts cause an unbelievable amount of strain on their family. Does she enable? Does he believe in tough love? I'm guessing you eat there, use their water and electricity. Of course you cost money. I can see how watching you sit around is frustrating. I am recovered and managed to work throughout my whole addiction. Being an addict isn't an excuse not to work. Stop acting like a victim and stand on your own two feet. If you would rather just live in their home and not work stop complaining. You created your situation and only have yourself to blame for the position you put yourself in. You're not 16 and stuck you have been an adult for a long time. If you hate them so much leave. Some people in the streets without family to support them would consider you quite fortunate to a roof over your head and food to eat after over a decade of drug use.

Take pride in your clean time. That's a great first step.

Have you considered finding somewhere else to live? It sounds like you need more clean time before you'd feel comfortable working again.

My3sons said:

So for the past 12 yrs you have been an addict? You have been clean for 3 weeks? There's always 3 sides to a story. I can't possibly imagine that you haven't been draining on your family. I mean come on? Drug addicts cause an unbelievable amount of strain on their family. Does she enable? Does he believe in tough love? I'm guessing you eat there, use their water and electricity. Of course you cost money. I can see how watching you sit around is frustrating. I am recovered and managed to work throughout my whole addiction. Being an addict isn't an excuse not to work. Stop acting like a victim and stand on your own two feet. If you would rather just live in their home and not work stop complaining. You created your situation and only have yourself to blame for the position you put yourself in. You're not 16 and stuck you have been an adult for a long time. If you hate them so much leave. Some people in the streets without family to support them would consider you quite fortunate to a roof over your head and food to eat after over a decade of drug use.

Click to expand...

How is this helpful advice? The whole tough love mentalityou is pretty well established as causing more harm than good. . .

He doesn't need to spend his energy blaming his mom and her husband, but he also doesn't need to be told how fucked he is. I'm pretty damn sure he is already acutely aware of how much his life sucks.

I had a talk with my mom a little earlier tonight. She's glad that I'm earnestly trying to get over this addiction, and glad that I've made it this far, and I think she understands me when I say that I just need time to improve. But she feels pressed to force the issue because of her husbands constant provocation. My mom woke me up in the middle of the night last night, teary and hysterical, asking me if she should divorce him, that he's making arrangements already and such. I am not indifferent to the suffering of my mom. It hurt me deeply to see her hurting like that, again with another man. I know my mom more than anything wants to see me keep sober and get back to my life, even if she is momentarily blinded by the anguish she is facing in her marriage. My emotions feel so out of whack already its hard to keep my head on straight in that situation. I think I just needed a minute to process what was going on after things came to a head yesterday.


Neither me or my mom know what's going to happen here, it seems to depend largely on my stepdads mercurial moods. About a week ago he said I had till November, I thought 'great! I should be functional enough to make my next move by then.' Then several days ago, November shrunk down to two weeks. And now its something has to happen now or the world will fall apart. I think I can find the money for at least a couple months at a sober living if absolutely necessary. Regardless, I know I shouldn't let it get me off track.


Yes, I've been struggling with addiction for over a decade but amid all the chaos I've largely been on my own since 17, I've gone to college, worked tirelessly, and developed a real sustainable business of my own. And I want to get back to that, to my work, my boyfriend, my life, I want to be a healthy part of families lives eventually, I just don't think its helpful to myself or anyone else to rush into things in recovery because of anothers insistence or whats going on at home. This is a life and death situation for me, I know thats a cliche but I dont think Im being dramatic in the slightest, Im lucky to be alive right now, I need to keep that in mind while reconciling the things happening around me.

thanks for the responses

You need somehwere where you can take your time, it took me over a year to even start a one day a week temporary part time job when I got clean, just walking down a busy high street was new to me after I got clean, you feel like a new born baby. Give yourself time.

I agree that you need to give yourself time but giving yourself time in a place where you have to hide and where you are surrounded by yelling and blaming does not seem like a healthy place. Do you have any other friends or relatives that you could stay with?