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My fiancée has chosen heroin over me ='(

junkies wife

junkies wife

Greenlighter
Joined
Apr 1, 2013
Messages
47
Location
Detroit Suburbs
I'm going to be posting in here a lot. Idk where to start. My fiancée has relapsed on heroin after over ten years clean. We have been together for about two years. He began using again over a year ago. I love him sooo much. I have stuck beside him, even dosed out heroin to wean him. I've tried EVERYTHING. Nothing has worked. I search on this subject obsessively and have often been directed here. I've seen a lot of helpful advice on here, but decided Id like to get advice and personal knowledge more directly geared toward my specific issues. I will appreciate the hell out of all posts in response to mine. I'm so hurt and I need to know everything I can to make the best decisions. Also I appreciate honesty.
 
Hey junkies wife, I'm so sorry to hear about your troubles.. Addiction can take a terrible tole on those addicted as well as those that share love with the addict. Unfortunately one of the main problems with addiction is it drives a person to compulsively use drugs and to use and continue to use the drug over everything else the addict values. An active addict will often times use over their families, children, health, jobs, you name it. I'm not making excuses for his behavior, I'm just saying how it is. He has reprogrammed a part of his brain, that is capable of driving or compelling him to use despite amazing personal efforts not to, to think that use of the drug is necessary for him to survive, it is the same part of the brain that drives someone to eat (cravings of hunger), drink water (thirst). The same part that controls the drive for water and food and sex also controls mood and emotions and will manipulate them to drive a person to use and to continue using. This is the part of the brain it is called the limbic syatem http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Limbic_system http://www.humanneurophysiology.com/hypothalamus.htm , it an older part of the brain that was in charge before the prefrontal lobe, where we exspiereince conscouse thought and will power. If you think of the term will power what are we exercising willpower over.. the limbic system. Will power is a temporary thing and has a very hard time maintaining control over the older instinctual part of the brain. Buy taking a drug that causes pleasure above the scale that is normal for life continueing and giving activities like eating and sex the addict has hard wired or reprogrammed in the use of that drug as so important that part of the brain thinks the addict has to do this or die. So it will drive the addict to use in the same way it drives someone to drink water. If the addiction gets really strong and the drive to use is overwhelming it would be the same as you had been lost in the dessert for a couple of days and had nothing to drink, you would be almost insane with thirst and cravings. that is how bad a person in active addiction can get when they try and stop using.

I hope that cleared up the question of how he could do this and gave a good idea as to the question of whether he loves you.. most likely he does! His addiction is probably using the guilt he has about his relapse and how he really feels about what his addiction is doing to you to drive him to use more. I would also like to emphasize that you will not be able to save him no matter how much you and he want this to be the case. If he has tried a few different techniques to curb his use and it has continued to skyrocket out of control then he is in a full blown relapse.

There are a couple of options..

Maintenance: the addict is given daily opiate maintenance through a facility designed to facilitate this on either suboxone or methadone. This will prevent you fiance from going into dope sickness (withdraws).. It stabilizes his intake and is in an form that gives a long sustained dose. This will allow for him to not use and live a pretty normal life. He then can then get his life back in order and plan and get off the maintenance dose at a latter time. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opioid_replacement_therapy

detox and treatment: This is where your husband is convinced to go to a detox facility and is then transfered to a rehab facility. There are a couple different types of treatment available 12 step and smart. I would recommend using the style he used to get clean the first time. http://www.smartrecovery.org/ and look up 12 step rehab facilities there are a ton.

These are your best options.. I have little doubt you husband loves you and I wish you both a speedy and successful and happy resolution to this relapse..

I'm going to try and move this to the Dark Side where you will get more ideas and support..

Hang in there<3<3
 
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Thank you so much. That was very helpful. He got clean ten years ago by himself, going cold turkey. He had been to a few rehabs before that and said they didn't work for him.
He doesn't want to see me anymore because the last time I saw him I punched him because I found him using. I know that violence isn't the answer, but I couldn't help it. I've been listening to these promises to get clean for over a year, and when I found him in the bathroom shooting up I was bedside myself. I had JUST told him if he does dope then I don't want to be with him. Well he invited me over (he "left" me before Christmas and got his own place) and I came, thinking he must have chosen me.
That being said, I have very little influence over him. I've not really spoken to him since. It's been 10 days since so little as emailed. 12 days since we spoke. He has not tried to contact me at all. One of the most pressing questions I have is whether I should pursue any type of communication with him. Maybe this whole time I have been enabling him anyway? I have many more issues that cause me to think he may not love me, before and beside the addiction.
I wish I knew if he loved me because then I could better make a plan of action. If he does love me then maybe showing him that I will actually leave him if he doesn't stop, that maybe he'll stop? Maybe this whole time he keeps doing it cuz he "can". Like he has nothing to lose cuz he knows I'm not going anywhere. If he has this love for me, that h e describes, heroin cannot compare.
Now if loves me, him thinking I'm gone could make him feel like there is nothing to live for. He got quite a bit of dope last week I'm sure. Idk if it was that bad, or if he's gotten worse. I want to tell him that I love him very much, and that I'm virtuously waiting for him to get clean, but I was told that he may just keep me waiting if he knows I am. Like he will think he can mess up all he
cuz when he is finally done he can come back and I'll be here. As he has over this past year. He would leave me every month and blow an entire paycheck. Then he'd come back and be clean for three weeks. I'm at my wits end. I'd love to just wash my hands of this whole ordeal, /i love him more than anything. We have children also. That makes it hard.
I'm going to look into everything you said. I really appreciate you. I hope I can somehow gain the influence to help move him in the right direction.
 
Thanks Vaya.

I'm sorry to hear you have had to go through this junkies wife. It can be very hard to live with an addict at times, especially when they relapse after such a long stint clean.

IME giving them the option of choosing the drugs or you will almost always end with them continuing to use. Have you talked with him about the reasons surrounding the relapse? What triggered him to use again?

Like neversickanymore said, addiction to opiates rewires a primal part of your subconscious and the need to use becomes deeply ingrained in your mind. It's a very difficult thing to break at times.
 
He said the reason he started to use again was me trying to break up with him it was Oct. 2011. He was being selfish, disrespectful and angry. He was very mean to me and took his anger out on me, so I dumped him. He would ALWAYS apologize emphatically and BEG me to forgive him. This had been going on for months at this point. He'd cry and tell me he would make it up to me. He would be amazing for a few days. Super sweet and attentive, buying me things, admitting he is the only one to blame and saying I'm perfect, saying he thinks he likes to fight and he promises to change, etc etc etc. I love him VERY much, he is my ecstasy. That being said I could never not forgive him. But I couldn't take it anymore. He was wearing me completely out, and I was finding it impossible to forgive him anymore verbal abuse. I couldn't get over one thing before the next thing happened. He had always told me that the only way he would ever leave me is if I cheated; so I told him I did. I made up an elaborate story about my having slept with an ex. He still didn't leave me alone, so I admitted I lied. He just seemed too hurt. Well he started with the name calling again and so I kept making threats to sleep around and was very mean to keep him away, but he still kept crying and begging. This just started a terrible "relationship" that he claims he couldn't take the pain of. I wouldn't see him or talk to him but like one night a week. I was basically using him to cuddle. I was pregnant with his child at this time. That will answer the obvi question of what I was thinking continuing to communicate with him. Also he was taking care of me financially, cuz he had made me quit my job. This has put a lot of guilt on me, though logically I realize it shouldn't. I took a LOT of his abuse before retaliating/trying to end it.
 
The stuff about the limbic system is all very true. There have been a few famous studies on drug-addicted lab rats that showed that the rats literally chose redosing drugs over other essentials like food and water in a controlled environment, and to the extreme of death from lack of the real essentials (though it might have been cocaine that they actually died for). Some rats chose to cross electricity and get zapped to get another dose, and over and over (same rats wouldn't cross it to get food or water (again, not sure which drug). Point is, I know how those rats felt! Give an addict $50 and s/he will spend it all on drugs and then pocket a candy bar from the grocery store (after getting high in the store's bathroom!).

After I learned this stuff, I told myself that the next time it got really bad, I would just tell myself to think of the limbic system, the rats, the science. And did it work? Hell no. I did the exact same junkie things as every time before.

The truth is that most addicts have to be forced away from it by arrest, jail, a dealer's arrest, overdose, and so on. This is typically how my runs end. Though this last time a geographical relocation worked (though it still contained a lot of the lows associated with quitting heroin).

He is gonna keep using until circumstances make him stop. Do what you have to do to safeguard your household from him draining it financially. And just be there for him when things change. It is impossible to use forever. What you do now won't seem to matter, but what you do as soon as he ends up clean will.

Good luck to you both.
 
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Junkies wife. Hey hope you are doing good today. Well there are some things that stand out to me in the post above. First it seems that your fiance has a controlling personality traits. This is very common among some addicts, it is something that is considered addict behavior, but is definitely found in other non addicts as well. Feeling the need to control things and having emotional responses when they are unable to control things or emotional responses to things they cant control. Below are some signs that you are an abusive and controlling relationship and one that clearly stood out to me was the fact that he made you quit your job. This keeps you at home in an environment that he feels more in control of and it places you in his financial control. It also may have separated you from support people, coworkers and friends that may disagree with him and how he treats you. A partner that is disrespectful towards there mate is also a sign of a controlling person, buy putting you down and mistreating you they are attempting to have you give them your power, you would do this buy loosing your self respect and confidence, a person that has no self confidence will need to and be willing to be controlled buy giving up their confidence they loose the belief in there selves and the abuser uses this to convince the abused that to do what they say and be controlled under the false notion that they no longer know whats best for them. Also a person who has lost their self respect will not stick up for themselves, a person who no longer believes they are nothing, and with nothing you don't have anything, and with that you wont have anything to stand up for when the partner tries and control you. IMO good job on sticking up for yourself and dumping him. Many times an unhealthy controlling person who is obsessed with control can try and get back with someone buy apologizing and putting on an act of being the perfect person, promising to change for good, do anything. Seems to me that this is just another way of controlling. buy doing this the person tries to take the control out of your hands an put it back into theirs. For Instance, you dumped him and temporarily took all the control he had away, he wants it back, he cant take it buy force so he uses manipulation, the manipulation is that he has changed.. has seen the error of his ways and if YOU LET HIM BACK INTO YOUR LIFE<< AKA IF YOU GIVE HIM BACK CONTROL he will be perfect this time. Yeah, people and especially addicts are creatures of habit and manipulation so please bear this in mind when you contemplate your future with him. Also domestic controlling and emotional abuse is often a good indicator of potential domestic violence. depending on how long you have known him and if you have a couple of bucks.. like 30 or so you may want to research his criminal record and see if he has domestic abuse, disturbance, violence charges in the past, you may be pleasantly or unpleasantly surprised. If nothing is found do not take this as a certainty that it has not happened. IMO If you want someone to leave you alone, don't tell them you slept with someone else, that probably wont work, brings in strong emotions that are best left alone, put innocent people (your x) in harms way. If I were you I would give this whole situation a good honest hard look, you may come to the conclusion that you got off easy with him being out of your life. But realize that he will probably come crawling back, tail between his legs with tales of epiphanies and stories of how blah blah blah.. and he's going to blahablah blah, and its different this time because blah blah blah.. In other words if you decide to take him back then I would keep a HEALTHY distance to see if BLAH BALH BLAH has actually changed. Very best wishes JWIFE.<3<3



SIGNS THAT YOU’RE IN AN ABUSIVE RELATIONSHIP
Your Inner Thoughts and Feelings
Do you:
feel afraid of your partner much of the time?
avoid certain topics out of fear of angering your partner?
feel that you can’t do anything right for your partner?
believe that you deserve to be hurt or mistreated?
wonder if you’re the one who is crazy?
feel emotionally numb or helpless?

Your Partner’s Belittling Behavior


Does your partner:
humiliate or yell at you?
criticize you and put you down?
treat you so badly that you’re embarrassed for your friends or family to see?
ignore or put down your opinions or accomplishments?
blame you for their own abusive behavior?
see you as property or a sex object, rather than as a person?

Your Partner’s Violent Behavior or Threats
Does your partner:
hurt you, or threaten to hurt or kill you?
threaten to take your children away or harm them?
threaten to commit suicide if you leave?
force you to have sex?
destroy your belongings?


Does your partner:
act excessively jealous and possessive?
control where you go or what you do?
keep you from seeing your friends or family?
limit your access to money, the phone, or the car?
limit your access to money, the phone, or the car?
constantly check up on you?

Things to ponder??
 
NSA, thank you for all you wrote. You are absolutely right in all of it. He did do most of the things listed. He gave me money tho. I have always had my own car and phone. He does not have a criminal past. It is actually I who have hit him in retaliation to his disrespect and man handling. He doesn't hurt me, but a man has no right to restrain a woman, especially when she is trying to leave. I've always done what I want, when I want, for the most part. But he was DEFINITELY trying to control every aspect of my being. He is VERY manipulative and in the US Army was trained in psychological warfare. One of his jobs in the army was to interrogate. He also is one semester away from finishing law school. I didn't stand a chance, lol. So rather than stay in this battle of wits I washed my hands of him, a little over a year ago. That is when he went off the deep end. Because of his poured out love during this time I gave him another chance. No matter how long I ignored him he kept pouring his heart out and I couldn't help but give him another chance. Since then he did get a lot better. Tho someone recently told me that heroin effects (or halts?) testosterone production. Now I'm thinking this may be the only reason he has calmed down. I hope that isn't true. He has had issues with controlling his emotions. I think (hope) that I've let him know he'd have to control them or not be with me. He told me that the reason he put me down was to drag me down to his level. He said this while we were having a discussion about our relationship. We were not fighting nor breaking up, so he didn't have reason to lie. There was nothing to gain. But I digress...

About a year ago is when he admitted to me that he was addicted to heroin. I knew he was doing it, but had no clue he was full blown again. He told me he wants me to keep track of his time and money. Even seemed appalled that I hadn't said anything about him being late home from work every day. I had said things, but never tried to figure out where he'd been. He also said that I should have been checking his miles on his truck. I told him there was no point, as he just would have made up excuses for that too. He agreed. Gosh there's just so much to tell and to respond to that I can't figure out what to write next... Ummm...
Anyway we went and got him some dope and I dosed it out to wean him down. He told me that he would be miserable, blame me for everything, warned I would hate him and he would hate me, he would lie and manipulate to get more dope, and to NOT GIVE HIM MORE than the doses we discussed in the beginning. He did beg for higher doses, and I stuck to my guns. Looking back I realize that he SURELY got dope that next payday.

We did end up falling out and he took off, with the TV. It was Friday and he was already broke after being paid Thursday. He didn't pay his phone bill and disappeared for the weekend. I tracked him down at his mothers and appealed to him and begged him to come home. I promised him he didn't have to be sick, but there would be no more dope. I got subs from a friend, and I took the keys to his truck while he slept. In the morning I told him I'd be driving him to and from work now. He didn't like it, but he didn't put up a fight. I told him that's the way it's going to go, eos. He reluctantly accepted. Looking back I can see his wheels turning, thinking how is he going to get dope NOW? Well this worked! He was clean up until I had his baby. This next part is horrible... I was in labor for days. We kept getting sent home from the hospital. Well the first time we spent the night. I woke in the hospital with him nowhere to be found. He was gone for hours and my keys were gone. I was so sad and disturbed my brain wouldn't let me believe it.

My brain wouldn't even begin to let me process it. I asked him where he went when he got back. He said he got food. I grilled him a bit, knowing he wouldn't give it up, but letting him know it's not going undetected. I was sent home that day with no baby. Well, he was inside of me, lol.
I continued to drive him to work the next 2 days. I was in labor, dilated, bleeding, contracting, but refused to let him drive. I had to pick him up crying in full blown labor. We went home, then to the hospital, for the third time. Later this day I would have a c section. He was right by my side as our son was cut from my stomach. We cuddled our new baby for a while and then I was taken alone to recovery. No one can come in there until you can feel your feet. Finally I was allowed visitors after an hour. I wanted my Mom, as she was not there for the delivery. She came in. I asked about my fiancé. She didn't know where he was. Then my bff came in. She said my fiancé had taken my car keys and had been gone for an hour, I think about that. I felt the same as I did before. Total allowed denial. I knew it was denial, I just wanted to enjoy my baby. Again he swore he just went to eat. I was in the e hospital for five days and he had to take my car to take care of home and our other kids, but mostly stayed with me. He showered me, picked me up, changed my pads, etc. He took crazy good care of me. He REFUSED to let me care for myself, literally.

I'm not even close to done. I have a lot to do tho. Please stay tuned, lol. I'm not sure you ppl can even understand how helpful you are <3
 
You can comment as it comes. I'd actually appreciate that, as it will take a long time to finish this story.
Why in the world are hospitals triggers? And how long until one is not affected by triggers? He was newly clean at that point. Is that ivs you wrote? Is THAT what did it?
God I'm so sad. I don't know what to do.

I'd like everyone to know that I'm not insane, or an attention seeker, (social anxiety), or a drama queen, or a punk, or a moron. I know it seems as tho I must be to stay thru all this, but I am DEEPLY in love with this man. I never believed in soul mates, never said "making love", and this man changed all of that. We have sooo much fun together. We have all the same goals and morals. He is sooo smart and funny and beautiful and strong and proactive and he loves God and knows everything about Him. He is introverted like me and used to spend every minute he could with me. When he is sweet, no one could be sweeter. I could go on and on. Point being I don't want anyone to think I am lowly. I just love him so much and know that I could never feel the way I feel about him about someone else.
 
Well allot of junkies have gotten drugs in hospitals before. Or it could just be the thought of what is actually there. and yes a IV can and usually is a trigger for an addict.. let alone watching someone being administered IV drugs.. So you are familiar with maintenance programs.. think about throwing the idea out there to him and seeing what his response is. do you think you would be comfortable in a relationship with someone on maintenance. I would.

Edit: as your man shows addiction is a life long thing, it get allot easier but it is loged in the brain for good.. my advice is to learn how to shut triggers down because you cant avoid them... Im a diabetic.. i did, so can anyone=D
 
Wow GOOD job. I didn't get the hospital thing at first, but duh, that makes perfect sense. I remember feeling he would be jealous of my "getting high" and I felt bad for him. I felt uncomfortable, almost like ashamed. But see... I didn't get anything when we first went. But he was doing well up until then.
Of course I'd be with him if he was on maintenance, I've been with him full blown addicted! lol.
We've often discussed programs. He said they don't work and he got off by himself before. How do you shut down triggers?
And thank you again for all this advice =)
 
good luck junkies wife, i pray for ya. this whole thread made me tear up cuz i was the guy doing this shit to my ex girlfriend for 3 years. just take it one day at a time.
 
junkies wife said:
Wow GOOD job. I didn't get the hospital thing at first, but duh, that makes perfect sense. I remember feeling he would be jealous of my "getting high" and I felt bad for him. I felt uncomfortable, almost like ashamed. But see... I didn't get anything when we first went. But he was doing well up until then.
Of course I'd be with him if he was on maintenance, I've been with him full blown addicted! lol.
We've often discussed programs. He said they don't work and he got off by himself before. How do you shut down triggers?
And thank you again for all this advice =)
Click to expand...

I have to make sure what i do duplicable other wise it may be a recipe for disaster.. I'm pretty sure it is but I don't want to steer anyone off a cliff, as triggers.. besides desire, are addiction in the end.
 
You can't shut them down. You can only structure your life to avoid them.

They feel as natural as your stomach growing when you walk past a restaurant or your heart skipping a beat when you see someone attractive. It does get easier over time because it feels more mental than physical, but it never really goes away. Heroin gets its reputation not because it is more dangerous, more intense, more whatever than other drugs, but because it is a feeling/reward that your mind obsesses over unlike anything else.

A lot of people want addicts to man up and just deal with it all,' but this only works for so long. As well, addicts often don't feel like there is anything morally or intrinsically wrong with getting high, so it's not as simple as being able to (for example) not physically go after a hot girl in public. Addicts remember the warm blanket of love that is heroin without a tolerance and wonder why people should be deprived of that.

But for me, heroin is a bully I cannot stick up to, and instead I run the other way. This isn't cowardly, though. It is survival.

It might have to come down to a geographical relocation. Your profile says Detroit...that is a terrible place for an addict to be. It is how I am doing it. Put me back in my old city and I will be high in an hour. 99% chance. But I can't get it here, so the dozens of cravings I get throughout each week just are forced to be unanswered.
 
Three weeks.

Pretty much every single one of my friends back home is a heroin addict. I do have a sister there too, but she won't speak to me right now due to recent events (fair enough, I deserve it). But drugs have become a way of life for me there, and when you really feel inside like you want to move on from that, it goes from convenient to terrifying. Knowing it is a phone call away makes it orders of magnitude more difficult. And still, a lot of those people are genuine friends who use heroin, and not "using buddies" I met while getting high, so it's even harder to lay low and ignore everyone if I am there.

I basically destroyed myself financially again over the winter, so moving back would not be feasible at least until I made a chunk of money first. I am staying with a terminally ill relative for free right now in exchange for doing a lot of things to help her.

I lost my car, license and computer to my addiction as well, and am still dealing with legal aftermath from events. So right now I am happy enough in a safe place next to a bus stop and without a transparent drug scene. Moving back without a car or money would put me in a bad spot. So I am going to try and find work here (not easy, no job market) or look for work in a new place that is not here or home.

I hurt a lot of people recently, and I really want to get some real time clean (and with a better idea of how I am going to rebuild my life) before I am ready to try and make amends.
 
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