Swimmingdancer
Bluelight Crew
- Joined
- Jan 2, 2012
- Messages
- 5,433
This is probably going to sound harsh but it's a sensitive subject for me and you wanted people's honest opinions right?
If I was your girlfriend I would absolutely have broken up with you too. I truly believe that your actions were harming her more than helping her. I have a lot of experience with addiction and relationships, as a former addict myself and as someone who has been in relationships with people with addictions (when I didn't have one at the time), as well as watching the relationships of others and reading books on the subject, and the biggest advice I can offer to anyone who loves someone with an addiction is to give them unconditional love and support and do everything you can to make them feel like they can be honest with you without being afraid of your reaction. If their addiction is not something you can handle then you don't have to be with them, but it does NOT help them or you to treat them with distrust, snoop through their stuff/phone, threaten them or their suppliers or otherwise try to force them to quit. Someone with an addiction has to WANT to quit, and this kind of treatment does NOT make them want to quit, it just makes them want to do MORE drugs in order to feel better and to hide their drug use better next time. The biggest thing that helped me to quit heroin was being with someone who did not judge me, did not treat me with distrust, and who made me feel comfortable talking about it. Being with someone who accepted me the way I was, trusted me, treated me with compassion and didn't have expectations or judgements actually made me want to quit for the benefit of both of us. And unconditional love goes a long way towards healing the wounds that are responsible for the addiction in the first place.
As to why someone would go back to using after a few months clean, if they were clean just out of pressure from other people, the factors that lead to their addiction in the first place (there always are some) have not been dealt with, and they are not feeling loved or trusted, why would you expect them to magically be able to stay clean simply because they are no longer physically dependent on the drug?
If I was your girlfriend I would absolutely have broken up with you too. I truly believe that your actions were harming her more than helping her. I have a lot of experience with addiction and relationships, as a former addict myself and as someone who has been in relationships with people with addictions (when I didn't have one at the time), as well as watching the relationships of others and reading books on the subject, and the biggest advice I can offer to anyone who loves someone with an addiction is to give them unconditional love and support and do everything you can to make them feel like they can be honest with you without being afraid of your reaction. If their addiction is not something you can handle then you don't have to be with them, but it does NOT help them or you to treat them with distrust, snoop through their stuff/phone, threaten them or their suppliers or otherwise try to force them to quit. Someone with an addiction has to WANT to quit, and this kind of treatment does NOT make them want to quit, it just makes them want to do MORE drugs in order to feel better and to hide their drug use better next time. The biggest thing that helped me to quit heroin was being with someone who did not judge me, did not treat me with distrust, and who made me feel comfortable talking about it. Being with someone who accepted me the way I was, trusted me, treated me with compassion and didn't have expectations or judgements actually made me want to quit for the benefit of both of us. And unconditional love goes a long way towards healing the wounds that are responsible for the addiction in the first place.
As to why someone would go back to using after a few months clean, if they were clean just out of pressure from other people, the factors that lead to their addiction in the first place (there always are some) have not been dealt with, and they are not feeling loved or trusted, why would you expect them to magically be able to stay clean simply because they are no longer physically dependent on the drug?