How do you feel about your partner in active addiction?

[adder]

I would love responses from those who have been or are in active addiction, as to how you feel about the other person (a non user). These could be good/bad/positive/negative feelings, I guess I'm after the feelings that really stood out when trying to be in a relationship with someone.

I wish I had met a girl willing to understand that I don't really find pleasure in alienating myself and that I didn't start abusing anything to avoid people and consequences coming with relationship. I don't know why it's so hard for some to understand that when you meet someone, that person hasn't just been born and lived some life prior to starting a relationship. Thus it's always going to take some time to get everything straight, with some things it's faster, with other ones it lasts longer. Sadly, no girl finding out about my addiction and not tolerating it could make a sacrifice and wait for me. I never hated anyone for not liking me high, I always wanted to smoke it to the filter, so it doesn't surprise me I touched drugs when there was nobody negatively affected.

Years later I lost that energy of my youth and stopped feeling a need to experience everything at such level. What I regret the most is that there was nobody I spent this energy with and for in some more fulfilling way, because now I don't even feel like going to places the dealers are, calling them, talking in their weird language, and even moving my ass there to collect the stuff. I quit almost everything I could, I'm still getting off a substitute for opioids, closer to the end, and as I look back I can hardly recognize the person I was when I shot up. Now I just smoke cannabis when I'm fed up with everything around me, go to sleep, and nobody looks at me being high. I don't have a grudge for any girl that decided she had no time to spare (in 20s...), I would have got tired myself and I guess I would have never stopped that way. If there's some woman now who can appreciate I didn't kill myself and managed to survive to meet her and make her happy, then she'll definitely experience much more positive feelings with me than all those girls rushing with career and other stuff feeding their egos.

All I expected was being there for me and understanding that the more times she asks when I stop, the more steps back I will make. Certainly, you won't wait your whole life for someone to change so he fits you and you fit him. If you think he's really willing to quit, then you should be patient, so you don't blame yourself at some later point in your life. But when you notice that your partner finds pleasure in drugs, you can be almost sure that it will still take some time until drugs destroy something valuable in his life and he wakes up.

 

[Just.Passing]

Hi guys,
Thanks so much for the responses and Adder thank you for sharing your story.

I didn't ask the question for a solution that could controls partner. I am very aware that his actions and choices are his own and it broke my heart that he "wanted" to continue using.

I caved and we did catch up for a talk. Something had happened during our time apart and he's really seeing the possibility of life beyond his addiction. He has made lifestyle choices lately that can be measured that allow him to harm reduce.

I am definitely there to support him. I've met my soulmate. I never believed that that concept was possible until him. Aside from the addiction we are good for each other and complement each other with our respective strengths and dismantle each other's weaknesses.

I have learnt a lot about boundaries in our time apart so these will be my guide moving forward of whether to stay or go.

But I'm hopeful and detaching and intuitively feel that supporting someone the right way will help as opposed to leaving them. I care about him so I'm gonna hang in there.

Your thoughts/ stories welcome! I'm always learning.

 

[Pagey]

Good for you Just.Passing, that's very brave of you.
I'm very glad to hear that he's starting to see a way out. The thing with addiction, in my own experience and from what I've seen around this website in particular, is that it's completely and utterly pointless to try and convince an addict that they have a problem or that they're messing up their lives. They need to see it for themselves but once they truly get it, support from others (even if they've never been through it themselves) can go an extremely long way. I was using heroin/opiates almost every day until I had a rather breakthrough experience ~10 days ago and saw for myself what's been going on - and I haven't used since. And that's despite months of warnings from other people. So I do think that if he's stating to see a way out himself, your support will be very important to him and could really make quite the difference - I sincerely hope he gets better and that things work out for the two of you.