My Boyfriend Just Disclosed That He is Still - Help Please!

[chelle216]

First, all of you guys that are working to get clean, you're doing great! It's a difficult road, but life is so much better without having to worry about your next fix, money problems, and the shame of such a burden. I'm just as much an addict (in recovery from pills/heroin/cocaine) and it's been a long road getting my shit straight but it can be done. That being said, I don't want to hijack your thread, but I'm currently on the opposite end of this situation; my boyfriend just disclosed that my suspicions have been correct, and he's been using for the last 6 months.

We actually got into addiction together 13 years ago, we then went for a period of years apart trying to get ourselves clean independently. Eventually we ended up getting back together 5 years ago, and we were both on suboxone up until October/November 2016. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't really angry over the fact that within a month or two of quitting, an opportunity presented itself and he dove right back into using, yet I'm an addict too so I get it. As I said, I suspected it and questioned his behavior several times but he wouldn't admit it; he had ample time to tell me and several opportunities but refused. Frankly, I really don't know how to handle this, and I don't know if I'm even equipped to.

Guys, I don't know what to do. I don't want to push him away and possibly cause him to start lying again, but I feel like he's going to keep lying to me to some extent regardless. He was using with his cousin, and he keeps saying he wants to cut him out of his life yet he hasn't done it and it may not be entirely possible. I can't hold his hand or be there constantly, so I've told him that I would prefer if he takes suboxone for some time to at least to help him distance himself plus give me some peace of mind. If he can't get high then the temptation would be lessened, yet he refuses. Ironically, this was his ultimatum to me when he found out I was using pills 5 years ago at the beginning of us getting back together. I cut my friends out, and started taking suboxone, so I feel like I'm being doubly disrespected, because apart from acting angered with his cousin when he gets a text regarding drugs he hasn't really been reassuring that he's really done. I've been so anxious about this that I've been taking my Xanax (that's prescribed for the occasional panic attack) for the last few days since he's told me, as I can't calmly think about this situation without freaking out. I know this is only a temporary way to pacify my feelings, and it has to stop.

My trust is broken, and I feel completely torn, because I don't want to leave him, but I don't know how to reconcile this when I feel like he's not willing to do anything to prove he's ready to be done. If anyone could provide some guidance as to what else I can do without letting my anger take the reins, I'd be most appreciative. Thanks guys, and keep fighting the good fight!

 

[jdfisse]

I am sorry to hear about your situation. You are trying to reason with an addict in active addiction. Although your request sounds reasonable it is being filtered through a mind that has reordered its priorities. There is a good chance that until the situation becomes unacceptable to him no change will occur.

Now to investigate the foundation. When you both jumped from suboxone back in the Fall of 2016 what were your lives like? Did you have any sort of support and activities to participate in to keep yourselves occupied. Addicts vary in degrees of sickness and rates of recovery. Perhaps you didn't need as much interaction as him because you are less prone to isolation. Perhaps you had a better system of support in place. Only you know the realities of this. An addict who just ceases use and doesn't do anything to change situations and circumstances will generally return to using or be one miserable SOB (who eventually returns to using).

The crazy thing is that AA and NA had much of it right 80+ years ago and 60+ (30+ for the Basic Text) years ago respectively when they wrote their literature. They did a pretty good job of outlining the progression of the illness without any ability to back it up with science. This caused many who were not ready to make dramatic changes in their lives to marginalize or discount 12 step programs as indoctrinated, non-evidence based, mumbo-jumbo. Now that science is actually providing evidence to back up many of the experiential writings in those books, many of the narrow-minded have already had years to build a case in their own minds against the efficacy of the 12 steps.

So now there is an ever increasing movement to medicate away the problem by many of the entities that helped to feed the problem. Medication Assisted Treatment is often just medication assistance with a font not small enough for me to type "treatment". Harm reduction is great for people who want to be tied to an oak tree or really have no interest in investing fervent effort in changing the way they conduct business. Hey as a recovering addict I am definitely down for harm reduction. I have less chance of being robbed! But I also have less chance of a truly bright spirit fully contributing to the collective consciousness and that is a genuine shame. You will find a smattering of harm reduction advocates who appear to be doing it truly productive and loving way, take toothpastedog for example. The sad thing is that for many, if they were too lazy and apathetic to participate in 12 step recovery, they will generally be too lazy and apathetic to participate in mindfulness based harm reduction practices. They will just get their dose and carry on. I believe a person like toothpastedog would be successful no matter what type of program they participated in. I don't believe myself or toothpastedog are unique or possess some quality that few possess. I believe it is available to us all.

So I surmise after taking the circuitous route, that your partner will access that quality when what he is doing is no longer acceptable to him. "An addict can be analyzed, counseled, reasoned with, prayed over, threatened, beaten, or locked up and they will not stop until they are ready to stop." You are already giving yourself reasons to use because of his behavior (xanax). It is not a stretch to ask, "What next?"

 

[Jabberwocky]

I'm not really up for a discussion of treatment philosophy, but I wouldn't be doing my job without pointing out that your post indicates a narrow, limited involvement in the public health, mental health or substance use disorder fields outside the status quo abstinence only treatment industry and recovery communities. That's okay, they do a lot of good for a lot of people and its common within that industry to find a lot, if not most, professions who have little involvement with medicine (if any) outside their abstinence only setting (which by it's nature would limit their exposure to alternative or newer modalities that provide more than behavioral treatment).

You also seem to believe that modern research is supportive has provided significant evidence to support the efficacy of abstinence only communities. With what little research there still is, what we do have suggests that 12 step based abstinence only programs are highly ineffective, with more than 9/10 patients relapsing during the first year or two. It also suggests that the methods commonly used and popular among such treatment providers that focus on producing behavioral change through projects of enforced conformity (this is essentially the model of abstinence only rehab - conform, or else jails, institutions and death) are far less effective than therapists trained in motivational interviewing and CBT. Although tying the sense of self of individuals in early recovery can be very effective at producing abstinence on a short to moderate term basis, it can also easily backfire for individuals who lose their privilege within or access to that group (their sense of self is tied in an almost "codependent" sort of way to their group's larger identity). So, the picture in terms of the science of 12 step is still pretty bleak. Anecdote still rules that project's halls.

Really when push comes to shove though, the scientific critique of 12 step abstinence only programs isn't a criticism about much of any inherent to the 12 step method itself, but more poorly implemented forms of treatment that can be problematic within any treatment industry. It's just with the lack of regulation and professionalism among folks who work in the burgeoning addiction treatment field make it particularly problematic (at present and for some time). The fact that most treatment in the US is 12 step abstinence only treatment only makes any problems associated with (although not necessarily caused themselves) by the methodology behind the treatment more glaring.

But please don't belittle what, despite the stance of AA and NA (I always find it odd how AA's official literature is more inline with the modern standards of medical treatment of substance use disorder than the NA literature is), what is commonly referred to as MAT is a form of medicine no less acceptable than treatment for high blood pressure or diabetes. There seems to be a long standing bias against much of what modern medicine has to offer to those who struggle with mental illness and addiction that is common place among many of the more prominent recovery communities (the Pacific Group, etc).

There is a certain irony in how something like methadone is the most studied and effective form of treatment for severe opioid use disorder being the proverbial whipping boy of the abstinence only treatment community that has, by comparison (as the recidivism rate is higher for those with opioid use disorder than it is for other substance use disorders) a dismal rate when it comes to successfully treating that same population.

Ever heard of the rainbow of harm reduction? It makes it pretty easy to understand that abstinence based programs are themselves a form of harm reduction. Harm reduction takes many forms, from education and moderation, to public health initiatives like HCV/HIV testing and needle exchanges, to pharmacotherapies like buprenorphine and methadone programs, to full blown abstinence. Harm reduction is abstinence, but it is so much more.

Then again, it's okay. HR culture is very impoverished in the states thanks to our intense and long standing support for prohibition and the war on drugs, so we rarely get to learn much about it. Given how vocal and antagonistic many in the abstinence only recovery community are towards the broader harm reduction community, it's no wonder folks in the abstinence only community would know next to nothing about the real practice of harm reduction.

Now, back to the topic, hopefully some more folks can give the OP some more feedback on their questions regarding their relationship. Please don't let the discussion get too off track. I really shouldn't have bit in my response here to the above post, but such is life.

 

[Reanimator13]

I left my first wife because of drugs. I quit she did not. It was a very hard decision to make. Here I was working my tail off and staying clean only to come home to wife on drugs. After I divorced her I got a call from ER about a year later. She had been smoking meth for days and was completely out of her mind. Thought we were still married etc. I did go down to ER but there was not alot I could do.

Today we are best of friends. She did get clean and has been clean for many years now. My leaving and that ER incident were what finally did the trick for her.

You cannot fix anyone... that and your own recovery should be priority #1. Sometimes a relationship can end up lopsided with one person giving and forgiving. Just my thoughts... I'm no relationship expert seeing how i'm on marriage 3.

 

[cj]

Getting him back on suboxone is the only plan I see working. Especially since he responded well to it before. Some of us need replacement therapy for the rest of our libest. It's not ideal bUT it's better than doing dope. They lying is justhe a symptom of the disease I wouldn't take it personally but the question you got to ask yourself is do the good parts of the relationship outweigh the negative parts?

 

[Jabberwocky]

To echo cj, folks tend to respond well to certain treatments, so when a treatment is found that seems to jive with their goals it is generally something worth pursuing.

With maintenance meds of course, it isn't all or other either. While some people certainly benefit from staying on something like methadone or buprenorphine indefinitely (in fact, good ORT programs are design neither to keep people on the meds nor to discourage them from staying on them - they make it totally up to the patient without any blame or stigma either way).

Folks are pretty familiar with the traditional thirty day detox that ORT providers can provide. They're also generally aware of folks who have been on maintenance for years, so they know more or less what that is. But they often overlook the six month extended detox that ORT providers tend to offer along side the thirty day detox and maintenance. I know of more than one person who was able to successfully get off heroin using a six month extended detox program.

Long winded way to emphasize that there are lots of forms of treatment out there and it's best to choose the most appropriate one based on the individual in question and no one else. Regarding your relationship OP, you and him are both involved. But with his treatment, while it is amazing that you are (and want to continue to be) so supportive, he is the one who needs to take the driver's seat (whatever that means to him).

It's also worth pointing out that he might respond well to methadone too. There is the issue of stigma of course. The rules and structure of the clinic can also be a PITA, but for the same reasons the structure provides a good way to get habituated into using the medication properly.

 

[Lotus123]

You have to mentally be prepared to walk away. Then you have power to negotiate and it might work out but ultimately you may have to leave this relationship so come to terms with that right now. All the time you feel helpless; you will be helpless. Once you are prepared to walk, he has no power over you

 

[chelle216]

I really appreciate the insight everyone has provided. Neither he nor I are strangers to ORT; we did the suboxone thing and we were both on methadone prior . I never participated in a clinic as my doctor was willing to prescribe methadone, and while I'm familiar with the short term detox, I had no idea that a 6 month detox might be available. I will keep this information in mind, though frankly, I don't see it going that route. I've brought up the idea of IOP or individual therapy, but he doesn't see what the point of either is when he's been through several years of intensive counseling while he was on at the methadone clinic. Sadly, I fear he's going to need some kind of rock-bottom-moment-wake-up-call if he's going to make it out of this.

The past week has allowed me to see firsthand how pervasive his use actually is, and exactly how much he doesn't care about himself (or me). While he was able to finally acknowledge that a short course of suboxone would be beneficial, he still has yet to actually commit to it despite promises of the contrary. Everytime I leave he runs out an uses and then blocks me from being able to contact him. He told me twice over the weekend that this would be his last run and he would use suboxone but whenever the day comes verbally abuses me until I start freaking out and he uses it against me to say I pushed him to use. I finally had enough and told his mother today because I can't possibly keep going on dealing with this alone. I thought that maybe if she knew he would have some more respect for her, but I'm sure he somehow turned this around on me after he again blocked me from contact, but no without first telling me how he's never loved me ect. ect. I know I have to leave but this doesn't make it any easier.

 

[cj]

You can't make him want to quit. It sounds like he is dead set on using. I doubt a shirt sub taper will make any differance. He's grown so maybe you should respect his decision while at the same time making your own decision to end the relationship. Ducks but it kinda is what it is

 

[Halfbright]

Sadly, I fear he's going to need some kind of rock-bottom-moment-wake-up-call if he's going to make it out of this.

I know I have to leave but this doesn't make it any easier.

it's pretty straightforward. do you want to live with the financial insecurity and total insanity
of all of this, and do it stone cold sober?

why?

most people, in my experience, will look for someone to possibly help them get sober
after they have run out of people who will help them get loaded. however, that is not
your problem, nor are you anyone's solution. you didn't create this, and you can't fix it.

staying sober is easy, and growing up is a stone cold bitch. hard decisions have to
be made. however difficult a decision may be, NOT making it is usually much harder.

almost all of the people i used to get loaded with are dead now. so are most of the
people i got sober with. that's a fact. harm reduction proponents cite the 12 step
communities 90% failure rate. they are being far too optimistic. it's more like a
98~99% failure rate. that doesn't mean it doesn't work. it does mean that the
way it is approached by most people doesn't seem to work out well.

i haven't seen numbers on harm reduction strategies that are encouraging,
either. most of them haven't been collecting data long enough for definitive
conclusions.

back to the original question......

you can either stay and watch him die, or leave.

 

[Jabberwocky]

There are some issues with some of the info you posted Halfbright. So as not to clutter up this thread, please see: http://www.bluelight.org/vb/threads...e-Success-Rates-of-Various-Forms-of-Treatment