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He's on methadone maintenance but uses other drugs illegally
Hello, I'm in so much pain in my relationship with boyfriend. He's on methadone maintenance but uses other drugs like adderall and Xanax and ambien and weed without a prescription. He does it all behind my back with people he keeps separate from me and tells me it's ok because he's not addicted to THOSE drugs, they're just recreational. He's a very attractive charming character around others and when we first met of course. But he treats me like **** now and spins it all around when we break up which happens every other week like it's all my fault .. I don't know who the crazy one is anymore. I feel really guilty and like a bad person because I've become a monster toward him since I feel totally on the defense all the time. I can't convince him that life doesn't have to be this way. He won't go to meetings and I want to start going. I've been with him 2.5 years and this was all going on before me. I didn't know what I was getting myself into. He sold me on methadone maintenance being recovery and has no intention of coming off. I did not know he had other drugs he liked. I've learned to accept the methadone but I don't understand the other drugs and his behavior toward me? Is he relapsing or simply a jerk or both? Also he flirts with other women on Facebook and this hurts, he's an attention *****. I don't think he's cheated physically but I can't trust my judgement. I'm attracted to these types of men and I'm too old for this. We are in our late 30s... why can't we grow up? Also he doesn't have a steady job, drives recklessly, bums money off his dad and me. I am starting to slack off at my job too and I've always been pretty responsible. I'm very bitter and feel like I'm crazy like I'm the bad guy here. Well today I threatened to hurt myself because I felt hopeless and he didn't care because I told him he was a bad person and druggie. I shouldn't have said that but he really felt cold and I was trying to get his attention... but I don't think he cares really. I'm heartbroken and feel like I'm dying. I can't talk to people about it because they say just leave and call me stupid. I would leave if I could... I'm not stupid just addicted to him I guess. Can someone please provide direction and insight? He has no kids and I have an older daughter who I feel I've neglected in many ways even though she's in college and spreading her wings. I want to be a better person and mother still. I've only ever drank in my life socially not often and smoked pot a few times. Posted: 07/01/2017 1:44 PM
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In Response to: He's on methadone maintenance but uses other drugs illegally Dear Newbie, Do you not like yourself? Do you not believe that you deserve a life full of peace and love? Please read what you wrote here, out loud, so you can hear it. No sane woman will stay with a man like that, but it is very easy to get so tangled up with the insanity of an addict that the way out is hard to see. There is a group called AlAnon, for families and loved ones of addicts. It might be worth fiding an alanon group in you area and go to a meeting. And please come back here. Most of us have been where you are. Peace, Freyja Posted: 07/01/2017 5:19 PM
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In Response to: He's on methadone maintenance but uses other drugs illegally Hello. I myself am new to the site and I think it must be divine providence that brought me here. I happened across the site and thought, hey, what a great idea! After I joined the site, I came across your post, read it, and then felt that I might offer some insight....
See, I was married to a good and loving Christian woman for ten years, all the while in active addiction. So I have been the cause of a situation much like yours.
As I believe in speaking, or writing, very openly and in being forthright...let's face the facts. Your boyfriend is a drug addict. You are not. This situation is conducive to only three possibilities...
One, he gets his life together and you two can work on your relationship, grow, and have a future. The best outcome, and one which I will pray for...
Or
Two, you continue to live the lifestyle that you currently have.... complete with the worries, anxieties and heartache which led you to post about your situation on the Internet. A very possible outcome and one which is no good for either of you.
Or
Three, you decide that you are unwilling to continue your current lifestyle and separate yourself from it and move on. The second best outcome, second only to him getting his life together. If he does not, I foresee this as being the result.
As I said, I was married to a wonderful woman who loved me more than anything else on the planet. We dated and were engaged over the course of two years and eventually married for ten.
She was sober. A teetotaler. Didn't smoke, didn't drink and didn't do drugs. Never had.
I, on the other hand, was already a drug addict the day I met her and was until (almost) the end.
How did this work for an entire decade? Im glad you asked...
Let me tell you a secret that your boyfriend probably doesn't want you to know.
Drug addicts are master liars and manipulators. It comes as a necessity for them.
...Talking someone into loaning them money, which is never repaid, most likely.
...Talking their dealer to let them have what they want, even though they can't pay for it, and probably never will.
....convincing someone to stay in a relationship with them, even though their mind is focused only on drugs and their addiction....not on a relationship.
Lies and manipulation are the tools of the addict. And over time, their skills become honed to the point that they can lie to your face, and you will believe every word that they are saying.... I know...I've done it...more than I care to admit.
For example:
I lied to my wife, telling her that I was clean...when I wasn't. Lying to her that I paid a certain bill, when I knew that money had been spent on drugs. Telling her that paying the bills had taken all my money and that I was broke, and that I needed money from her. Swearing that I wouldn't do it again and pretending to throw away the pills that she had found.
Manipulating her by starting an argument, knowing she would get mad and leave, just so I could go out and buy drugs and get high. Of course after I had my buzz, I wanted to be a husband again and I manipulated the situation further by telling her how sorry I was about the argument and how much I loved her and wanted her to come home.
You see... Lies and manipulation. And to an outside observer...especially one who has employed many of the same tricks as you have presented here....it is blatantly clear that he is doing some of the same things to you.
Another insight:
Drug addicts are selfish. They want to "have their cake, and eat it too."
Let's look at it logically for a moment. I never got high because it benefitted someone else... No, an addict uses and gets high because it serves his purposes ....wether to feel good or to forget, whatever the excuse might be... But the addict uses selfishly...without regard to how his use might affect other people. This includes the ones he loves the most....and the ones who love him the most.
My wife loved me...and I loved her...but sadly, I loved the drugs...I was selfish...I loved myself even more than I loved her.
I "loved"'myself (the drugs) so much that I became an IV drug user...a needle junkie... eventually contracting not only hepatitis B but also hepatitis C. Unknowingly and stupidly, I passed the hep C to her. I felt bad about it...I regretted it terribly...but it didn't convince me to stop using drugs.
And she stayed...when she would have been justified a million times over to leave me and get as far away from me as possible...she stayed. Believing the lies I told her....
...so, I ended up in a methadone clinic... I had once again promised her that I was going to change...that I would get sober....but I didn't have it in my heart...I hadn't made up my mind. But even at this point I was lying and manipulating the situation to make her think that I would change. And even though I really wanted to, I felt that I couldn't. I lacked the skills, and the will power to change at that time.
Now.... Here is the inside scoop about clinics, methadone or otherwise.
They have no intention what so ever of having one of their "clients" get clean. ...and I use the word "client" to be polite, and not use the word "customer"...which is what one is while he is there. Its quasi legal drug dealing....
If you stop and think about it logically, you will see it is totally against their best financial interests to see an addict get clean and leave their clinic. They would lose money. Right? Lol.
And even if an addict does come out of the clinic sober (highly unlikely) then they rely, even DEPEND, upon that addict failing to remain clean and have a relapse. In that way, they regain a customer...sorry...I mean, client.
Now it's a broad statement. There may be good clinics out there...but I have never seen one. I would never recommend this as a path to sobriety. Not for your boyfriend, not to anyone. It is trading one drug for another at best, ...adding another and more drugs into the addiction, feeding it...is the likeliest and worst scenario.
All told, I did about three years in the clinic, off and on...doing much the same thing that your boyfriend is doing. Getting my dose of methadone in the morning, and getting drugs off the streets every evening. The financial burden alone was enormous...to say nothing of the intangibles...how it hurt my loved ones. And least of all my concerns at the time was the toll it took on my health.
On Easter Sunday, 2013, I "hustled " until I got some money....shot a bunch of dope into my arm.... For the last time.
I quit without any clinic or rehabs or programs... It's just how I had to do it...
I had made MY mind up that I was going to get clean...and I was doing it for the right reasons...not to save a marriage...not to manipulate my wife with some scheme... I was doing it for me...but not in such a selfish way as it sounds. I had to get clean so that I could be a better husband, a better son, a better brother....a better man.
Detoxing is ugly, if you haven't seen it. My wife stood by me through detox too... As I imagine you would support your boyfriend, in a similar way if he wanted to be clean.
Now. What I'm about to share may frighten you a bit. But its relevant to my story and something that you may or may not have considered...but should.
After an addict goes through detox and gets clean...truly drug free...and when their mind starts working correctly again....they are like a new creature. Reborn, as it were. They are not the person that they were before getting sober.
As it relates to my story, it seems the person that I became after getting clean was so different, that my wife at the time didn't care for the new me. It was, as she said, almost like being married to a stranger.....a totally different person. That and being married to a drug addict for a decade, pushed her over the limit.
I got clean at Easter, 2013.... In October the very same year, she came to me and told me that she wanted a divorce....even though I was clean and remain so today.
After twelve years of being together, and married ten...after getting me out of jail a number of times, going to court to try and keep me OUT of jail....after seeing me wreck and destroy a couple of vehicles and tending to my wounds and broken bones that were the result of said wrecks...after getting hepatitis and knowing that she got it from me and me because of the drugs....after all the Hell I put her through...all the hurt, pain worry,anxiety, heartache, disappointment, after all the nights she spent worrying and praying about me...
I share this particular portion of my story to point out that your boyfriend may very well see the error of his ways and get clean, I hope he does. But that is no promise that you and he will be able to continue your relationship. Sometimes, as is my case, the damage was already done....and even though we, as humans, can forgive....sometimes we are unable to forget...
So I have told you a big long story about my failed marriage, due to my drug addiction.... Just some random dude on the Internet writing about your post... Yeah, I am. But I hope my sharing will show you, at least a little, about how and why he does what he does....and how he does it. The short answer to that is, he is a drug addict.
I have already written far more than what is feasible and I never intended to. But before I end, I have some parting words.
Clearly, you are too smart than what you can't see through this. You see, you know what's going on. You see that it is destroying him....killing him, most likely. And you can see that he doesn't seem to want to change. And I know that you are wise enough to realize that he isn't going to change until he gets ready. Until he sets his mind to it.
What it might take for that to come to pass...I do not know.
But I do know that if you stay in this situation....and if he does not get clean...then the dynamic between the two of you is toxic ...especially to you. When the person you are with makes you think about hurting yourself....it's time to walk away. I agree with the other person who posted....read to yourself what you wrote.... It is very telling and revealing.
I read the words of a very bright young lady in distress. It is sad for me to read.
But in a way, I can empathize with you.
I am going to end with one last piece of wisdom...one last insight into the lives of two people I don't even know....One last grain of truth for you to consider...and I hope that you will. I hope you will consider and then act accordingly...
As to why he does the things you have written about...
Quote,
he treats me like $&@?...
About flirting with other women
About making you feel at fault for the arguments...
About making you feel like a monster....
Please realize that he does this stuff because you allow him to do so .....and then you let him get away with it....
May i make so bold as to suggest that you take a stand for yourself? Inform him that you are better than this. That you are worthy, that you deserve to be treated far, far better than the status quo.
Furthermore, I would suggest removing yourself from that situation. The evidence of this being an unhealthy, and possibly dangerous situation is in your very own words.
We are each responsible for our own happiness.
Life is too short to be so miserable.
Best of luck, no matter what you decide.
May God bless you abundantly and keep his angels encamped around you....
Posted: 07/21/2017 5:19 AM
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In Response to: He's on methadone maintenance but uses other drugs illegally Hello, you been with him 2.5 years, that's enough time for him to stop using drugs. Posted: 08/27/2017 2:20 PM
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