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Im in an "emotional growth program" for young adults with five students. It used to be six, but a close friend of mine relapsed and behaved in a way that got her kicked out. Im the only person here currently who doesn't struggle with addiction. For a lot of people, this is an after care after wilderness. Im here for other reasons (depression and anxiety). anyway, Ive grown very close to the people I live with over the last year and a half, but im starting to wonder if I need new friends. You see, my friend was sober for a year before this all happened. In that time, I really came to admire her. I can remember the day I noticed the addiction to take her life back over...She started to become very shallow, dishonest and mean-spirited. After getting kicked out, she went on a month long bender, in which she earned a battery charge and became $500 dollars in debt to the bank. Shes sober now, and is working on getting her life back together. She closed her bank account, got the charge taken care of, and has been sober for a week. Her voice has changed though, and she thinks she may have brain damage.
Its sounds like shes been stuck in a pretty predictable loop since she was twelve. She parties until her life falls apart, sobers up long enough to clean up the mess, and then goes right back into drugs and alcohol. As someone who cares about her, I can't stand to watch it. But I also care too much to cut her out of my life. She sayus shes done for good this time, but Ive heard that before...
The point is this: everyone in my life, my mother included, struggles with addiction. I have seen the old patterns emerge in and destroy a couple of my friends now. I care about them deeply, but Im not sure I can do this. On a good day, they are the best people Ive met, but im starting to wonder if the dishonesty and chaos is worth it. Ive wached it destroy two of my friends now, and I live in constant worry that it will do the same to the rest of them or, god forbid, my mom. It causes so much pain and frustration. How do I deal with this without cutting them out completely? or is that what needs to happen? Any help would be appreciated, im new to this...
but im starting to wonder if the dishonesty and chaos is worth it. Ive wached it destroy two of my friends now, and I live in constant worry that it will do the same to the rest of them or, god forbid, my mom. It causes so much pain and frustration. How do I deal with this without cutting them out completely? or is that what needs to happen? Any help would be appreciated, im new to this...
when i remain in unhealthy relationships, i ask me "what is my trade off here???" like am i staying b/c i "feel obligated??" or is it financial??? or is it fear of being alone??? or is it the need to "care take and rescue"?????? there is a reason why folks stay in unhealthy relationships and usually it is codependent related
first i would get a sponsor.....books on the 12 steps.....get into meetings and TAKE CARE OF ME.........these folks are responsible for themselves...........yea, i would not want chaos and drama around me........i want PEACE..........i make sure that it stays that way with BOUNDARIES on folks.........like in your case, I would tell them, "hey, stay in recovery or i am gone" and MEAN it......whats the point staying around and YOU doing the fretting and worrying when they are not???? who is suffering here????? and its not your addictions it is theirs.....
i would be asking myself some serious ???s here as to "why am i living this way...allowing this in my life.....not taking care of MY needs????"
i have distanced myself from folks i really care for b/c they do not want recovery and i do.....yea, i love them and will "cheer them on" IF they get into recovery....meantime??? i put some distance between me and them....i don't need all the drama and chaos and roller coaster.........i am done with that.........
Aloha Waddleton....You have arrived at your own solution YAY!! Love them anyway!!. You're in program for yourself not for them. If you're finding that you are expecting to find some kind of affirmation from a person with mind, body, spirit and emotional disease kill the expectation and love them anyway. I just lost another person I loved dearly to addiction. I won't describe the horror story because who needs that? I will tell you that I was apart of her struggle with being clean and sober and she was a part of my journey also. I was talking with her partner this morning after coming from my meeting on "expectations". He wanted to tell me that she had passed and we agreed on two things especially...that we expected it to happen and that we loved her inspite of it. There was the disease and there was our friend. Watching her and talking with here was invalueable. She was highly intelligent. Watching the addict was also invalueable because she mirrored what would happen to me should relapse arrive and find me defenseless. If that happens I hope I have the ones who love me around me and not running for the hills. I didn't say that at one time she had 13 years sobriety and in the end she had how ever many because she couldn't find any useable veins to left to shoot up with.
Dear God caress her broken body and spirit as she waits at the door of spiritual serenity. She loved the program, he sober time, the people and "ice". In the end it was "ice" that took her in large chunks and she was loved anyway.
Express gratitude to your Higher Power for the freedom you have from addiction and that there have been times when you were carried and didn't know it. Express gratitude for the people you have helped and those whose program you had a free ride on and then supported your courage to change the Waddleton you could. Stay with it. Love anyway...without condition.
"Love is the complete and total acceptance of every other human being for exactly who they are". From a program sister somewhere around early 80s
Its really hard. I love my addict friends very much. I agree that they are some of the greatest people on the face of the earth. Some are super reckless and some are just kind of reckless. I just went thru a divorce from one and it almost killed me. I am not joking!
Its my hope that I can someday be friends with them and have them in my life via al-anon somehow. I have hope. I know I cannot w/o al-anon, its just too impossible for me. But I need to focus on myself and HP always, first and foremost.
One of my addict friends needed a ride to the airport. I said sure. She asked me to park and carry her luggage just as we were pulling up to the ticketing/departure area. I said no, lets just see if we can find a cart. She got out and got one of those carts. I did put her luggage on the cart (she is pregnant) No problem. I gotta take care of me first and do what I want to do. It all works out just fine when I do.
Yes, I have friends who do not struggle with addiction although I am beginning to see that pretty much everyone has it somewhere or somehow in their lives- shopping, financial problems, alcohol, drugs, food, you name it. We live in a culture that is all about too much, excess and the disease of addiction. Serenity and moderation are rare jewels but for me, they are the only ones worth having.
Its really painful to watch people self-destruct and yeah, they are doing it all around us like human land mines. That is why al-anon is so essential to me. hugs, J.
The one thing that has always held true for me personally is a phrase that many might recognize... "Bad associations spoil useful habits." Whoever/whatever I associate with / hang around with tends to also rub off on me eventually, so I need to watch who or what I am spending my time with/on. This is probably also why so many acoa's have the same behaviorisms as their parent(s)...until they themself learn a different way of behaving other than the parents way.
My son had these friends in junior high school. One day they were all walking home and one of the boys saw some bikes laying around and said to the others "lets take them". My son hung back, but then decided to join the other 3 boys and rode off with them on one of the bikes. Next day at school they all got called into the office ... busted. These "friends" all said it was my son's idea, so besides the little "I shall not steal" class that they all had to attend, my son also had to spend a weekend (the most windy cold weekend) doing community service (which turned out to be tidying up gravestones... LOL) I said to him, I'm not going to tell you who to choose as your friends. I'm just going to say, are these the type of friends you want? The kind who will lie and blame you for their choices? The kind who do not stand by you? And I walked away. Thankfully my son chose to find new friends.
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Let your light shine in the darkness. "I can't just bring my mind to meetings...I must also bring my heart."
