The material presented
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Hi everybody, I am in a relationship w an addict. I know this site is mainly for alcoholics, but I don't know where else to turn. I began this relationship with knowledge that my bf had a history of drug abuse but I had no knowledge of this disease and therefore i thought this was something that was in his past and would stay there. Now, 7 months into the relationship, he has relapsed. He has been going to meetings everyday and I have been going when him when possible. I am just having a hard time with getting everything sorted out in my head...all of the lying and stealing that I have just become aware of, the actual nature of the disease, how I work into the equation. I don't know how to go about helping him if I can help him at all. Any advice at all on this would be very much appreciated!
Welcome home Britt!! This place, MIP and the rooms of Al-Anon are for you and there is soooo many miracles waiting for you when you come. The hotline number for Al-Anon in your area is in the white pages of your local phone book...places and times and maybe a real voice to talk to like when I first called. I got my life, head, mind, feelings, body and soul back all in the same package. Keep coming back and welcome.
Welcome, Britt! This board is a help for people involved with all kinds of addicts, so you are in the right place. You're right to suspect that you can't help him -- it's all up to him. Addiction is also powerful and sneaky, and it pulls everyone down with it if it can get at them. So your best defense -- and the best way to allow your boyfriend to learn to manage his own life -- is to learn all you can, and take good care of yourself. Read through the threads on these boards and you'll find a lot of wisdom and a lot of people who've been through very similar things. Hope you can keeping coming back.
Welcome. Alanon is all about you and it will help u get your life back from the disease. The book that most people rave about here in early recovery is getting them sober by toby rice drews. Alanon can help whether u grew up with a rageaholic or married into the disease. I grew up in it acoa (adult child of alcoholic/addict) life was chaos and dysfunction. In that environment, codependency thrives.
The best way to help an addict is to work your own program, learn to focus on you and stop feeding the disease. That means learning to stop enabling, blame shifting and the over developed sense of responsibility most of us come here with. We cannot cure the world or fix others, the only person u can control or change is YOU. The 3 C's says: we did not cause it, we cannot control it and we cannot cure it.
Learn about the disease and your part in it. We cannot change what we dont acknowledge. Learn to detach with love from other's issues, feelings, baggage, whims, opinions, judgements, attitudes. The most important person in your life and the one with the relevant opinion is YOU.
You can live with an addict (to me alcoholics and addicts are interchangeable - so u are in the right spot) and u can be happy. You have to face your own issues and figure out why you are where you are, and why you are with who you are. If we dont look at our patterns, we are doomed to repeat them.
This is a great place, tons of support here and we do understand, as we have lived with it too. Give it a shot, you're worth it!
Our chat room has 24/7 support and 2 daily mtgs as well.
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Light, Love, Peace, Blessings & Healing to Us All. God's Will Be Done. Amen.
Thank you all so much for being so supportive! It has already made a huge difference just to know that there are people that I can talk to about this situation, and that it isn't selfish for me to be worried about me. I am still trying to figure out what to do as far as getting a sponsor...I live in a very small town and there are no meetings near me (the closest one I have found is about an hour away) so it will be very hard for me to attend a f2f. Any suggestions on how to get a sponsor online would be appreciated!
