The material presented
here is not Al-Anon Conference Approved Literature. It is a method
to exchange
information, ideas, feelings, problems and solutions on a personal
level.
Six years ago I met a girl and fell in love with her, she was on many prescription pills but I didn't think it was a big deal. We lived together for 3 years and at the end she turned into a full on alcoholic/drug abuser. I left her at the end because she refused to get help and she blamed me for help addiction. We were split up for 3 years because I completely broke contact with her.
Recently she found a way to contact me and she told me she was 100% better and wasn't taking anything and she broke up with the guy she was seeing. We dated for a little over 2 months and it was like the first time, I bought her things and took care of her. A few weeks ago her Ex boyfriend confronted me when I was driving her home and said he was seeing her and had proof to back it up.
I broke up with her, as not only was she seeing this guy but she was telling him she loved him and stuff so she could get Xanax, alcohol from him.
She is now texting me about how I can come and save her and take her to rehab. I want to help her but I am just not sure I can.
If I take her to rehab nothing is stopping her from calling that guy, she could even call her own mom to bring her a pill.
Am I being stupid here? I love her very much but I just don't know what to do. She really hurt me by sleeping with another guy, and who knows if she is sleeping with more than him. It's all terrible.
Of course, she blames me for her addiction still and doesn't take responsibility for her own actions.
Hi Marsaray Welcome Your story is very familiar You are not alone. Interacting with the disease of alcoholism or addiction is extremely confusing and unsettling.
Al-Anon is a recovery program for members who have lived with the disease, and I urge you to search out alanon face to face meetings. Here you can receive the support and understanding you need in order to interact with this person.
Face to face meetings are held in most communities and the hot line number is in the white pages
Please keep coming back here as well
You should find a local meeting or two... keep trying meetings till you find one that fits. IT takes time but it will happen. Go even if it does not feel right... eventually it will.
You did not cause her addictions
You cannot control her addictions
You cannot cure her additions.
She is an adult. She can find her own way to rehab you cannot rescue or save her. If you take her to rehab, she may later on find a way to blame you.
You do have the right to set boundaries and say to her "I can't be with you while your addictions/alcoholism is active" and then let her find her way to sobriety while you find the way to serenity.
best of luck
__________________
-- ladybug
We come to love not by finding a perfect person, but by learning to see an imperfect person perfectly.
You should find a local meeting or two... keep trying meetings till you find one that fits. IT takes time but it will happen. Go even if it does not feel right... eventually it will.
You did not cause her addictions You cannot control her addictions You cannot cure her additions.
She is an adult. She can find her own way to rehab you cannot rescue or save her. If you take her to rehab, she may later on find a way to blame you.
You do have the right to set boundaries and say to her "I can't be with you while your addictions/alcoholism is active" and then let her find her way to sobriety while you find the way to serenity.
best of luck
Thank you both so much. It's been so difficult and easy to blame myself. I will absolutely go to meetings. Thank God for people like you.
We are all "stupid"at times when we are trying to manage a relationship with an addict. The emotional pain of being abused and manipulated becomes overwhelming and we end up making poor and self destructive decisions just to ease our own pain, and quite often that means enabling and coddling the addict in order to feel needed and loved by them. Well, that's how this disease plays out in me anyway.
I have come to understand that my A does not know that he has the intelligence, strength and ability to stand on his own 2 feet and take charge of his own life. He runs from person to person creating disasters and then being helpless and letting them bail him out. He currently lives with his brother who is enabling himself silly paying for A, buying him clothes and haircuts, driving him to job interviews and taking him to martial arts classes etc, he thinks he will be the one to save his brother. Little does he realise I tried all of that for years and years and you know, his whole family tell me how nasty and evil his previous girlfriends were but I suspect those "awful girls" tried every which way to help him too.
Anyway what I see now is a network of people...his mother, brothers and a long string of women who have done everything they could possibly do to coddle him and "help" him. Not me, not anymore. I do love him and I know that the best thing I can do for him is respect the fact that he is not a baby or a simpleton. He is a grown man who deserves to be respected and left to learn his own lessons. I don't help him by continuing in the illusion that he is an incapable and moronic baby that needs to be cared for. I also don't help him by feeding into his fantasy that I am to blame for his terrible choices!!
I would strongly encourage you to try al-anon meetings. They really helped me to break free of the cycle of enabling and rescuing my A partner. You cannot control what she does nor can you cure her of her addiction but you can stop the terrible toll it is taking on you and find support and tools to help you make decisions that are beneficial to both of you instead of simply playing by whatever rules her addiction sets.
__________________
If I had a world of my own, everything would be nonsense. Nothing would be what it is, because everything would be what it isn't. And contrary wise, what is, it wouldn't be. And what it wouldn't be, it would. You see? (Lewis Caroll)
I'm glad you plan on going to meetings. No, you're not being stupid here, not at all. You are experiencing the irrationality of dealing with an addict. In my experience it takes a long time for anon-addict to align themselves with how an addict might be thinking, and a whole lot longer to really take it for what it's worth, because we don't see it as a disease, we see it as some great irrational system that we will never understand. The thoughts of using people so we can get drugs or alcohol from them is incomprehensible to us, yet to an addict, it makes perfect sense, because the drive is to the next dose of whatever it is that gets them high.
And then we get the blame for not being able to help them. When I was your age, I hung around a lot with minor druggies, and I discovered once I looked back on it that they used to blame me for all kinds of things that really were just irrational and immature. We would discuss somewhere to meet and a time, and nobody show up for an hour later. They were all out looking to buy some dope, but it would be me that was uptight when I would complain that nobody ever met on time! I finally outgrew putting up with that kind of stuff, I knew my own mind well enough to know what I thought was important and what wasn't.
sorry you are having to go through this, but Al Anon can give you support to help you through this time. Keep coming back!
Hi Marsa - be kind to yourself. Falling in love with an addict inevitably leads to confusion and lies and game playing. It hurts. But, you can make better choices for yourself and find some real support and strength here. I'm glad you're here.
(((hugs))))