Even going to score is part of the ritual
Watching a film with drug use in
Smells
Clothes they were wearing
Going past a road
Money/ a cash point they used to draw out scoring cash
Music
People
It can be the tiniest thing
There are so MANY tiny little triggers
It’s impossible to eliminate them all
If you have been up for hours and hours and mix in the strain your body is in from the high you are beyond knackered part of you begging for sleep but if someone put a bag in front of you you could not resist It would be the automatic choice above anything or anybody or any commitment/birthday/anniversary
They choose the drug over you every time EVERYTIME
No matter what damage it will cause
It’s not personal – it’s addiction – it’s not as simple as saying stop
Extinction in the brain takes a LONG time and I don’t think it ever goes
I have spoken to many addicts and no matter how bad some of their lives have become it becomes who they are
Some people are lawyers and spend their days in an office
Some people spend all night doing drugs and all day sleeping/seeking them
There is a community and a network they become part of
I have friends who are essentially homeless Sofa surf
I have another friend who is a bricky who after twenty years of being a functioning addict has now had a complete breakdown can’t leave the house
My brother in law had his own home/ business but got into coke and then heroin (started smoking it for the comedown and it became lead drug) started drinking to numb the comedowns died age 39 homeless
He denied all the time right to the end that he had a problem – he had it under control
People class my brother in law as the Stereotype drug addict
That’s why so many of us partners get confused when out partners function at some level
My husband hid his coke addiction and because he worked/functioned looked normal from every angle I had no suspicion or idea
Literally no idea – and I suppose because his brother was off the scale I never thought he would go that way Or destroy us and our life but he did because he is an addict and that is who he is and has been for twenty years
We HAD the most amazing life and Future together it’s so hard to accept that he put drugs before this again and again
But he did – it got completely out of control and he has been sectioned and is wandering around asking the doctors for coke – not how his family is – just for drugs that is his primary need and concern
I chose to break free and remember who I was and live again
I don’t have to lie or pretend anymore
I don’t go without because all the money is gone from the accounts
I am absolutely in love with life and no one is going to control or darken my life again
It has taken me nearly nine months to make sense of what was going on and come to terms with it and begin to move on
Some days I have been crippled with grief but they do get shorter and i snap out of them by then remembering something awful that happened
We all want our stories to be different
Our husband to be the one who chooses us over the drug for
That our love/relationship is stronger than the addiction
But it’s a romantic daydream
The reality is a living nightmare that will go on until we wake up and decide to retake control