I’m counting myself lucky as I haven’t encountered any abuse. Maybe because I’ve been cautious about trying not to be judgemental. It’s felt like it’s been a couple days of progress, at least. After he and I spoke Tuesday, a friend of his came over yesterday/this morning. She has used recreationally, and been through addiction recovery herself, plus is on the outside. So that external perspective also helped impress that his usage is raising alarm bells to people who don’t live with him, and who also do drugs. Which I thought helped. And she helped us hold a sort of mini-intervention – getting him to analyse what his drug use was like now, what feelings it might be covering up for, and what a desirable goal would look like. It all sounded so positive even going into his first online counseling session this evening.
He’s since made noises about walking back on those goals, about how he’s not sure they’re his goals or the goals he thought we wanted to hear. That might be cold feet after the counseling.
I do know he’s been into his dealer, and is now just gone out to get ket. Because it’s either that or feel like shit. i didn’t expect an overnight change, but this was a fast walk back. I’ll concede it’s at least been a few days since he last used, but that’s mostly down to lack of money.
Disappointing, but I’m going to take one small victory for myself. I didn’t walk with him to the cashpoint. I have made the decision that I won’t enable him financially, and I won’t enable him morally. I will help him with every step he takes towards recovery. But every step he takes in any other direction, he takes alone. It might help him, but if it doesn’t it at least helps me.