Hi James,
Thank you so much for offering to share your experiences on here.
I have been with my partner for 3 years and I found out he was addicted to cocaine a year ago. I only found out because my mum told me he had sent her sexual and pornographic messages and when I confronted him he admitted he was addicted and blamed the cocaine (and alcohol) use because at the time he thought it was funny. I was devastated and humiliated and it has made my relationship with my mum really uncomfortable too. I still can’t understand how a drug could make him think it would be funny to do something like that and how he could do it to me. It’s made me paranoid that he has some perverted interest in my mum too. I know everyone acts differently using cocaine but could it ever explain him doing something like that?
When I confronted him and said I was leaving him, he broke down, begged me to stay and told me he was suicidal and wanted help. I love him and I want to help him so I stayed, hoping that things would change and over the last year there have been some positive changes. He was struggling with alcoholism and has now almost given up drinking altogether and he says his cocaine use is much less than it was. He has given up smoking and also joined a gym and he is having a much healthier life style and diet. But I know he still relapses and uses cocaine (as recently as Friday night). He says that it’s months since the last time, but I can’t believe anything he says now and I never know whether it’s the truth or just another lie.
I know some people will think I should have left him last year when I found out about the messages he sent to my mum and I wanted to. But I do love him and the thought of not being with him breaks my heart. We have two children together (both from previous relationships) and they have developed a bond and become a family. I don’t want to tear their lives apart either.
After the last argument on Friday night when he came home at 4 in the morning after going from the pub to “a randoms” house to continue drinking and using, he said he will go to counselling when I said I was leaving. He says he hates his life and the control cocaine has over it and he wants to stop but he doesn’t know how. He said it needs to be couples counselling as he will just lie to them otherwise if he goes on his own. Last year he started seeing a counsellor but would just tell them that everything was fine and he eventually stopped going. Do you think it could help at all if we go together?
I guess I am just trying to work out whether there is any hope for us and our family or if I’m just deluding myself over and over again because I don’t want to lose him and our family?
Thank you so much,
Lavinia x