[anon369]

Hi all, not sure who to reach out to

My partner is currently addicted to coke. He’s had previous addictions to other substances that hes overcome. This addiction started in 2020 during the first lockdown. He said he would stop once he was back at work and I was under the impression he had (we don’t live together) but now I suspect he’s been using on and off ever since.

We’ve had an ‘intervention’ where I spoke to his family – he agreed to go to counselling and to try to quit. He went twice but missed the latest one because he feels like it doesn’t help. As we don’t live together its hard for me to pick up on the patterns of usage, so when I ask him I give him the benefit of the doubt when he says he hasn’t been using, otherwise he gets defensive. He usually comes clean on payday when he realises he has no money – this month he said he’d used every day.

Not sure what to do – I know my options are leave or stay and try to support him, but I don’t really know how. I’ve stopped lending him money, but my life is pretty much just worrying about what he’s doing when we’re not together, and doing things without him because he can’t afford do to anything. We’re planning on moving in together next year, and he says that will help him stop as he will be away from his dealers and usual triggers, but I’m worried he’ll just find new ways to do it. He also owes me a lot of money

I’m trying to understand his addiction better and reading up about it. I know I can’t force him to stop and that it needs to come from him, but I’m not really sure what that means for us. How else can I support him? He says he’s finding it hard to maintain relationships as its extra stress, so I wonder if I’m best to just leave him to it. I don’t want to be a burden, but I also can’t pretend that this is all fine

Any advice on how to move forward would be much appreciated!

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