[jamesb]

Wow, Diz I’m really sorry you are going through this and we’ll done for finding this space and reaching out.

I always start my responses on here by making sure you know I’m not a professional so I can only give advise based on my own battle with addiction. I myself am a recovering cocaine addict who has been as low as it gets so try to explain now best I can how for me at least the truths behind addicts actions. Again I can only go off myself and not every addict is going to be the same as me but hopefully I can help.

 

Right let’s get into it.

Reading everything you said and all things considered I will start with that your husband loves you. He really does.

All of the things he has gone through losing access to his child etc have been traumatic to him and as he had previously been a user of cocaine when things got too much for him mentally having to deal with it he has turned to the one thing that for him takes emotional pain away. Cocaine. I always say cocaine is a drug. Paracetamol is a drug. If you have tooth pain, you take a drug (paracetamol) to take that pain away but it doesn’t deal with the root cause of the tooth pain like an infection. For emotional pain you take a drug (cocaine) to take the pain away but it doesn’t deal with the problem on just temporarily masks the hurting. But with cocaine, regular use and addiction bring with it so much more added pains and issues.

Another thing I always say is that an addict is 2 people. The real loving person they really are, and then the addict who is all these horrible things you mention. When an addict is in the trenches it’s like having someone else in the driving seat of your brain. You say and do things that normally they would never do because the little drug monster in the driving seat of their brain needs to survive and can only do so by making sure the person continues to use and feed the addiction. So…….. You and him split up and he moved out, now he isn’t living with you he is able to use freely without you around to “police” him. This is what the little monster wants because him being with you is going to restrict him being able to use and feeding that monster. So what does the monster do when on control of their brain. Hurl abuse at you, say these horrible things and tell you he wants to get divorced.

But deep down that’s not what he wants and when he is sober he is apologising and telling you he still loves you. Then when the addiction kicks in and starts to take control and he gives in to the craving and gets back on it, he is powerless to his actions and again the abuse comes.

That isn’te making excuses for him saying hurtful things because regardless it’s wrong to talk to you that way but I myself said things to my now ex partner that I am so ashamed of now and honestly I have no idea why I said them and wholeheartedly did not mean, but I still said them.

 

Right now, the reality is he probably needs you more now than ever but it’s like being in a 3 way relationship. You, him, cocaine. In order for him to be able to think clearly, and deal with the things he is going through with his daughter and ex he needs to be sober but that’s terrifying for him because sober he is on so much pain.

 

I don’t often say this but I feel like you showing him my response here may really help. He may not realise himself why he is acting this way as when I was where he is now I didn’t. It’s only now through recovery I can be this honest about it and understand why I behaved the same way he is now.

 

He is very lucky to have someone who loves him as much as you clearly do and even more lucky that you haven’t given up on him.

 

You and him as a team will be stronger and more able to battle the legal stuff around his daughter and ultimately start moving towards the life you both want together but taking the first step and dealing with the addition is going to be hard for him but with someone like you giving him love and support he will no doubt be strong enough to do it.

 

I hope this helps and please ask anything else I may have missed or you want to know.

 

Stay strong

 

James x

[jamesb]

Hi man, I hope you’re alright.

Honestly I wish I could give you a straight answer.

I was the same, I wasn’t at one point spending £200 a day on a 3.5 sniffing all day and going home, eating dinner and making an excuse to go back out and carry on sniffing. It was insane. I wanted so bad to quit but I couldn’t get past a few days. I did t know what was wrong with me because I genuinely wanted to stop more than anything when I was on it I’d spend hours looking at this forum or watching YouTube videos trying to find a solution.

I went to a few meetings and although I encourage everyone to try them, they wasn’t for me. I found I didn’t believe alot of the people in the room but honestly bro if you haven’t tried CA then please give that a go.

If I’m honest, I think I got to the point where my Mrs had left me, everyone else around me was buying houses settling down growing up and I was still trying to keep my head about water and getting on it every day and I just asked myself is this the life I want to live. Not seeing my daughter, not being respected by my friends. And I was able to slow right down. Then I realised the days I was off it where so much better than the days I was on it. I started to feel again, I had emotions and then one day I kind of said right well I’m only doing a 1.75 a week now on a Saturday and the rest of the week I’m good so why bother with the 1.75. of course it’s not that simple but I managed to be clean now for around 6months but this time I feel different, I feel like it was my choice and not me being force into it or pretending to do it because I had been caught out and secretly having no intention of quitting.

 

My advice mate, find your happiness outside of the gear. Give yourself a reason to fight the urge. It can be anything. The money, the health aspect, a relationship, anything but you need to have something to draw on when it gets tough because we both know after a few days how your head will think of nothing else other than getting on it.

If I can do it bro, you can too believe me I was a right mess and I’m not saying I’m a saint but I’m much better person than I was a year ago.

 

I’m always here if you want to chat mate but definitely look up your local ca meetings and if you have a close pal to talk to then try open up to them for some support too.

 

Stay strong man, you got this

 

James x

[jamesb]

Hi whiswalk, I’m sorry you’re dealing with this and I’m sorry for the loss of your son.

 

I’ll do my best to advice but as always I’m not a professional and I can only go on what I’ve been through with my own personal addiction but in your case I will actually base this response around someone I know who also suffers with cocaine addiction. This person is also adopted and by a fairly middle class wealthy family who before their son’s issues had no experience with cocaine addiction.

The reason I mention their wealth is because you said about your husband enabling him. I’m assuming you mean your son is able to convince your husband to give him money.

The fact you and your husband have adopted says to me that you are very loving and giving people. The reason you adopted I’m sure is because you ultimately wanted to give your son’s a good life. Being a giving person is a trait that will be deeply imbedded in a person and because of that, even though your husband may know deep down that giving him money is not the right thing to do. Being that kind of man he will find it hard to say no as he will pride himself on giving his son anything he needs. Your husband too, without experience of drugs may choose to block out the knowledge of the money is probably for drugs because he, to himself, is doing a good thing and helping his son. Accepting the idea it’s for drugs would almost be like accepting he “failed” as when he adopted a child he only had the intention of raising him on the way he sees as “right” and addiction was never part of that. Please let me tell you know, neither of your son’s addiction is your failing and is not on any way a reflection of the way you raised them or their upbringing with you.  But knowing there is always a way to obtain money for cocaine takes away the obstacle that alot of addicts face due to the high cost of it and he may play on your husband’s generosity to feed his use.

 

There is many studies that state addiction can be hereditary and being adopted I’m not sure how much about their parents.

That being said I believe addiction is more to do with situation like I often say.

I myself am 31 so am a similar age to your son so I can hopefully ask some relevant questions.

Firstly, what are his friends like? Often drug use starts with friends around late teens to early 20s but can unfortunately in some cases escalate where a person either uses the drug in a way to self medicate issues they may have or sometime if can be as simple as they like using and want to use more and more.

Knowing if he is in a group of “lads” who get “on it” all the time will help to see if it’s a lifestyle thing or something deeper.

 

There is the possibility though the addiction is linked to masking emotions. The guy, lost his brother and that is something that anyone would struggle to deal with. There is also the adoption side of it. Of course it isn’t any of my business but does he know he is adopted? Does he know his blood parents? Does he know why he ended up in adoption? All of these things may be weighing heavily on his mind and using cocaine is often a way of escaping emotional pain.

 

My advise is to speak to your husband firstly, maybe even show him this post and some of my other posts and let your husband realise the damage drop feeding him money could be causing.

Talk to your son and again show him some of my posts where I talk about all the heart break it caused me because I’m probably just like him, same age, “about it” and there’s not much about “getting on it” I don’t know about.

Let him know that you will support him but not his addiction.

Ask him what kind of life he wants to live because it may not of happend to him yet but slowly and surely cocaine will take everything from you and the fact you are so heart broken is saying he is already destroying your relationship with him.

 

I’m sure he is a great guy and please understand the way he treats your husband is more than likely the addiction and not him.

 

Ask him if he would be interested in attending CA as they have meetings locally all over the country and are the best thing he could ever do to start recovery.

 

Stay strong and feel free to ask my anything else I may have missed.

 

James x

[jamesb]

Hi Maddie

 

Firstly I’m sorry you’re going through this, I know that it must be hard for you especially not knowing how involved you should be getting right now but we’ll done on finding the forum and the fact you’re trying to educate yourself to better support your boyfriend and his family really speaks volumes.

Firstly, as always. I need to make it clear I am not a professional. I am only a guy who has suffered cocaine addiction himself to what I consider to be “as bad as it gets or very close to” meaning that I can share in my opinion the darkest truths of what addiction is like and what on my experiences an addicts thought process could be.

I will say though it sounds like your situation will require professional help for your boyfriend’s dad but I’ll do my best to give you something to start with.

 

Addiction, I believe is never a choice. No one decided to be an addict. But I do believe it is more often than not a by product of situation. Meaning situations in someone’s life leads them to become addicted. I saw alot. Paracetamol is a drug. If you have a headache you take a paracetamol. Cocaine is a drug. If you have emotional pain or trauma it works just like any prescription drug and takes your pain away. The same can be said for alcohol. If you have an infection in your tooth and only take pain killers, the pain will go for a short while but the infection is still there and the pain wil continue until you treat the route of the issue, much like how drugs and alcohol make the pain go away but the next day the issues are still there.

I believe drugs and alcohol are never the real issue with a person, just their coping mechanism (although they do create their own problems) and if you look past the addiction and treat the cause of why a person takes these things it will give them the best chance of overcoming their addiction.

I say this because I’m going to make some assumptions. Steve as we call him. What is his life like? To me it sounds like he lives alone. What is his relationship with his son’s like? Why did his marriage break down? It sounds to me that he has lost a great deal. Maybe when he was married he had reasons his alcohol consumption became an issue I don’t know but I’ll guess that that was a factor in the breakdown of his marriage. He now finds himself single and alone and continued to drink because it numbed him and it was his vice to deal with his emotional pain. Then he is told about the liver etc, knowing he can’t drink or shouldn’t he may of turned to cocaine as a substitute aswell as drinking smaller amounts because he still requires the need to numb his feelings. This man sounds to me like he is lonely and carries alot of issues he needs to resolve but like so many others it’s easier to mask the real issues with drink or drugs.

I do agree, a big intervention may seem patronising to him especially coming from people who don’t understand drink or drugs. There’s a huge division between the way these things are convinced by people who have never had an issue (and it seems like a huge thing to be doing cocaine) and those who are familiar with it (and see it as everyone does a bit of gear what’s the problem).

My advice to you is to be kind, non judgemental and gentle in your approach but ultimately allow your partner and his brother to take the lead but at the same time support your boyfriend and make sure he is not fooled by his dad who may try to brush it all off and play it down.

Like you are doing, try and educate yourself and your boyfriend as much as you can on addiction and use that knowledge to better understand what Steve is doing.

But the main thing I feel that needs to be addressed is the reason Steve is still using and drinking and what you all can do to help with that. Maybe it’s spending more time with him, if.his son is 22 he will be at an age where he is starting his own life and his dad may feel unimportant. As a man, imagine getting married, having children working hard for that “family life” but in your 40s or 50s ending up divorced, living alone and your children not needing you anymore. You’d have to ask yourself what your purpose is anymore!?

 

Do all you can to support your boyfriend and listen to him when he needs you too but also concentrate on your own health and make sure that you and your boyfriend know that you can only advise Steve because ultimately he is the one who needs to want to recover.

 

Please also seek professional opinions on this as I am not doctor but maybe your boyfriend speaking to the doctors at the hospital or their families GP may be an idea.

If nothing is done then I fear once he is back home the cycle with continue.

 

I hope what I said helps and is relevant. Sometimes when I start typing I go off topic but please feel free to ask anything more you want to know or need help with.

 

Stay strong and wish you and your boyfriend all the best

 

James x

 

[jamesb]

Hi Julia and whiswalk

Sorry I haven’t been on here the last few days, works been super busy so I apologise for not getting back to you. I will do tomorrow but just came on and saw a post I want to reply to. Please don’t take offence or feel that I value some people over others because I still find it crazy that people on here value my advice and I am massively grateful for that but this particular post is very close to home so I’m going to reply to that now before I get some sleep. Maybe some of my response may be relevant to you also I hope but for now, Stay strong and I’ll get back to you both tomorrow.

James x

[jamesb]

Hi mate, wow you’ve been through it recently.

Thank you and we’ll done for reaching out, things like this are so hard to deal with when you have little experience or knowledge of addiction and substance or alcohol abuse.

I’ll reply to you on the other thread where there is more participants who may also be able to offer support.

 

I have recently emailed adfam to highlight the issue people are facing with the werid way posts are being displayed so hopefully they will pick up on it soon.

I just got in from work so give me 20 mins and I’ll stick the kettle on and try respond the best I can to you.

James x

[jamesb]

Hi Tim, hope your good mate.

Actually that’s a great question and a good topic that I think is worth talking about.

I’ll be honest though, I don’t think I can give my opinion as strongly as I do on some other topics because I fall into the categorie of never would cheat, and not physically violent but If I’m honest I dont think there’s an addict out there that hasn’t at some point been verbally abusive to some extent at a point especially when for example trying to deflect guilt or blame when confronted and that includes me. I’ll give you my theories though.

The cheating thing, I think if we are honest, everyone has urges or fantasies or what ever you want to call it. I think that’s only natural as we are all human. For example you may fancy someone at work and think “I’d love to get with him/her” but would never act on it because you have strong morals and would never cheat but as we know with cocaine addiction alot of the time when using the drug causes a person to ignore their morals on order for them to be continuing on the first place. what that on mind I think it comes down to next is if you’re the kind of person who has it in them to cheat or not”. I think the cocaine can lower the resistance of a person’s morals but in order to actually go through with cheating surely they are prepared to take a harmless fantasy and turn it into reality. I do think people cheat when on cocaine who wouldn’t sober but those people wanted to cheat anyway but just couldn’t bring themselves to do it. I personally could never do it and no amount of gear (and believe me I used to get through it) would be able to sway me.

I think the same thing applies to physical violence. I don’t think doing cocaine makes a peaceful man violent. More that a person who would want to react to some things with violence but would resist due to their morals and conscience would be more likely to act in violence because the loss of those things when using.

 

Verbal abuse, obviously there are many forms of this but for me, I have said things to my partner that I can not believe have left my mouth when I was at my worst. Mostly when arguing and being confronted or questioned about drugs. I never meant any of the things I said and to be honest I don’t even know where they came from. It again comes back to the addition being in control of a person’s mind and body. The addict could never allow themselves to be the bad party so automatically as a defence mechanism the addiction takes control and fires back with abuse and sometimes disgusting things to hurt the person in front of them who is challenging them.

 

What’s your thoughts on it? Would like to know what everyone else thinks because this is a big topic when dealing with addiction

 

Stay strong everyone

 

James x

 

[jamesb]

<p style=”text-align: left;”>Hi mate, thank you for commenting and asking this. I must start by saying as I always do. I am not a professional and anything I say is just an opinion and I can’t tell you for sure what the truth Is but only offer my assumption and of course I do not know your partner so this will be solely based on my own personal experience.</p>
 

This is a really hard one to answer because there is so many variables to consider but this is actually very close to home so I’ll go with the assumption your partner felt similarly to myself.

As an addict although it can consume your entire life it’s important to know that the person is still in there somewhere. What I mean by that is that the person you loved still existed with all of his good morals and loving nature along side the addict part of himself that was destructive.

An addict will hold on to the part of themselves that is still “good” with everything they can because to admit to themselves how bad things have gotten can be terrifying.

The fact your partner admitted on a few occasions he relapsed means that he is fully aware that you know the situation and you are monitoring it. I had spells when I was really low and I wanted to tell my partner absolutely everything in the hope that it would in a way force recovery but then within 24 hours that would pass and I’d want to hide or down play the addiction as much as possible again in order to be able to continue.

 

Imagine you are him, he genuinely loves you. The “honest” part of him wants to be the man he promised you he would be and give you all the things he said he would just like the house / mortgage you mentioned and all the happy ending stuff we all aspire to. He knows he is capable of it but he just needs to keep himself off the gear so he can do that. It’s is a dream to him. An ideal. Something he longs for and really wants more than anything because to him that life with a nice house, no drugs etc would be amazing and free.

But the unfortunate truth is that it really isn’t that simple. The cravings start and that voice that starts so small begins to speak to him and tell him he wants to get on it. He may tell himself “only a little bit, I’ll still save x amount of money” or “I’ll do it tonight then don’t for the rest of the month” and there comes the addiction taking control of his ability to control himself and he gets on it. Once that starts all rationalisation goes out the window and he may find himself in the middle of a full blown relapse having spent all his money, having let you down and back to square one.

 

When the next day you ask him if everything is okay and he tells you it is and that it’s under control. They won’t be be lying to you. It’s actually him lying to himself trying to convince himself he can somehow make things okay Because the last thing he wants to do is let you down because he genuinely meant he wants to do these things with you and can’t bring himself to acknowledge that he has messed up again. The changes to his brain and way of thinking due to addiction won’t allow him to process the guilt and the shame because that would start to build a case for him to stop his habit and addiction once it has you will not want to let you go.

 

So I guess what I’m saying is, he more than likely wasn’t lying to you about his want and desire to commit to the mortgage and other life choices with you but as he didn’t have control of his addiction he was unable to fulfill his promises and that you may look like empty promises or lies.

Until he really has control of the addiction he will not be in a position to commit to anything because when the addiction is on control he really is not even in the pilot seat of his own mind and body. He will do things, say things and act in ways that he never would sober and that isn’t because he is a bad person or that he thinks it’s okay. It’s because he at times isn’t able to stop himself.

The sad thing is that after the binge or heavy night he will eventually wake up again and be himself and when he comes back around to reality he is left to deal with the destruction the addicted him has caused and it will always be easier to try and convince you he is okay than to admit things as the person who did those things isn’t the same man he believes he is. The addict him and the real him are so contrasting that he could never admit that he did those things.

 

I hope that make sense on some way and please feel free to ask more if I’ve not answered everything you want to know.

 

The last thing I would say and this is general advice if you are getting as serious as to buying houses together etc is to try and find the route of his addiction. The reason why he uses and how for him it tipped over from the fun recreational use to the dark side he know faces. You also need to draw a line in the sand at some point and safeguard yourself by taking a stance of “I need you to really try with recovery or I need to move on”.

You clearly love him and want to commit your life and future to him with this mortgage etc but If he isn’t able or willing to do what he needs to do his side then it will never end well for you and you could end up wasting years of your life or huge amounts of your money on someone who won’t put the effort in for you.

 

Right I think I’ve said everything I wanted to. Again let me know if you have more questions.

 

Stay strong. And sending both him and you love.

James x

[jamesb]

Hey bro, hope you’re good.

Don’t worry man you’re not alone and I hope I don’t sound patronising when I say that luckily for.you you’re still at a stage alot of addicts would give their right arm to be…. At the stage where you can go months etc without out. Me myself am also a 30year old recovering cocaine addict but unfortunately my addiction gripped me alot harder to a point where I would use an unthinkable amount daily and I lost pretty much everything I cared about in life.

Less about me though.

Mate I feel for you because like you say got for a couple and after that 3/4th pint it’s game on and at that point you can’t stop yourself, there is alot of science behind that which I won’t bore you with but basically it comes down to a few things. Alcohol consumption lowers our ability to make good decisions and listen to our better Judgement and also it just comes down to the fact you know it’s an option. Like you go out have a few beers and yeah it’s great butmyih know what would make you feel alot better right…… It’s like going to a restaurant and knowing they do a really good stake but ordering a chicken breast. Why would you order the thing you know is less enjoyable right? So when you’re out having a few it’s like yeah I’m having fun but ordering a g will make this so much more enjoyable.

You don’t sound you’re at the stage where I would say to start associating the negatives of what comes with doing it at the time you want it as I don’t think you’ve gotten to the destructive stage luckily yet but you are at a stage where you are concerned enough to post here so unfortunately man I see the only way to go forward is to not drink. You can cover that up with a story of health or what ever else but drinking is always for you like it does me and so many others have a unbreakable connection to getting on the gear.

Maybe if you came back to drinking after a while like 6months or a year the enjoyment of a few pints may be enough on its own but if it’s now at the stage you can’t drink without getting one in, brother please take action now because it can so easily slip into an addiction like I battled. I was once at the stage you was and chose to ignore it and looking back I wish I had the strength at that time.you have shown now to speak up.

 

Hope that doesn’t seem too heavy though I’m not suggesting you’ll be like I was if you don’t listen to my advice aha just that youre in a good position now to nip it in the bud.

 

Good luck bro and keep in touch if you need support I’m on here alot. Feel free to read some of my posts if you need to scare yourself off getting on it aha

 

Stay strong

James x

 

 

[jamesb]

Hi Lottie, I hope youre okay and I’m so sorry you’re going through this.

I felt the need to reply to this, mainly because I at one point behaved like your husband.

I was a cocaine addict and without going into to far into my personal relationship details, I used to blame my partner alot for use. Not entirely but for example, she would question me on something, I would kick off and say have I not proved to you I am trying to change, I’d say I needed to leave to calm down and go for a drive but infact i wanted to get out the house to have a nose. I’m not saying this is what your partner is doing but as an addict I found it hard to accept the 2 parts of me. Because withouty addiction, I considered myself a good person. Loving caring would do anything for anyone, so I had a hard time accepting I was doing wrong. Addiction is clever because it will cause you to manipulate the way you think and your outlook so to me, I was never the problem, “I want to stop but I can’t because she’s on my case all the time”.  “If she would just stop questioning me or thinking I’m lying then we wouldn’t argue and I’d want to be at home and not out sniffing”.

 

The thing is, I took an amazing loving girl and through my lies, secretiveness and addiction I drove her insane, turned her into someone who was cold to me unable to believe anything I said and when I eventually came down from the high and was craving love and affection I couldn’t understand why she was so cold or angry or suspicious so I’d twist it around and blame her for not loving me or being there for me.

 

The truth is that addiction has nothing to do with anyone else other than the person using. It’s their own way of dealing with life and the choice they make. I’m not saying its an addicts fault they are addicted that isn’t the case at all but what I’m saying is that your husband’s use has absolutely nothing to do with you so please do not feel responsible.

 

My advice to you would be to withdraw yourself from the situation.

As hard as it is, try to emotionaly withdraw. Ask yourself are these people who are telling me to not raise my voice worried about your mental health and wellbeing considering all I’ve been out through?

 

Don’t allow yourself to be a scapegoat because believe me an addict will blame anyone other than themselves.

 

When I got clean the hardest thing I have had to face is trying to get my still ex (we are still very close but not actually together) partner to understand that all the things I did where never intended to hurt her. Trying to make her understand that I always loved her no matter how much my actions said the opposite. Although I stood there and said to her looking in her eyes that she was a massive contributing factor to my addicting that infact it never was anything she did at all.

 

I’m sorry you’re going through this, I feel sick thinking of the hurt felt by partners of addicts.

 

Feel free to come back to me if you have any questions.

 

Sending love and strength

 

James x

 

[jamesb]

Hi bud, I hope you’re doing okay. Again firstly congratulations on one month without drinking that’s huge.

Now I’m no expert or professional but I’ve suffered with addiction for many years and have spent alot of time researching the science behind it and trying better to understand my and others actions so hopefully what I’m about to say will make some sort of sense….

Now reading your post, to me I don’t feel alcohol is the real problem.
When you was at uni and drinking you was young, when we are young we are easily impressionable. What I mean is, at the start you believed you enjoyed the drinking and partying because that’s what everyone else was doing. Towards the end when you started to feel like you didn’t enjoy that maybe was because you was maturing and you realised that you, within yourself do not get pleasure from going out on large groups drinking all night partying and that’s absolutely fine alot of people don’t enjoy that.

Then at a guess, you maybe didn’t find your enjoyment. Some people may find enjoyment from reading, or sports or what ever it may be. You knew you didn’t enjoy going out partying but unfortunately you hadn’t found that thing that brought fun / enjoyment into your life.
As a default, you remembered that you used to enjoy yourself drinking but not partying, so you began to drink, but without the social aspect of it.
Again nothing truly wrong with this.

What I feel you are lacking is enjoyment. Addiction is very closely linked to dopamine, the chemical that the brain releases to tell us we enjoy something. Alcohol and drugs trick our brain into releasing this chemical so we believe we are having a good time which is why addicts return to their substance.

I don’t know much about your life in terms of family partner etc but to me the friends you find exhausting to engage with may just be not the right friends, the topics they talk about may not be what you find interesting which is contributing to why you’re not so keen to engage with them.

I’d say it may be worth while thinking to yourself, “what are my actual interests?” What ever they may be, how silly that they might sound or how out of character they may be for you and take the plunge and explore them. It may be dancing, painting, chess absolutely anything but as a human being there will be something that you can find that you enjoy and when you pursue that thing your body will maybe for the first time in a long time produce natural dopamine.

Give yourself praise for the small things, the fact you was able to identify you wanted to stop drinking and have been able to do so is something you should be so proud of and that alone takes so much self control and strength. Use that strength to find what makes you “you” and hopefully the low opinion of yourself will with the right people around you start to change.

I’m a fan of you bro and I’ve never even met you just based on your post.

Come back to me if you want to chat bro and I hope that what I said isn’t offensive or anything just trying to help.

Have a good one bro and keep strong

James x

[jamesb]

“for better or for worse, in sickness and in health”

Those are vows made when 2 people are married.

You mentioned you are aware he suffers with mental health issues anxiety etc.

I’m sorry if I come across rude, I promise you it is not my intention. I have tried my best to help countless people on this forum. But as an ex addict myself it’s hard to see how you never once mentioned trying to help him.

Your husband is clearly struggling with something that is leading him to resort to smoking weed again. Before you worry about what people will think about you if they found out, please remember that man is your husband and I’m sure a decent man regardless of his previous demons.

My advice to you would be ask him what’s going on with him and try to support him in any way you can.

 

The reason addiction often gets to the point that men don’t see a way out and some times resort to ending it all is because they feel they can’t talk honestly. He has come to you and opened up, that’s huge so please don’t shut him out.

 

I wish you both all the strength needed to get through this and if you ever need any more advice or support we are all here for you.

 

Take care

James x

 

 

 

 

[jamesb]

You are clearly an incredible woman and partner. Reading your post was hard because i know I behaved the same way your boyfriend is now and i would give anything to be able to go back and do over. Take the chances she gave me to change, take her offers of support and not see it as her trying to controlling me.

I’ve taken a break from posting on here recently for my own reasons but I couldn’t scroll past. I will however try to keep it short.

Your boyfriend’s relationship with cocaine will either be majority “lad lead” ie he started doing a little, now he is gripped and addicted to the feeling and has fallen victim to the point where the addict inside of him whispering in his ear is manipulating him to rid his life of anything that stands between him and cocaine. Or it will be using it to mask a deeper issue as cocaine is the most powerful tool to block out emotional distress. Either way he is clearly in deep and the drug is in control.

Ask your boyfriend to read some of my old posts. Show him my guilt and my shame and show him that there is nothing glamorous about cocaine. It will isolate you from everyone who loves you, it will take away your career, your friends, your money, your health until you find yourself at a point where you are longing to be back to the person you can barely remember you was when you was making all the decisions he is now and wishing he could change them.

My heart bleeds for him, as it does for you too. He is so lucky to have someone who cares about him the way you do. I hope he can see what he has before it’s too late.

Stay strong and no matter what make sure you take care of yourself too.

James x

[jamesb]

Hey bro, I hope you don’t mind but I was hoping you’d could help me out a little? Obviously I know every relationship is different but one of the things I struggle with most now even now I am sober is the destruction I left behind and ultimately that my partner left me and I only get to see my daughter at weekends. I selfishly think that now I’m not doing bad things or lying etc that I should be forgiven and all should be forgotten but she has made it clear that she doesn’t think she could ever be in a relationship with me again after the things I did. I never cheated or did anything seedy. What I did do however, was hide my money or how much I was earning, lie about where I was or said I was working late all the time or make up elaborate stories as to why I wasn’t home.

I was wondering how you and your partner began to take steps towards being a couple again and if the prior addiction and behaviour still effects your relationship now?

Hope you don’t mind as that I guess is quite personal to ask so please don’t feel you have to answer.

Thanks again pal, keep fighting the good fight

James x

[jamesb]

I haven’t been on here in the last few days, been struggling myself with keeping away from it, it’s been the anniversary of the passing of my parents and I also lost my nan recently and as much as coming on here gives me strength, the topic is still based around the poison that that thing inside me craves.

I am so glad I did log on and read this. You have reminded me that I’m not alone, there’s people out there who are going through the same thing and there are people like you who I can although I don’t know you, can look to for inspiration.

Congratulations brother and I really hope you get all the love and success you deserve in life. What you have achieved is harder than anyone knows who hasn’t been through it.

Thank you man I needed to read this.

Sending love and gratitude

James x

[Author]

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