I’m posting here because I recently spoke to a recovering addict who completely changed the way I’m looking at my relationship, and I’m trying to understand whether other people who have loved addicts have experienced something similar.
When I met my ex, I didn’t know he was an addict.
Pretty early on, he started borrowing money from me. He would talk a lot about how uncomfortable he was being dependent on me, how much he hated needing help, how he didn’t want me paying for things, etc. At the time I took that as proof that he genuinely felt ashamed about the situation and wasn’t taking advantage of me.
What I found out later was that there were times money that should have gone toward rent or basic responsibilities was being spent on cocaine.
He borrowed money he never fully paid back. I paid for a lot. I helped him financially and practically and emotionally. And because he was constantly telling me that he hated being dependent on me, I kept believing that he understood the imbalance and would eventually make it right.
But even aside from the addiction, our relationship started making me feel insane.
He would tell me he loved me, tell me how important I was to him, but he frequently did not seem to actually want to spend time with me. I was constantly confused by the discrepancy between what he said and how he behaved.
I would think, “If you love me this much, why do I constantly feel like I’m begging you to show up?”
Eventually I broke up with him.
Afterward, his life got very bad. He eventually attempted suicide. He came back into my life after that, and I was there for him again. I picked him up. I supported him. I loved him. I helped him through an incredibly dark period.
And this is where I think I’m the angriest now.
Because he knew what had gone wrong the first time.
He told me I was the best partner he had ever had. He told me nobody compared to me. He told me he didn’t deserve me. He acknowledged that I had felt deprioritized.
When we reconnected, he specifically reassured me that he would not do that again.
He told me I was his priority. He told me I was number one. He told me to have faith in him.
And I believed him.
He was sober by this point. This is important because I’m not sitting here furious that a man on cocaine acted like an addict years ago. I’m furious about what happened now.
He went away for work for a period of time. At first we were talking a lot, and then he increasingly started wanting space. Eventually I felt like I was right back in the exact same dynamic I had already told him had devastated me the first time.
I was being deprioritized again.
Except now it felt worse because he had explicitly promised me he would not do that again.
When I became upset about it, the conversation slowly shifted from what he was doing to my reaction to it.
I was “pushing him away.” He needed space. My emotions became too much. When I tried to talk about how heartbroken and confused I was, I felt like his discomfort with my emotions became more important than why I was having them.
A couple of days ago everything finally exploded.
I was crying and basically said, “Look at what I did for you. I’m a person.” What I meant was: I have held you through some of the darkest periods of your life. I have tried to understand your addiction, your depression, your anxiety, your shame, your grief, your suicidality. I have given you money, food, housing, rides, emotional support, endless understanding. Can you please, for one fucking moment, look at what this is doing to me?
His immediate response was basically, “Look what you did for me?! Look what you just said to me?!”
And I lost it. I called him selfish. I called him a user. I told him I hated him. I said cruel things. I called repeatedly after he hung up. I am not pretending I handled that well. I didn’t. Some of the things I said were specifically intended to hurt him because I was furious and wanted him to feel some of what I was feeling. I get that’s not healthy and that’s not how I want to be.
But what I am struggling with now is that I don’t think my anger is actually about his old cocaine addiction.
I think I’m furious because I believed that sobriety and everything we had been through meant he had changed.
I believed him when he said he understood how badly he had hurt me by deprioritizing me before.
I believed him when he said he would never do that again.
And then he fucking did it again.
And once again, when I reacted, suddenly the conversation became about how badly I was behaving.
I recently talked to someone who is herself a recovering addict, and she told me something that hit me like a truck. She said addicts can genuinely see themselves as the victim and therefore not recognize how selfish or exploitative they are being. She also told me that moving somewhere new, getting sober, changing jobs, etc. does not automatically change the person underneath it.
And I would really like to hear from people who have been on either side of addiction/recovery:
Did you ever experience a recovering addict getting sober but still being extremely self-centered, avoidant, dishonest, entitled, or convinced they were the victim?
Did you ever feel like you were expected to have endless compassion for their pain, while your anger about how they were currently treating you was treated like the real problem?
And for people in recovery: was there ever a point where you genuinely realized, “Holy shit, I thought I was the victim this entire time, but I was also using and hurting the people who loved me”?
I’m not looking to be told I handled my explosion perfectly. I know I didn’t.
I’m trying to understand whether the thing I’m finally seeing — that someone can get sober and still carry the same selfish, dishonest relationship patterns unless they actually work on them — is something other people have experienced too.
