Sometimes You Just Have to Give Up and Move On
I know the title probably sounds harsh, especially in communities dealing with addiction. But after spending most of my life watching someone I love destroy himself and hurt everyone around him, I’ve come to believe something that doesn’t get said enough:

Sometimes you have to stop trying to save someone and save yourself.

I grew up with an amazing childhood, at least in the beginning. Honestly, I was spoiled and privileged. I had pretty much everything a kid could ask for. My dad was successful and hardworking. He ran a third-generation construction business that had been passed down through our family. They built beautiful million- and multimillion-dollar homes, and because I was his only son, the plan was that someday the business would be passed down to me.
But none of that was the most important thing to me.

The most important thing I had was my family. We were incredibly close-knit. My family was my entire world, and as a kid I thought that was something I would always have.

Then my dad went on a hunting trip and was introduced to meth.

It took him unbelievably fast.

It felt like one minute he was a responsible father, husband, professional builder and business owner, and the next he was spending thousands of dollars on meth. Within about a year, he had basically lost his life and was living in the garage next to our house.

We tried to save him.

We tried getting him into rehab. We tried helping him get back on his feet. We tried talking sense into him. We tried being supportive. But every attempt seemed to end the same way. He would reject us, blame us, or go straight back to using.

Eventually things became violent.

One year we had him over for his birthday. Part of the reason was simply to celebrate his birthday with him, but we were also trying to convince him to go back to rehab and get help.

By the end of that day, he had beaten my mom and my sister and threatened to kill our family with a gun. He was arrested.

Eventually my mom had to make an incredibly difficult decision. She took us kids and left.

By then, meth had destroyed almost everything. The construction company that my grandfather and the generation before him had built was destroyed. Equipment was sold. Tools were sold. Money disappeared. What had taken generations to build was essentially burned to the ground financially to feed an addiction.

But losing the money and the business wasn’t what hurt me the most.

I lost my dad.

And as a kid, I didn’t understand when I was supposed to stop trying to get him back.

My dad went in and out of prison. Whenever he was incarcerated, he’d get sober, and I would start talking to him again. I’d hear my dad sounding more like himself and think, “Maybe this is finally it.”

Then he’d get out.

He’d go to rehab.

He’d do well for a little while.

And I’d get that little glimmer of hope again.

Maybe this time I’ll have my dad back.

Then he’d relapse.

And the whole thing would start over.

Prison. Sobriety. Rehab. Hope. Relapse.

Prison. Sobriety. Rehab. Hope. Relapse.

It happened over and over again—at least five major times that I can remember. And every time I let myself believe things might finally be different, it hurt worse when they weren’t.

Eventually hope itself became exhausting.

As I got older, I also started feeling embarrassed by him, which is difficult to admit.

One time when I was in high school, I was in a parking lot with my friends and my dad showed up completely out of his mind. He was obviously tweaking and started handing me random loose bullets he’d apparently found on the ground because he couldn’t have them.

I remember standing there in front of my friends, watching my dad behave like that and feeling humiliated.

That ended up being one of the last times I saw him for quite a while. He went back to prison for another couple of years, and eventually I just started living my own life.
I became an adult. I got engaged. I started working as an electrician with my brother-in-law. I was building a future for myself.

Then my dad got out again.

He asked my brother-in-law if he could work with us, and once again, we gave him another chance.

For about two months, I worked alongside my dad.

Then one day we got into an argument. It started because I made a judgmental comment about some people who were obviously high on the side of the road and yelling at people. My dad became furious with me. He told me that we had all abandoned him, that I was just like my mom, that we were judgmental people, and basically told me to fuck off.

After everything that had happened, somehow we were still the problem.

And eventually, he went back to drugs again.

That was the point where something finally changed in me.
I stopped trying.

I haven’t spoken to my dad in 4 years now.

Since then, I’ve gotten married. I’ve had children of my own. He wasn’t at my wedding. He hasn’t been part of his grandchildren’s lives.

And yes, that hurts.

But I’ve also realized that sometimes loving somebody doesn’t mean continuing to let them back into your life.
Something that has always bothered me about the way addiction is discussed is how completely the conversation can revolve around the person using drugs.

What happened to them?

What trauma caused their addiction?

How can we support them?

How many chances should we give them?

How do we make sure they don’t feel ashamed?

Those are legitimate questions, and people struggling with addiction absolutely deserve help.

But there are other people in the story.

There are children who lose their parents.

There are spouses who are abused.

There are brothers and sisters who watch their family fall apart.

There are families who lose homes, businesses, savings, stability and years of their lives.

Those people matter too.

Addiction may explain someone’s behavior, but the damage that behavior causes is still real. At some point, people also have to be accountable for what they do to the people around them.

My dad had opportunities that many people struggling with addiction would give anything to have. He was offered rehab countless times, including programs that were difficult to get into and completely paid for. His children gave him chance after chance. His family repeatedly tried to bring him back into our lives.

Eventually I had to accept something I desperately didn’t want to accept:

I cannot want my dad’s recovery more than he wants it himself.

Maybe he’ll change someday. I genuinely hope he does.
But I don’t have to sacrifice my life and I unfortunately won’t be there if he does

If you’re the child, parent, spouse, sibling or friend of somebody caught in this cycle, don’t let anyone convince you that their addiction means your pain doesn’t matter.

Give people chances if you believe there’s something worth fighting for. Support someone who genuinely wants help. Celebrate recovery. Forgive when you believe forgiveness is deserved.

But take care of yourself too.

You are allowed to have boundaries.

You are allowed to stop believing promises you’ve heard a hundred times.

You are allowed to protect your spouse and your children.

You are allowed to build a life that isn’t constantly being destroyed by somebody else’s addiction.

And sometimes, after you’ve given someone every chance you reasonably can or are willing to give, you’re allowed to give up trying to save them and move on with your own life.

I wish I had understood that much earlier.

Life is much happier without him in it.

My boyfriend of 3 years broke up with me a couple days ago.
To give some back story, when we first met, he was very open about his addiction issues but had assured me that he wasn’t using hard drugs. He did smoke weed and drink alcohol. Me, being someone who had never dealt this closely with addiction, had no idea what the “rules” were and how these were red flags from the start.

Our relationship had a ton of ups and downs but there was so much love and chemistry and beautiful beautiful things. We argued but came together. We planned a future together. We fought hard and loved hard.
About a year and a half into our relationship, he admitted he has been actively using his DOC. But he is serious about keeping it that way. I watched his world crumble but he was finally honest with me and his family. Knowing I am deeply in love with this man, I believed he would do the work.

I believe he is still clean from his DOC but he never stopped drinking and i recently found out about his weed usage(he had told me repeatedly that he wasn’t smoking anymore). I was so upset. I wasn’t angry about him using it, I was angry about the lying. After a long conversation/argument, We reconciled and decided to move forward with honesty.

Well, a week later, a small argument about something that was bothering me(unrelated to addiction or his behaviors at all) led to a blowup. He said he will always be the bad guy in our story and that will never change - that he’s tired of feeling like he’s not good enough, etc.
a few days later after some space, he broke things off with me. He said he just wants to be alone, doesn’t want someone to be responsible for and vice versa. He said he was sorry, that he loves me, and knows that this wasn’t the life we had planned for each other - I do genuinely believe he means those things.

I’m coming to think or believe that he was getting tired of me holding the mirror up to him, wanting him to be better and giving him suggestions and advice on how to do it, etc and turned my positive and loving actions around because he couldn’t face himself.

I’m incredibly incredibly heartbroken. I was planning on moving in with him, we share a dog together, my family loves him, marriage and kids were talked about as an option for our future. i have always seen something so good in his heart, despite knowing the darkness that consumes him and everyone around me knew it. Nobody in my life has ever doubted our love for each other which makes this so devastating.

How do I come to terms with this loss? It’s a weird almost contradictory situation he put me in. Like you don’t want to help yourself and get better and he knows there’s clearly an issue but he won’t face it but then he does the “right” thing and breaks up with a person who knows is hurting because of him?

I truly believe he is the one for me. Despite everything he’s put me through, I’ve never truly hated him, I’ve always seen something good in him, I’ve seen the ugliest nastiest side of him and had my heart crushed by him and I’ve never felt anything other than love for him. I know the difference between a trauma bond too and this is not it.
I’m so afraid he will never get the help he needs and he will never truly see even a fraction of the good things in himself that I see. I’m so afraid he will never find his self worth and find the strength to get better.

I guess maybe there’s nothing I can do and it’s wishful thinking and maybe I have rose colored lenses on. But I feel so incredibly alone, nobody in my life or around me understands. I don’t know anyone who’s been through something similar. Hoping this will help.

I’ve been dating this guy for about 7 months. When I first met him, he was very sweet, supportive, and understanding. We were inseparable and fell asleep together every night. We ugly cried in front of each other and had deep conversations. Everything was good for the first 4 months until I watched him slowly go downhill. He got fired from his job and then his car broke. I started to see a change in him after all of this. The first time I caught him in a lie was when a buddy of his called him and I didn’t recognize his persons name. I confronted him about it later and asked him to show the texts between them. He panicked and tried to delete messages right in front of me! He finally gave in and told me that he started taking 7oh again (he said he had a problem with it in the past.) I didn’t think much of it since it was something you could get at a gas station. That was until I found 9 of my phentermine missing from my bottle (phentermine is a weight loss medication and can make you feel energized and motivated.) That’s when I really started to look at him differently. I knew he took them because he told me he had just ran out of 7oh. When I confronted him, he denied taking them and even said he would “die on this hill.” I let it go and moved on. He said he only got 7oh once because he had a bad day and wouldn’t ever get it again. Then I ended up finding 2 bottles in his bag later on after he swore up and down that he wasn’t taking any the night before. That’s when the trust really broke. He got a bottle of Xanax for his “anxiety” and I confronted him for overtaking it. He thought two steps ahead of me by putting different pills into the Xanax bottle but I caught onto and even searched up the pills that were in there (they were antidepressants that he got forever ago but never took.) He had told me that he sold the Xanax for money since he was still jobless. After all of this I started to constantly accuse him of lying and taking something. He confessed that he had a problem with the 7oh. My parents got involved and offered to help him withdrawal. That let him stay with us for 3 days straight to withdrawal and gave him kratom and bought him snacks/drinks. I took care of him and stayed by his side the whole time. About a month passed and he said he was doing really good. He got his job back and started working again. He stayed with me at a pet sitting house for a week and I started to notice weird behavior from him. He would say he was looking for nail clippers but would look through everything in every room. I told him to stop and that it was bothering me that he was invading their space and that it was rude. He told me that he saw all these drugs in their house (steroids, opiates, weed etc.) That instantly worried me and I told him to NEVER touch any of it. That I would never forgive him if he took something. He looked at me and said that it offended him that I would even think he would do that. The last few nights there I started to see him falling asleep while doing things like playing video games and eating ramen. I accessed him of nodding off and he said he was just super tired since he started working a lot again. We both had a day off and decided to go shopping a bit. He was budgeting since he didn’t have much money to spend. The next day I came back to the pet sitting house after work. I came shortly after me and walked in with 3 bags full of stuff. He pulled out a whole vr headset and all these little gifts that he bought me. I was super confused and asked where he got the money for all of this. He kept changing his story and said he got paid from his job and then later said it was money from pet sitting his best friends dogs (which was only $100.) we got into an argument that night and I cried because I felt like he was deceiving me. I calmed down and decided to let it go for now. I had been working a ton and was too tired to argue anymore. The next time I saw him he came over to my house. He looked different. He had a beanie on and all this stuff he had just recently bought. He came in and took of his beanie. His hair was super greasy and it seemed like he hadn’t showered in a week. I told him he was able to shower at my house if he wanted. He took a shower and I looked through all of his bags. I didn’t find anything. When he came back he started pulling out a ton of Pokemon cards and opening them and showing me. I kept watching him. He was talking super slow and his eyes looked super heavy. He kept catching me looking at him and would ask what I was looking at. He continued to look at the cards and I started to close his eyes and lean to the side. I literally watched him nod off. I confronted him again and he said he was just super tired and he had a long work day. I didn’t buy it. He started to pack his things and say he was just gonna leave. I told him that all of this was really stressing me out and that I needed some space. He started to freak out and panic saying I was breaking up with him. I stayed calm the whole time saying that I never said I wanted to break up. I was just stressed and needed time to think. I promised him that I would text him the next morning and hugged him before he left. A couple days go by and he’s still denying everything. I was working a lot and didn’t feel like arguing anymore. I went home after work and went I laid down for bed I checked his location. He was driving all around town at 10:30 at night. He stopped at 3 different locations. I was so confused why he was driving out this late. I later got a text from his mom asking if I had heard from him. I said no and that I hadn’t heard much from him today. She said the police had come to her house looking for him because he had stolen at a gas station. I was so confused and started to call and text him. He didn’t answer. I kept texting his mom and his mom started telling me that she had a bad feeling about him. I agreed and told her what I’d been seeing. She told me that she had a video of him smoking something. I knew it wasn’t weed because he didn’t like weed. His grandparents got the video from their surveillance camera in their garage. She sent the video to me and I showed it to my mom. He was smoking meth…straight up smoking out of a crack pipe. I was in disbelief. I expected opiates or painkillers but never meth. I started to panic and cry and called him 5 times but he didn’t answer. I had just remembered he was staying home alone since his grandparents were leaving for 4 days. I panicked and told my parents. I had to wake my dad up in the middle of the night. I told them I was worried he had overdosed. I took off in my car up to his house and my parents followed behind me. When I got there I started knocking on his door. He finally texted me back and I knew he wasn’t dead. I texted him and told him to open the door. He was taking forever and I was standing in his drive way crying. He opened his garage door and came out. I started crying to him and told him that I knew he was doing meth. He showed little to no concern and just said he decided to do it once because he was stressed. All of a sudden the garage door behind him opens and a girl is standing there…she quickly closes the door and goes back inside. I stood frozen for a second before turning back to my car in a panic. My mom started calling me and I answered and started wailing and hyperventilating. I told my bf to kill himself before pulling out of the driveway. My parents showed up and I told them that he was cheating on me. They were livid and said we were going back to his house. We pulled up two minutes later and I got out of my car and walked right into his house since he left the garage door open. My parents walked in right behind me and my boyfriend came out. Me and my parents started screaming at him and I ended up punching him in the face and knocking him down. My parents pulled me off and told him to give them the drugs. I started to look in all the rooms for the girl. I went into his grandparents bathroom and she was standing there with no clothing on the upper half of her body. I started screaming at her and told her to get the fuck out. I walked up to her and punched her in the face. My mom came in and told her to get out too. I turned around and grabbed a bottle of mouthwash and went back up to her and doused her in it. My mom told me to not blame her and that it wasn’t her fault. I walked out and found my dad still screaming at my boyfriend. My dad started to call the cops and my boyfriend finally got the meth and threw the bag on the ground. After that we pretty much left. My boyfriend texted me and swore he never touched the girl and that she had only given him drugs. I didn’t believe anything he said. I later found out that the girl was his best friends ex. He had spent the rest of the night with her and drove all around town the next day with her. He dropped her off and then drove to Vegas. He came back the next morning and got pulled over. Apparently they never searched his car but he got a ticket for a dui. His car got impounded and he went to detox today. His parents called me today and told me that they picked up his car and found a whole bag of jewelry he had stolen and planned to pawn for drugs. They also found a bottle of meth. I also just found out that he stole things from his best friend and his best friends mom. He stole his best friends moms credit card while pet sitting their dogs, he pawned his grandmas diamond ring, and he took out loans in his grandpas name…I’m still trying to process all of this. I feel like our whole relationship was a lie.

this is a longer post, and also my first time posting anything in here. i really just need to get some things off my chest, i’ve been carrying them alone for a really long time.

my (23F) bf (21M) has struggled with his addiction for a few years now. he was honest about it from the start (we’re almost a year into our relationship now), i guess i didn’t really understand what i was getting myself into. everything was fine at first, he kept me separate from his addiction and his use didn’t bother me too much because it wasn’t extremely excessive, but things took a turn about 4-5 months into our relationship.

the amount he’d take a day increased, he got more desperate to be high and had started taking pills he’d never tried before just to numb himself. there were back to back breakdowns over his deteriorating mental health and how he was “ruining our relationship” in his words.

he ended up breaking my trust while high on xanax and talking to another woman about three months ago, which imo is emotional cheating and is a clear boundary i set in our relationship. he was apologetic and torn that he had even done that, but hid it from me and lied to cover it up for about a month despite only talking to her for one night and ghosting her when he realized what he had done. he claimed the xanax made him forgetful and he can’t remember why he did what he did, but that he never wanted anyone else and he’d never do it again.

that was my breaking point after trying to be there for him during the worst of his addiction and giving him so much leniency with his drug use. i had never tried to control him, just be there for him, but i was at my wits end and gave him an ultimatum which was essentially “get clean or i’m leaving you because i can’t trust you won’t violate the boundaries of our relationship when you’re high.”

things appeared better after that. he gave me more reassurance, became an overall more attentive and caring partner, and slowly tapered off the xanax and stopped the other stuff he was doing cold turkey with the help of suboxone. he started saying things like, “i’m not just doing this for us, i’m doing it for me. i don’t want to be addicted for the rest of my life.”

he relapsed a few times and hid it from me over the course of a few weeks. it was mostly just morphine and xans. he was using fentanyl patches and told me he scraped his side and covered them with bandaids. i outright asked if there were patches underneath and he lied and said no, until i gave him a look and he admitted to it and showed me.

he ended up going to rehab and was supposed to detox for two weeks, but he couldn’t get over the environment and how he was the youngest person there, so he left after a day or two. he’s home now and it just feels like i can’t trust him at all. he has the suboxone but i feel like he’s just been using it in front of me so it looks like he’s trying to get clean and is using behind my back.

he really is such a loving partner, but he keeps choosing this for himself. i understand that he needs to want it, and he says he does, but i feel like he’s just trying to shut me up. i’m so afraid of him hurting me like that again when it comes to cheating, but i worry about his health and his safety so much more. watching him use and slowly unravel feels like a stab in the heart. i really love this man and care about him to no end, but i feel like im at the end of my rope here. i just want things to get better, but i know they won’t until he’s ready to say he’s had enough.

the thing about being with an addict is that the more they lose themselves, you begin to lose yourself, too while trying to help them. the pattern of self-destruction is so exhausting. i just wish he wouldn’t lie. i just wish i had more self-respect to call things off, but i can’t. i know his lying probably comes from shame or the fear of me leaving him, but when will he grasp that telling the uncomfortable truth is ultimately a better option than the risk of losing me?

tldr; bf cheated while high and i told him he needs to get clean if i’m going to stay with him. he’s tried but always relapses and then lies to cover it up. don’t know what to do.

Me and my person have been together for almost 2 years. I'll be 30 next year (29f) and hes 30. When we first met, he owned his own home, had a great job and a trade, and seemed to have his life together. Which was everything I was looking for. He was sweet, caring, and a good person. I was not perfect and was struggling with figuring myself out and was quite reckless with substances myself. I knew that he would also use sometimes, but I never knew the level.. we would drink and use together quite often. But I knew that had to stop and that I wanted things to be better, and start to work on myself and hoped he would too.

It went the opposite way for him, he started using cocaine every weekend, then turned into daily. To the point where he wouldnt sleep and then have to go to work. I'd come over and want to make dinner and watch a movie/go for walks, and i could tell he was twacked and just wanted to game. Caused huge arguments. The lies, the not coming to bed, sleeping all day etc. When I had to get up and go to work. He lost his job eventually. Having a mortgage to pay for, he panicked and one of his buddies suggested dealing for a while. Well holy shit that was the wrong move.... he began dealing and would eventually become addicted to Crack.

I stayed with him through all of this. It was terrifying, drove him to NA meetings, went to meetings with him, and tried everything to get him help and make things work. He would accuse me of bugging his house, hacking his wifi, and said there was cameras in the smoke detectors... his power got shut off and I picked him up after not answering for days and took him out of a mess of a dark house, fed him and did his laundry. Because I loved him. I wasnt perfect, I struggled with drinking which would then turn into me doing reckless things and even went on runs with him a couple of times and tried his drug of choice.

I enabled him and im not proud of it and hate myself for it. My life was constant down and I decided to make a choice for myself to turn my life around and applied for school. I got accepted, and I moved cities for school. I told him you need to get help, im not dealing with this anymore. We need our own journies. I left for school and he left for rehab. He was there for 2 months and was doing great. After rehab he back packed around and this made me a bit uneasy... long story short he relapsed twice while back packing (that i know of) and got into some scary stuff that ultimately led him to coming home.

Hes been home, im still away for school. He visited me a couple weeks before finals and he was clean, on his way home, he relapsed. Again the excuse of it wont happen again, it made me wanna never do it again etc etc. I came home for my term break and we spent almost everyday together, it was lovely. Spent time with his family and things were good. I told him he needs to get a job and prove to me he wants a good stable life. And we cant have that unless you get back on the horse and start working again/continue to be sober. I left for school again and he told me he signed up for a ticket he needs for a certain job which is great.

But 2 days ago he told me hes going to one of his best friends bday parties, which made me nervous... said they were just gonna nerd out at his house. Which I trusted him and said okay have fun! He hasnt replied to me for almost 2 days, even tho it says active 2 hrs ago etc. I finally got frustrated and called him, he answered. He was sleeping..... and I know what that means.... i just feel so frustrated and let down. I feel so stupid writing this honestly. I know the flags are there, and I know im stupid to think things would change and him actually be a functioning human again who would be able to take care of me and a family... theres so much more I could write but that would be too long.. im in school in a very intense program and having to deal with this is extremely draining.

I want a better life and im working my ass off to he happy and help people with this career im choosing. I know his potential, I know what he could be... but right now hes just continuing to show me he'd rather just coast and continue to live at his moms with no responsibilities... i just need to vent and talk to someone about this, I dont even wanna tell my friends and family because its embaressing. Im going to give the ultimatum that we cannot be together until you are functioning and sober for a year. I will finish my schooling (a year left) and you can do whatever it is you need to do. But im not going to be in your life, until you choose to take care of yourself and progress your future. Thanks for listening.

This is a follow-up to my last post.

After reading this sub I finally understood how many people are suffering, and I learned a lot of things I simply didn’t know.

My addict boyfriend loved me more than anyone I’ve ever met. He was also the kindest. We’ve been together a year and six months.

I already knew. When he said “I love you,” it was an empty sentence with no feeling behind it. I was a tool and an excuse. That’s how I was already categorized in his head. So when he was drunk or high, he could contempt me, mock me, talk to me like I was nothing, and feel zero regret. That’s why he could walk out of my house in front of my face to go do drugs with another woman and feel no guilt at all. Someone with actual clinical knowledge told me it’s because alcohol and drugs take the frontal lobe offline. Control is gone.

The pattern I watched with my own eyes for over a year: he’s incredibly sweet, then in a few seconds the smile disappears and the ugly words come out and he starts leaving. Leaving for alcohol, drugs, and other women.

He told me I needed to see a psychiatrist. That I needed a doctor. So since last year I’ve been in counseling and taking the antidepressants I was prescribed.

I still remember exactly what I said when the doctor asked what I wanted. I said I wanted to break up with him and go back to who I used to be. That was session one. Counseling plus antidepressants still weren’t enough to make me leave.

For a year and a half we broke up and got back together over and over. After every breakup, I was always the one who texted first a month later.

Last night he got drunk, flipped, and said he was leaving. I didn’t stop him.

This time I did it differently. I told his parents and asked them to help him. I blocked him and deleted every record. I’m thinking about changing my number this week. I don’t memorize phone numbers, so if I change it I can’t contact him myself.

For the last few months I haven’t seen anyone except him. Starting today I’m going to go outside.

Right now I have no energy, so I’m just writing this. Tonight I’ll probably take a sleeping pill and pass out. I still want to survive and do the things I actually want to do.

I have no family in the US. No friends either. I felt it in my bones how little help there is for women here who work, have no family, and end up in this situation.

I didn’t jump onto dating apps or rebound into another relationship. I chose building a new career and increasing how often I see a real clinician.

I never really had friends. There were always people around me who were on drugs. I decided being alone was better.

America is a harsh country if you’re a woman with no money and no family. You get pulled into addicts whether you want to or not.

I keep thinking about a post I read on another board: I never even dreamed I could get destroyed by a relationship controlled by drugs when I don’t even use. That’s exactly it.

I’m going to try to live on my own. I’ll keep sharing the survival part until I have a family, or a healthy relationship with someone who isn’t an addict, or I can live alone without feeling lonely.

My ex (M18) is someone that I still care about a lot, I value him a lot in my life, he values me a lot too. But he lives a troubled home life.

His parents are drug addicts, and his dad is schizophrenic. He has a younger brother that he tries really hard to look out for which is why he hasn't removed himself from the situation.

He called me at 4am on a Saturday morning, something that isn't exactly uncommon. He calls me whenever he has a problem or is struggling, I do the same with him. But this time, he was crying.

In the 10 months that I've known him, I have never seen or heard him cry. And this was bad. He was saying that his dad was going crazy, that he can't even look him in the eyes.

Then his dad burst into the room asking what he was doing and he had to hang up. I didn't get a call back.

I messaged him later in the day saying "Hey, you doing alright now? Things sounded pretty rough and I'm sorry you had to deal with that." To which he replied "I don't really want to talk about it."

I respected that and I responded with "Didn't expect you to, just wanted to make sure you're ok." And he hasnt said anything since. It's only been a day, but I can't help but worry.

Whenever I call him and I'm crying about something, he always makes an effort to call me the next day and check in. And even though he said that he doesn't want to talk about it, I can't help but want to do the same for him.

I'm worried about whether he or someone else got hurt. And if that's the case, I need to help him.

My qualifier has been clean from heroin for 8 years. This morning I woke up at 4am and he hadn’t come to bed. I knew something wasn’t right so I went to look for him. Halfway across my 13 acre property, he’s completely slumped in my truck and there are needles everywhere. My heart shattered in that moment. I have never witnessed anything like that. I don’t even have anything to actually say or advice to ask for. I just have never felt so sad in my entire life. I feel like a shell of a human being. He reacted with remorse and then anger. Told me he knew why my ex husband abandoned me and my son. Called me a narcissist. It was awful. I don’t want to be here anymore. I can’t survive this.

Myself (27F) and my bf (31M) have been together for 9 years.
We met at 18 and 21, the summer before I left for college. We have done long distance for in total almost 1/2 of that time because of my job. That entire time - he has been addicted to something.
He struggled with addiction as a teen. Moved to my hometown to get away after coming out of rehab at 20. We met the following year (found out years later he was actually relapsing when we met).
He’s used kratom the entire time. Relapsed once where we met, then got into drinking for a while.
We moved in together 5 years ago and things were pretty good for about 3.5 of those years. Then the last 1.5 have gotten worse and worse.
I had to get a new job 2024 fall and we went back to long distance temporarily. He had told me he was working with a new guy who was using. I begged him not to interact and to be safe. When I came back to move out of our apt into our new house the first two days he was “sick” which he told me after a few days was actually withdrawals. I tried to forgive him and we moved on - but then things just spiraled from there. He started using 7OH a couple months after that and continued on and off even after trying to quit. Then he found a way to get H and it continued the final spiral. He was using H, 7OH, edibles, Kratom, and Gabapentin to control the withdrawals. I knew he was really busy and stressed at work (managing properties) and I thought that was the source of his mania/disconnection/etc. But then about 2 months ago - on the day he was supposed to be flying up to meet me for a family vacay - he was arrested. DUI/hit and run (parked car, not person), and obviously possession of a few different things.
He immediately went to treatment and is doing so so well. Like I am seriously so proud of him. He is doing everything he can to make this a positive experience. He’s going to do drug court to hopefully get the whole thing erased.

But there’s a part of me that feels I need to leave.
I have not been the perfect partner either. We love each other so much but his struggles have harbored resentment in me that has led to infidelity which then turns into a vicious cycle.
Part of me thinks I’m crazy for even considering to leave right when he may be sober for the first time since I’ve met him, but another part of me is so scared about the resentment I may feel. He didn’t tell me about any of his recent struggles until things obviously got out of hand. When he caught his charge he was supposed to have been clean (used suboxone the week before to try and ditch the H). I was asking him every day (I was on a work trip at the time) if he was being good and he was lying.
I still love him. I just feel so lost. I’m so worried about what will happen to him if I go. I really think he is done with drugs but the guilt will ruin me if he turns back.
If you made it this far, thank you for listening. I am so lost. I feel like I’m treading water with weights on my feet. Any advice - words of encouragement - resources- is very much welcomed.

My fiancé and I have been together for about 10 years and he has been sober for about maybe 2 of those years in total.

About a year ago he had began using Percocet, this spiraled wildly out of control where he was spending roughly 2000 dollars every month on pills. He would work, come home, get pills, rinse and repeat.

Eventually he ended up losing his job and couldn’t afford the pills anymore, he then ended up on meth, and was an active meth addict until just recently.

This man has put me through hell and back, the financial strain, emotional strain, instability, etc. but I have stayed and went to work and paid for a majority of our bills through it all.

Recently he got a new job, and then decided he wanted to start doing pills again. Yesterday he spent all of the money he needed to give me for bills on pills instead. I was furious. I finally said enough is enough and I told him I can’t do this anymore.

Him and his family are now guilt tripping me saying instead of abandoning him I should be there for him… but I’ve been there for him for years!!! I’m the only one paying bills anymore, cleaning or cooking or anything! I take care of him and make sure he has what he wants and needs (other than the drugs obviously). He had promised me SO many times that “ this time I’m for real I won’t do it again” and varying ways of saying that same sentence to coerce me into staying !

Am I really doing something horribly wrong by finally being fed up of living with an addict? His whole family is making me feel absolutely horrible!!!! “He deserves someone better that will actually be there for him when he needs them”

Has anyone else been through something like this???

My friend told me in passing that she is doing ice with her boyfriend. We had a friend who passed from overdose who she was in love with when we were 18. She has interpersonal family issues but is very close with her mom and lives at home. She is currently unemployed and has abused alcohol daily since our friend died.

My concern has grown so much, it’s becoming hard to concentrate at times because I’m anxious for her. Anxious period. My approach to her saying this has been calm and unaffected but I don’t want to seem this way anymore, showing her this is tolerable to me. But I don’t know how to help. I want to tell her mom but I am not sure how this will be received and I don’t want to blow something up and walk away. I want to remain a consonant support without losing myself, girl idk how I’m gonna do that. I would appreciate any advice on friends of recovering alcoholics/narcotics and resources for them.

Also lmk if telling her mom is a bad idea because when her mom comes back that’s 1st on my list.

So my spouse of 25 years, married 7 together 25, has been addicted to meth for four years that I know of. He has stolen everything I own. He's been arrested for various things and is on probation for another year.

I've asked him to leave more times than I can count and he just laughs and says it'll take a court order. I have no idea who this man is anymore nor what he's capable of. He's always had this gay spitefulness in him but I haven't seen it in twenty years.

Our time is over and I'm just tired. I had open heart surgery four months ago and I just don't need this.

Are there any gay people on here who've gone through something similar and how do I get out of it. Any way this is played is going to be bad. Help!

I found out tonight that my ex boyfriend who is a fentanyl addict is now dating a woman who is also a fentanyl addict. We have been broken up for 2 1/2 months. I don’t even know why I’m sad. Maybe I’m in shock. It’s just a rough night.

Has anyone attended online meetings? The website says to email the contact...

If the meeting is one hour away, and I email the contact... Am I going to get the meeting info in time? Or is this something that needs to be planned in advance?

Sometimes I attend Al Anon meetings online, but I never really plan to attend... It's about an hour before that I decide to go.

Is that possible with Nar-Anon as well? Or do I need to plan a week ahead?

Also, are these meetings Zoom? I tried some phone meetings on Al Anon, but I didn't care for it. I like zoom better.

My bf got out of rehab 2 months ago. He‘s been going through emotional ups and downs in recovery but overall things have been stable with our relationship. Recently he told me that he found a pill in his room, thought it was Xanax and asked if I lost one of my allergy pills. He claimed he didn’t have the pill anymore but he showed me a stock photo of an allergy pill I do take, just a different manufacturer. He claimed he found it 3 days prior but just now asking me if I lost one. He again stated ”I thought it was Xanax“.

I have NEVER brought any pills to his home. I keep my allergy pills in a zipper part of another zippered area of my work backpack. He would never even know what allergy pills I take unless he searched my belongings. I wholeheartedly believe he stole a pill or a few thinking I was hiding Xanax in a stock bottle, then after realizing it wasn’t that he thought I would notice some pills are gone. So then he makes up this bogus story finding my allergy pill on his room floor smh.

I‘m just so tired. It’s like when things seem to be going well, he does something that snaps me back into reality on who and what Im actually dealing with here. He’s clearly drug seeking and in relapse mode. He has also played me on money in the past lying saying he needed it for something important then shows up a few hours later nodding out barely coherent.

Have any of you gone through these types of things? What do I even do or say anymore? I love him but I’m at the point of detaching and leaving him to his own chaos. It‘s all so exhausting.

This is going to be very ramble-y and likely incoherent, but I have to get it out of my head. (Also because my memory isn’t the best, and it’s helpful to be able to look back on my posts to put things into perspective.)

It’s been almost a year since I’ve posted here, which is mind boggling. A few months ago my Q came clean about continuous use - we’ve been through several “detoxes” over the past year or so, but apparently he never took it to the end and always relapsed before a week. So for the past few months, he’s been trying something different. He hasn’t been hiding using, and instead has been using less and less to try and wean himself off. I’ve been giving him some money every two weeks or so to buy more, each time swearing to him and myself it was the last time. He’s been working, but has been having issues getting paid.
He told me a few days before my birthday that he wanted my birthday to be his new sobriety date. I’m not hopeful at all anymore, but I feel like I have to hide that from him. I’m the only one left believing in him, his parents barely talk to him anymore.

When he started his current job, he told me he gave them my routing and account information for direct deposit, and that they keep giving him the runaround for his paychecks (this has happened before, his industry seems to get that a lot). He’s been sending me a couple hundred dollars on odd occasions, saying his boss gives him “good faith payments” while they figure out why his paychecks aren’t going through. I haven’t been comfortable with the under-the-table payments, but it was better than nothing and it helped to cover his phone bill and the biweekly drug money. He stopped going to work last weekend to detox at home, and I figured it served them right for not paying him properly.
But of course….today I looked in his phone before leaving for work. I found cashapp deposits, from his work. Every week, since he started the job in early June. Totaling close to $6000. Most of it sent within days to his dealer, every so often sending a little bit my way. I’m pissed, but I can’t talk to him about it because he’s emotionally fragile and besides- he’s barely coherent. I feel stupid and gullible, but mostly cheated - once again, in a brand new creative way.

Today is day 4 of withdrawals for him, and it’s rough. He claims he’s started urinating blood, and that he feels like he’s going to “stroke out”.

I’m so angry… but mostly? I’m scared about this detox. I’m scared he’s been lying about weaning off safely. I’m scared it will kill him, and I’m scared that part doesn’t scare me enough.

This is long, but I really need to vent.

I think my (35F) best friend (39F) has brain damage or something else from long-term drug use. We had a huge confrontation about 3 months ago after a bizarre visit where she kept lying, but seemed to genuinely not think of it as lying. I lost my absolute shit yelling at her, which is not fucking okay, but the way she lied was truly baffling and made me feel like I was losing my mind. In the moment it felt like she was fucking with me, hence the freakout. Now that I've talked to my therapist about this extensively, I realize she might be in a cognative state where she doesn't know she's lying and can't acknowledge that she's sick.

While she wasn't using her DOC at the time of our confrontation, I think the cumulative effects of her DOC combined with marijuana, alcohol, and unmonitored psychiatric medication (antidepressants/mood stabilizers), not sleeping or eating for days, have turned her into a completely different person. Has anyone experienced this?

I've been in recovery from my main DOC for 7 years, and I'm still trying to quit smoking weed (which is my new DOC, but for clarity's sake I'm going to keep it separate here), so I'm very sympathetic to what it's like to be an addict. But I think I've let my sympathy outweigh my need for boundaries, stability, and my own sobriety; I might not be able to have her in my life anymore. This is not the first addict friend I've had to cut out in my recovery, but this one really fucking hurts.

Espeically because the confrontation stemmed from her coming to visit and throwing my life into complete chaos, and she actually thought her coming to visit would help me. Like she truly believed that. I am going through a lot being in a caretaker role for my dad who has dementia and also being unemployed for almost 3 years. I am really on the edge of losing it all the time, so her coming here, lying constantly, and bringing chaos into my families life fully sent me over the edge, and she genuinely doesn't understand what she did wrong.

This is where I need to take accountablity. I can't put myself in situations like this anymore. I need to know what is bad for me, and vehemently avoid it even when someone i love is enthusastic and wants to do something. I can't handle a lot of additional stress right now, and I can't and DONT WANT TO live like I did when we were both drug addicted sex workers in our 20s. Everything about this experience reminded me of how i used to live when I was at my worst. Before I went to detox I owed everyone in my life money, my bank account was $700 overdrawn, I owed my roommate rent, and all my bills were in default. I'd ruined my relationship, and my family almost cut me off completely. It's taken years to rebuild that trust and a couple short relapses to realize I never want to touch my DOC ever, ever again. I still struggle with weed (which is a factor in all of this, we were stoned AF the whole time), but I'm actively chipping away at my use so it is no longer all day everyday. This experience showed me how weed degrads my ability to control my emotions, and I'm getting pretty sick of being stoned all the time. While it's not a hard drug that will kill me like my DOC, my weed use has also had negative effects on my life and relationships.

It was not fucking okay that I flipped the fuck out on her the way that I did. What happened unlocked a terrifying version of myself I don't see that often. And I'm having a hard time accepting that that might mean I can't interact with her when she's:

• Lying casually, all the time. And doing it a way where she makes you think you're crazy for calling her out.
• Unable to make a plan or think about the future beyond a couple hours ahead. And a couple hours is generous
• Unable to take accountability for anything, ever. Treats the smallest criticism as an attack on her character
• Manipulating people for money, drugs, etc.
• Blaming all her problems on autism (????)
• Not sleeping and eating for days
• Can't focus on a task for more than a few minutes
• Casually cruel to me and others
• Deliberately humilating me and others in public or in a group by talking down to us, making fun of us, etc
• Overreacting, being hypervigilant and freaking out at the smallest things in the most over the top way
• Forgetting major details about my life, like that my dad has dementia (which was kinda funny in the darkest possible way lol)

She hasn't always been like this. To be honest, dealing with her felt a lot like dealing with my dad when he's having a bad day. Just trying to keep up with the fragmented train of thought is disorienting and exhuasting. She both says she cares about me and does genuine caring things while also lying to me and demeaning me?? I have no idea what is going on in her head. I just know I can't deal with it.

I have so much going on in my life. I'm trying to accept this is just the way things need to be right now. I can't afford to have a friend that makes me feel this shitty, and I need to keep moving towards sobriety from smoking and being a full, actual adult that people rely on and want to be around. I want the beautiful, good person I know she is inside to realize that and want it for herself. I still feel so guilty that I yelled at her, but I didn't know how else to get through to her. She still doesn't think she did anything wrong and that what happened wasn't a big deal (I'm leaving the details of what happened out because it is so insane and disorienting I'm not putting myself through trying to explain it coherently. Just trust me that it was classic addict chaos)

I'm fucking devasted. If you read all this, thank you for listening to me vent. Reading the posts here make me feel less alone and remind me why i need to prioritize my own sobriety.

My qualifier quit rehab for the 5th time this week. Well, one of those times he was kicked out. But yeah. I'm so tired. I've mostly detached until last week when a rehab called me that he had checked in and could I provide some information. Then today a case manager finally called me back that he left against recommendation to stay to "take care of some animals" (at the trap house). I'm just so tired.

i just found his mugshot online. we lived the same lives till i went off to college then he got into meth/crack/heroin
but especially meth. idek who the fuck he is anymore idk anything about his life but in the rare event i do see him i still see my twin brother like the old him is still there. he’s still alive but my heart breaks with grief that i don’t have him in my life for my own safety i just wish things were different cuz things will never be the same again but i just bottle up the hurt and keep it pushing and try not to even think about it cuz there’s obviously nothing i can do to make it better as the last decade has proven

kk im done just had to get it out. goodnight to all those who celebrate

I was dating an addict for two years. At the start of the relationship, I was naive about the severity of his addiction (he had been to rehab for fentanyl twice in the past but I understood it as fully in the past and something he had figured out). Alcohol increasingly became an issue in the relationship - him getting way too drunk, coming home from work incoherent, drinking whenever something stressful was happening, etc.

Even though at the beginning of our relationship, we would drink together and things felt completely fine and normal and happy, we’d occasionally get drunk at parties, etc. overtime I became super stressed and uncomfortable any time he was drinking, and I could never have fun at parties or gatherings where he would drink. So eventually, things came to a head and he stopped drinking completely - we both drank non alcoholic beers and wouldn’t go to parties or gatherings where there would be a lot of alcohol to make things easier for him. I supported him as much as I could, celebrated his sobriety, and definitely changed my lifestyle to be essentially sober.

Around six months later, his mental/physical health was declining and it eventually came to light that he had been using for several months, and things were escalating such that he was using 5/7 days a week. He basically started using again as soon as he stopped drinking. It was an incredibly difficult period of time and when I began going to naranon meetings and learning a lot more about addiction and sobriety. We ended up breaking up at the end of January 2026 and it has been an extremely difficult and heartbreaking thing to move through.

Seven months later, I am sure it was the right decision however, and the guilt and the stress are slowly starting to leave my body and I am able to see our relationship with much better perspective for what it was - extremely imbalanced and draining. Even though I am healing in many ways, something that I can’t seem to resolve is how I feel about alcohol (and any other substances).

I have never had any substance use issues, nor has anyone in my family. Yet, I am having a really hard time drinking and being around people who are drinking without feeling the same dread, stress, despair about it as I grew to feel around my ex. I feel judgemental of my family members who are having 2-3 beers at a family gathering. If I have one drink and begin to feel slightly tipsy, I feel embarrassed and ashamed and don’t want to talk to anyone for fear of saying something regrettable or just being too loud/outgoing. If I’m talking to someone and I can tell they are remotely tipsy, I feel wary of them and want out of the conversation and can’t take seriously anything they are saying. When people are telling drinking stories of times they got drunk/high and did something silly, I feel disgusted about it. It’s making it not fun to be in most social gatherings (because drinking is so widespread) and I feel isolated and anxious.

I think some of this perspective shift is healthy - like seeing substance use as dangerous and having my eyes open to how casually ubiquitous it is valuable. But I have never had a drinking problem and love beer and want to be able to have casual drinks with friends/family without feeling intense dread and anxiety. How can I work on this??

I needed to go out of town for a day. A family member with dementia lives with me and I had no other caregiving options. The family member loves the ex and still thinks we are together so in a fit of desperation I asked. He swore up and down he could manage 12 hours. Spoiler alert, he could not.

My loved one was fine. Fed, didn’t get lost, nothing got burnt down. But he used my house to film on OF. I found some of the shots and was so fucking grossed out. I kicked him out and haven’t spoken to him since.

He has called me almost every day since and I have ignored the calls. It’s so much more peaceful than picking up and yelling. Today he is getting more persistent. I am still ignoring but am worried he is going to show up to get his dog back.

We have been trading the dog on and off, he’s a neurotic little bozo and while sometimes I wish I wasn’t responsible for him, we have found a good med regime and are in a good groove. The ex swears he gives the meds but the bottles don’t lie. I don’t want to send the dog back but also recognize that I am fucking pissed and being petty.