PARTNER WITH AN ADDICT (DRUGS, ALCOHOL, ETC.)

CAN A RELATIONSHIP WITH AN ADDICT (DRUGS, ALCOHOL, ETC.) WORK?

Storyline

I love my boyfriend very much, but he has a problem with drugs. I’ve asked him to stop, even threatened to leave many times, and he always promises he will change, but he never does. I don’t want to leave him, but I can’t live like this. What should I do?

You know what you should do. You should leave, if they couldn’t quit. When you are involved with a person who has an addiction, you are playing with fire and are sure to get burned. If your partner has an addiction, he is in love with something other than you—the alcohol, the drugs, etc. He is, in effect, cheating on you. You are in a love triangle. That substance is your rival—it will take his time, his attention, and his spirit away from you. You will end up hating it as much as you would hate another woman, or if you’re male, another man.

Here’s the second point: Loving an addict also means loving someone who is a slave—he is enslaved to drugs, alcohol, sexual addictions, gambling, or some activity that has become his master. He is not a free person. As you’ve already discovered, you will have a hard time getting an addict to admit he is a slave, because he secretly knows he is controlled by the activity or substance that is his master, and he will cover up that sense of impotence with denial. To admit he is addicted would mean admitting he has been powerless, a very frightening and humbling experience, yet crucial in recovery.

The third negative effect addictions have on your relationship is that they interfere with your partner’s ability to be intimate with you.

Addictive substances used regularly numb one’s ability to feel. This habit of emotional numbness will make it difficult for your partner to feel as much as you’d like him to. You will end up feeling very lonely in the relationship.

Relationships are difficult enough without knowingly getting involved with someone still enslaved by an addiction. Does that mean I don’t think the addicted person deserves to be loved? Of course not. It means that he or she needs to get into recovery, free himself of the addiction, and understand the pain beneath it before he’s capable of having a healthy relationship with anyone.

You’ve tried to get through to your boyfriend before, but try these steps one last time:

1. Tell your partner that you refuse to live with an addict any longer.

2. Tell him you will stay with him only if he agrees to get some help and takes action IMMEDIATELY.

3. Tell him that if he does not get help immediately, you are leaving and not coming back.

4. Stick to your word, and if your partner does not get immediate help, do not give him another chance. LEAVE.

5. DO NOT RETURN unless your partner is clean and sober, involved in a recovery program, and shows very significant behavioral and attitudinal changes.

6. Take a look at your own co-dependency by getting involved with social services (philantrophic), or doing some work on healing your own patterns so you don’t attract another addicted personality into your life.