What I Learned from Being in an Addicted Relationship
After years of using and selling drugs, as well as being in a very abusive relationship. I made the decision in August 2016 to check into detox. I was in Boulder, Colorado for about 5-6 days and from there I moved into a co-ed sober-living facility. I was so excited about this new start and path to recovery. I had never been to a 12-step meeting or even tried coming off drugs prior to this. To my surprise, and adding to my excitement, I met a man the second day of my stay.
He was amazing. He is smart and handsome, but more importantly, he inspired me to embrace this recovery thing I had just opened my eyes to. We started texting and talking about recovery and contrary to the house rules, we fell very much in love. Having a covert relationship in a co-ed sober-living house was exciting, and very stimulating but the downside was that it interfered with our focus on our own recovery.
As much as he inspired me, I wasn’t focusing on myself and that almost guaranteed a relapse. 30 days later we were both asked to move out. We had both broken one of the most important house rules: “No fraternizing with anyone in the house.” Within an hour of our departure, we were in a seedy motel room and relapsed.
He was a severe alcoholic and I was an opiate junkie. After about a week this amazing relationship became completely dysfunctional. I bought some meth and told him that I couldn’t stand him anymore. I told him, “Here, get high.”
Sadly, that first hit of meth made him fall in love with drugs and our love was severely compromised. For the next year and a half, our relationship became a roller coaster. We would get high for months, then get clean for months. This went on until December 2017. We had gone down so badly, we were literally living on the streets. We would go to 12-Step meetings, live in homeless shelters, steal food when we were hungry, and, when things got crappy or too much to handle, we would get high and say “screw it” yet again.
One thing was for sure though—we were all we had. We were addicted to each other, with or without drugs. In early December 2017, we were staying in a run-down motel room getting high and, out of the blue, my mom sent me a text. She said, “You have 24 hours to make a decision to go to rehab, and if you say no, don’t ever contact me again.” I read him the text and he said, “Go, baby, get help, I’ll go home to my mom and go to meetings. I’ll be here when you come home.”
His response to my mom’s text was a huge relief because I couldn’t leave him in his chaotic life without support.
I arrived at Narconon Louisiana on December 11, 2017 and was shocked. It wasn’t a 12-step program at all. I was confused. How is a rehab not 12-step? That’s all I had known.
About a month into my program, sadly, he relapsed yet again. The meetings didn’t work out and I knew from our past at the sober living, I had to let him go for me to focus on myself and my sobriety.
The success I had at the Narconon Program blew my mind. I never felt so amazing and I found pure happiness from doing the program and focusing 100% on myself. Towards the end of my program, I contacted him and read him a letter I had written him. In my letter I said I loved him and that I wanted to make this love work, but only if he got help and I told him, “Specifically, do this program.”
Now I have a great sense of relief from all the negativity that was weighing me down.
A.M.—Narconon Graduate
