Hello, i am @Thelightinyoureyes. I am a single mom of 2 kiddos 3 years old and 2 years old, and I am also pregnant with one. I met my kids father about 4 years ago when I was 19 years old and he was 20. When I first met him he had been smoking weed and before I gave birth to my daughter it didn’t bother me so much, but when I gave birth to my daughter in 2019 I began requesting that he stop. And quickly realized that he wasn’t going to and it began to create problems within our relationship. We’d argue a lot about it and he’d try to tell me that it helps him with anxiety and his ADHD and his bi-polar. But I wasn’t comfortable with it in any form because he’d completely disregard my daughters presence and smoke while she was around, and would get upset with me whenever I’d take my daughter and leave from being around him because of the smoking. After awhile of me having created the ultimatum that if he did not stop, then I would leave, he agreed to stop. But he never truly did, he would just hide it from me and lie to me about it all the time and tell me I was delusional whenever I’d confront him about lying to me about smoking. After being separated for awhile due to his addiction he came back to me claiming that he was done with weed. And it seemed like it for awhile because he wasn’t sleepy like that anymore, he was more attentive and responsible. So we started a relationship again and I ended up getting pregnant. After a few months of us finding out we were having another baby, I found out very quickly that he had gained a worse addiction to almost every narcotic and pill known to man. Percocets, Xanax, blues, meth, pills with fentanyl, uppers, downers, even Tylenol, you name it, I don’t know the entire list but those are the ones I do know of. I would confront him about it and bring the evidence to him and he would berate me, call me crazy, delusional and told me I’m worthless along with a whole big list of other things. He was never physically violent with me but his words cut deep. We separated again and his addiction just got worse, he moved in with his friends who were also addicts and that became his life. During my pregnancy he ended up going to jail for a multitude of charges and was forced to get sober because of house arrest, and when he got off house arrest he came back to be with me and his kids, but his sobriety after house arrested only last for a month maybe. He went right back to the friends he was living with, stopped coming home at night, or would come home late at night when we were all asleep. Sometimes he would sleep all day, and sometimes he would wake up before all of us and stay away all day. I felt like I had failed, like what was I doing wrong that we weren’t enough? Why were we not worth being sober for? I felt like I had failed my kids and myself by allowing him to come around still. I saw no breakthrough and I felt myself being dragged down further and further with him than I had felt been in my own life. And I decided I didn’t wanna be a part of that anymore. So in April of 2022 I moved out of state away from him to try and gain some semblance of a normal, stable and healthy life. I had a very hard time leaving him alone though I will admit, I wanted him to be sober so badly that my time away was fixed on how I could help him. I would brainstorm with myself every day what I could do more of to try and push him to sobriety. In October of 2022 he said he was determined to get sober (heard that before) but I was relieved and immediately moved him in with me again. While my kids stayed with their grandparents for a few months I was helping him get sober (cold turkey might I add) neither of us could afford treatment for him so for 3 months he was sobering up. (The hardest 3 months he’d ever gone through). Neither of us slept, he barely ate, the vomit was uncontrollable and it happened so fast. For 3 months he was dealing with all the repercussions of quitting drugs. There was a sigh of relief for me because he was finally unquestionably sober. We were in a whole other state, nowhere near where drugs were easily accessible and somewhere unfamiliar for him. Finally I felt like we could be a healthy family and build a healthy life for our kids and ourselves… 4 months go by and we found out we were expecting again, I got pregnant in January of 2023 and we went through a lot of difficulties because of my hormones and emotions. In March of 2023, in the middle of the night he left while we were all asleep. No call, message, note, or anything indicating he was leaving or had left. I couldn’t reach him for weeks. 3 weeks later I had heard from and I had figured out he went back to the previous state he was living in, and had started up the drug use again and was living with people who were supplying the drugs to him. And I just broke… For my kids, for him because of the anguish, pain, withdrawals he had went through to get sober and for myself because I was right alongside him watching him go through those withdrawals and it was painful to see… Knowing I couldn’t do anything then for him, and now being so angry because he threw it all away in the blink of an eye…
I have no idea what to do now
Hey there! I just read your post…it was well written. I understand your pain and the emotions are going through. My situation is different but the same. All of our situations are different but the same because we are all dealing with a loved one with an addiction problem. I have a 24-year-old son who went through probably close to 10 years of addictions to marijuana then pills then alcohol then cocaine then fentanyl. He was a master at hiding his addiction also a mastermind at quietly flying under the radar. He has two older brothers with addiction problems and he just got caught in that cycle. When he turned 23 he hit his rock bottom and asked to go to the hospital. From there he went to detox. He wanted to and tried to progress in his recovery by going to a 30-day program but because of the craziness of the system and the rules and regulations he wasn’t able to continue in that next step. Instead he came home and did his best for a while but a few months later started drinking and using cocaine again. Then he was in a motorcycle accident and almost lost his leg. That meant a few months in a hospital being prescribed pain medication. He spend his next few months depressed and angry. It wasn’t until he had his last leg surgery in January where he had almost a two-week stay in the hospital to be alone and think about what he had done so far with his life and where he wanted to be. He said that’s when he made the decision to do his best to try to stay sober and clean. He has a plan with his life now and he is doing a good job keeping physically fit and trying to do good things for himself. He is my youngest child and as a mother it has been an eye-opening, devastating, gut-wrenching, painful journey for me. When I sit alone and try to imagine how he must have felt over the past 10 years it bothers me so much I honestly can’t go there. It’s too painful for me to think about it. For a while I thought I had to make myself go there down in the deepest darkest places to understand what he was going through. I soon realized that is not my responsibility nor my job. It’s his journey, his responsibility and his job. I’ve done a lot to educate myself on addiction. Being a part of We The Village has helped me immensely. Reading other people’s stories, their journeys, the pain they have been through or are going through. But also reading the stories of progress and hope and success has pulled me out of the rabbit hole I’ve been down. Get yourself out of the rabbit hole. Understand that this is his journey and you can’t do it for him, you can’t make him do things, you can’t change his mind etc. I’m no expert but it seems as though every addict has to hit their own rock bottom. Each addicts’ rock bottom can look different but it’s a rock bottom nonetheless. Setting boundaries are vital for you right now, I believe. Understanding what it means to stay connected but not attached is so important. Knowing that you’ve done all you can… and it certainly sounds like you have done all you can. I commend you for what you have done to try to help him. But to me it sounds like this is now the time for you to take a step back and concentrate on taking care of yourself and your children. I still have some tough days with my son but the difficult times are being outweighed by positive times, slowly but surely. Recovery may take months, years or maybe a lifetime. But there is Hope. There are many success stories out there. Do the best you can and honestly that is all you can do. Keep involved with We The Village, keep yourself educated as far as addiction goes and above all take care of yourself. Concentrate on yourself and your children, find yourself a hobby or something your passionate about, being involved in some kind of faith maybe Church or prayer or meditation definitely helps, but above all be good to yourself.
I admire your dedication and efforts.
️
Please remember, @Thelightinyoureyes - you didn’t cause it, you can’t control it, and you cannot cure it.
Just as @zealand6868 suggested, please do take care of yourself. And just like your username, @Thelightinyoureyes - there is always light, there is always hope. And the light is, well, in your eyes. Within. Everything you need to move forward is within.