My spouse cannot kick her coke habit. She doesn’t do it every night or even every week, but the whole cycle around it has become toxic - pushing me away, creating drama and arguments to feel misunderstood, projecting her negativity into me, then the use, not coming home, then more arguments, regret, self loathing, making up, and being super close until I’m pushed away again. I’m living for those rare moments of closeness when I’m important, before she splits off again. I guess the question I’m battling with is where is the line between addiction which you forgive because you love the addict; and someone being cruel and the relationship turning toxic and harmful. Where are the boundaries and do you stay even though you can feel it breaking you?
Where is the line between addiction and a toxic relationship?
Hi @Moosecat - yikes - finding these lines when active addiction is involved is super hard 
So my husbands drug of choice is cocaine. When it became problematic we were friends/colleagues/lines were unclear as to whether we were in a romantic relationship also…yeah complicated! Anyway, it went from being an evening activity, to an aid to stay up late to pull the all nighter to finish the work pitch… to staying up to watch a movie (uh-oh something’s really feeling wrong here). He would go quiet for a weekend and then skip out on work because he was ‘sick’ - likely binging.
Sounds like you’re ahead of some of these spirals but keep your eyes open, the addiction may have more of a hold than you think. I certainly was naive about how bad it had gotten until he was using nearly every day.
I can’t tell you whether you should stay or go, but it sounds like the use is affecting the relationship.
One tactic we find helpful and often helps us slip under the surface of a loved one’s use is to enquire about the aftermath and the negative outcomes of the use. If we focus on these we might find an easier path to tapping into their motivations to change their behavior. Are there outcomes of use that she doesn’t enjoy that might be a good entry point to having a constructive conversation?
A couple of other things I didn’t know about prolonged cocaine use - the depression spiral after use is incredibly intense and can be a factor in prolonging use. Talking about this might be helpful, because if the user can detach the depression from their life and associate it with a ‘come down’ then they may be able to detach more using as the natural way out.
Another is that, when my husband used more and more he was really trying to escape the stress of work and he didn’t know another way. It took me way too long to realize that by only focusing on the problem of his drug use and not on the contributing factors that I wasn’t really listening to what he saw as the problem. I do believe that if I had listened instead of saying “let’s remove the drug then we’ll focus on the other problems” (truly believing that those problems would be removed with the removal of the drug, that I could have helped him make some life changes that could have been game-changing for him.
It’s hard to understand what’s really going on when drugs are in the mix, but I do think I could have done a better job of listening for clues as to how to help. The more we work with them as opposed to trying to force an outcome the more we will be able to find resolution together.
Let me know if any of this makes sense as I’m writing I’m trying to make sense of my experience with my husband!
Sending <3
And I can send some hope, we’re 3 years post rehab and doing well. It has been a long journey, and even still things get better every month!
P.S. Any specific qs loving someone thru a cocaine addiction I’m here!
There are outcomes of use she doesn’t enjoy, such as the come downs, the nose bleeds, the regret… during these periods she is an integrated version of herself and able to hold onto these negative feelings. But she is unable to keep hold of them later in her cycle when a ‘big night’ is coming up or a craving hits. Part of her wants to quit but she refuses to go into therapy, join a group, tell people or ask for help, so it just feels like we’re stuck - and have been for about 5 years. I just don’t know when - or if - I give up hoping.
This is a really important question that I unfortunately don’t have any answers to. Like both yourself and @polly, my boyfriend also struggles with a cocaine addiction. He is in recovery (having relapsed twice), and I have found the most difficult part in all this being able to regain trust in him. I have felt the same pain you mentioned in staying although the pain feels like it is breaking you. I have felt lost and confused and suffocated with anxiety from trying to understand it all and decide if the relationship is healthy, so I am with you on this and please know these are common feelings. For myself and my boyfriend, communication is so key. I believe the relationship would be toxic if not for our ability to communicate and for myself to feel heard. Every relationship is different but I think that the minute you begin to feel like your partner is not caring to understand your experience in all of this that is where it becomes difficult to navigate.
Thank you so much for this. You really nailed the confusion and pain associated with trying to practice self care but not even really knowing what that looks like in such chaotic circumstances. It’s a minefield!
Ok so, I read all these posts, about how your loved one has done this or done that or stopped doing , ect.
Simple question, what are you doing?
Have you continued working on yourself while they were in recovery? Or did you become compliant, because life returned to almost normal?
This is a disease that affects the whole family, we need to remember this and no matter what keep working on US.
As the mother of two who are in recovery(30 & 27) , when they start to waiver they turn to myself and their dad, because we no longer lose it, instead we continue on , we dont change our plans, we don’t blow their phones, and so on.
If your able to maintain, when you loved one relapses , your approach will be very different. Studies have shown, that if we are non reactive, and more supportive , they are more likely to reach out and ask for help, especially when the recovery time has been supportive, by loved ones.
I have been in therapy for the last several years to work on myself and tackle the enmeshment that, like so many relationships where addiction is present, is also a feature of ours. I continue to try and work on myself regardless of where she is in her cycle; I am deliberately not calling it recovery as she is very much pre-recovery and is ambivalent about how she wants her future to look. This is in fact what creates the issue - it is easy to demonise the drug and idealise the user - if they just gave up and stuck to it, they would be a perfect version of themselves, life would be problem free, etc. But I’m finding separating the addictive substance from the addict in this way is not always helpful - or realistic. The avoidant behaviour may still be there, the difficulty dealing with emotions, the rage… and this is what I’m struggling with as I try to maintain my boundaries in the face of active addiction. Am I supporting someone who wants to live a better life? Or am I just colluding in some pretty selfish, harmful behaviour?
Amazing you’ve been working on yourself amongst all his @Moosecat I hate when we’re made to feel bad for loving addicts.
Still, I worried and waited I think 3 years for my husband to hit enough of a rock bottom for him to want to get help. I think it doesn’t have to be like that. I think the sooner we speak up, get more friends and family involved, talk about it, talk about the underlying issues, the better.
We as a society have a way to go here, and I know it’s not that simple.
But 3 years post-rehab now it’s been so worth it.
Sending <3
Hi Kris_Perry_Long,
I joined this group only a few minutes ago and saw your comment.
It hit me that if I don’t keep myself above water, I’m no help to anyone.
My boyfriend relapsed after getting prescribed medicine for his adhd to perhaps help him with his speed addiction, which he said he would do often on weekends to get work done for past 10 years.
It’s been hard for me to keep up with my school work, especially since he was my main support system. I feel like a failure to him and my family bc both of them believed in me after so many times of fail school attempts.
I’m so depressed, all feel I can do is lay in bed. especially since he said he never wants to quit and he rather die, perhaps he said said due to withdrawal symptoms but I believe part of it is true.
He usually comes to me for support but I find it hard to support this habit bc he gets verbally abusive and at, times physical.
He won’t listen to me bc I’m not as “successful” as him, maybe I don’t have as much money in the bank as him nor did I finish school but he knows it’s circumstantial, at least when he’s sober.
I feel he just doesn’t respect me anymore and I don’t want him to think I gave up on him if I get away from him.
He needs help but the help he wants would put me in the line of fire and I don’t know what I can do, I can’t let him abusive me. I can’t have my schedule around him bc I’ll never get anything done.
I’m afraid to detach but, maybe that’s the best thing I can do for both of us?
Thank you for the space where I can write this without judgement.
Super heavy and brave question: what is line between addiction which you forgive because you love the addict; and someone being cruel and the relationship turning toxic and harmful. Where are the boundaries and do you stay even though you can feel it breaking you?
The answers are within your heart yet may be hiding with the insanity of the situation.
Some of your questions remind me of when I did all I could with my first marriage then I asked myself some questions that helped me decide to divorce. I asked - would “god” really want this kind of relationship as a marriage? While my first was not an addict; he was away weekend cheater. I answered that I did not believe “god” would want this for me. My son at a young age also looked to me as the main parent and he asked “mommy, why aren’t you smiling anymore?” That hit home for me. I then made a decision to take care of me so I could be a good mom and not the walking empty depressed shell I had become because my life had become unmanageable.
Oof. The human intuition is strong, isn’t it?! We just gotta listen carefully. Love this, @Marie_Marie.
This a battle you need to get a firm grip on now. Reach out to alanon groups and find a network of support. You cannot win alone. Best of luck to you both
You already know. I know it’s hard and scary, but when you get still and honest with yourself, what you hear when you ask yourself that question? Boundaries are really key in this situation. That’s one of the best tools I found to help slow/stop/get off the merry go round. The pattern is there, you see it and defined it well. The key is to develop a pattern interrupt (boundary) before the cycle starts again. What are some things you can do (key word YOU) to interrupt the cycle that has happened?
(((Hugs))) You got this Moose… And we’re all here supporting you!!
erin
This is so hard to maintain life when our daily activities revolve around my husband and head of our household. I am having a terrible time finding boundaries where my two sons are able to maintain a childhood and where I am not covering and picking up the broken prices of our lives and apologizing for all the trauma caused by my husbands drinking.