Help- Advice needed!

[desperado]

Hi All,

Im seeking a bit of advice, my other half admitted he had an addiction to the drug in March of this year after smoking for seven years. Our relationship over the past 2.5 years has been very rocky due to his drug abuse. When I met him, I knew that he smoked and I occasionally did with him. However, it soon started affecting our relationship, he would stay up all night smoking, we didn’t have a sex life, we didn’t go out and do anything because all he wanted to do was smoke, he couldn’t keep a job as he kept calling sick to smoke and I would support us both financially whilst he looked for work. He would lie to me about picking him and smoking and it got the point where I couldn’t trust him and despite loving him to pieces I couldn’t take it anymore. I was constantly doubting everything he said and was starting to doubt my own instincts over whether he was smoking or not. I ended the relationship in March and he begged me to take him back vowing he’d go to counselling and admitting he had an addiction. I went back to him, saying if I ever caught him smoking again I’d leave him.
Since then, to my knowledge he hasn’t smoked and although he isn’t going to counselling anymore, I built my trust back up in him and started to enjoy a better relationship. However, he has gone away for the weekend and whilst tidying the flat I came across a bag of the drug half empty. My first reactions are extreme hurt and anger that he is smoking again. I don’t how if this first time since March or if he has been smoking on and off since March and needless to say any trust I’ve built up now feels destroyed and I feel like a fool. I love him so much – when he is off the drug he is amazing. Whilst this might be a one off, I don’t feel I can trust what he will tell me to try and explain this way and I know I am going to question everything he does. I can’t go back to the way it was and I’ve tried to be understanding and that hasn’t worked and I’ve tried the tough love approach and that hasn’t worked. Am I overreacting to this discovery? How do I confront him with what I have found? Any advice or thoughts would be much appreciated- I just don’t know what to do anymore.

[abiogenesis]

Dear Desperado,

When i started to read your story, for a second i doubted that you were my wife I mean, we went through the same path and problems with my wife since 4 years. In the last year, i admitted that i had a severe addiction which started to destroy my life and brain. Since then we are struggling with putting my addiction out of our lives. However, it's not an easy path at all. I relapsed 3 times in the past year although all my life and motivation was about quitting pot. But as i said, and i'm living through, "relapse" is something very common which many addicts experience before they recover. I'm sober 4 months now but still I feel that there is long path ahead of me.

So, what would be my advice to you? Pot has been a problem with my wife since we first met. Like you, she occasionally smoked with me in the past. But then, it started to affect our life and we had very bad times because of pot. However, she was so in love with me that she married me anyway. But then it came to a point that the drug destroyed my (and our) lives throughly. At that point, i was dedicated to detox pot. If I wasn't, she would have definitely left me. Now, although i relapsed a few times, she is throughly with me in this battle. This is because, she sees that she is very happy with me when i'm sober and she thinks this battle will worth everything when we win.

So, the thing comes to the point how much this guy worths to you? Because if you want him to detox weed, it will definitely not be an easy period for him and you. Getting angry with him will not do anything. You should realize that this is a long road and he may stumble sometimes and what you should do is to help him to get on his foot again. So, my main advice is, you should make him (and yourself) realize the seriousness of the situation. But as i said, whatever you do, don't be angry with him. Because he is literaly sick. When someone develops and addiction to some substance, it becomes a neurological disease for this person. It's a real mental disease like any other one which needs to be adressed very carefully. There are plenty of documents in the web to read for it.

One very important thing is, all i said are generalizations. Every person's reflection to his addiction will be specific to his case.

I hope everthing goes good for you,

Regards,

[Cannabis Rehab Admin]

Hi desperado and welcome to the forum.

I am sorry to hear that. As always with these kind of situations it’s a tough one, but as anybody in your situation does, you do have to figure out some sort of way to deal with it. It must indeed have been quite a shock to have found out that he is still doing it and a big letdown in terms of trust. You obviously don’t want to go back to how things were before so I think you have got to deal with the issue head on and do what you need to do to resolve it, which is going to involve been very honest with him and telling him you know that he is still doing it. You already know what your stance is as you have been through it before and so does he, you are only with him now on the understanding of and as a result of believing that all that had finished, so it’s not as if you need to renegotiate your position, it’s up to him if he wants to abide by it if he wants your relationship to continue. So you need to call him on it and have a frank and honest discussion about the recent development that has occurred, however part of quitting can sometimes mean the odd relapse now and again, unfortunately as much as we would like it not to be the case it can and does happen, that doesn’t mean that things have to go back to how they were and that the relationship is now over, if you deal with it head on and nip it in the bud (no pun intended I promise) as soon as possible then you do have a good chance of continuing the new found progress, but most of that is going to be up to him, it’s his call.

So my advice would be to deal with it as early as possible and get it out in the open and make him realise you intend to stand your ground, hopefully as long as he is willing you can continue to build on the progress you have already achieved.

Anyway that’s just my take on it, but as with anything when it comes to serious relationships only you can truly decide.

I hope that has been of some help. Take care, thanks for posting and please keep us posted on how it goes.

All the best and good luck.