I began getting calls and visits from strange men looking for Keith because he owed them money for drugs. Afraid that my young daughter and I would be injured by his rough friends in order to “teach him a lesson,” I eventually refinanced my home – which was almost paid off – in order to settle his drug bills. He used to bring his paychecks home and just give them to me to pay bills, but he eventually got fired, of course, and he never gave me money after that, he only took, took, took.
I was somewhat consoled by the certainty that at least I knew he loved me, he knew how good our lives had been. He would get tired of all this and come back and want to have again what we had once had. I knew he was faithful to me, because I knew how much he loved me… (lol). It was so easy to fool myself. I could justify anything, that meant I could stay, I could continue loving him, this was just a phase. He would come back to me.
Then one morning he called and asked if he could come home… he had been gone for 4 days. I told him he could always come home. He said he had a ride and was soon walking in the house. He sat down at the kitchen table and we started talking about where he had been and why he hadn’t come home. He asked me for a glass of water, which I handed to him. He calmly took out a baggie of meth and a hypodermic needle…I lost it. That was how he let me know he was back on the needle and then I knew why he was gone so much. He was hanging with a crowd of “bangers” and knew I wouldn’t want to be there and neither would I be welcome. He knew I spent every night he was gone watching for him, praying he would come home, hoping he wasn’t with one of his little crank whores partying on the meth that he had bought with money he had either stolen from me, or from hocking something he had stolen from me. Or, he might have traded something of mine for it – that happened a lot, I found out later. He even had people front him drugs by giving them MY name and telling them that I would pay for it tomorrow!
Keith eventually ended up in legal trouble, of course. He left my house, because he was hiding out. He wouldn’t tell me where – I found out it was with a woman. My self-esteem was in the toilet, my health was deteriorating because the stress was killing me, my friends couldn’t believe I kept taking him back and enduring the mental, physical and emotional torture he put me through…but I loved him. God, was I codependent!! He ended up with 7 felonies and 2 misdemeanor charges. He was sentenced to 2 years state probation … and a lot of people we knew ended up getting busted and going to federal prison. We found a piece of paper with those same names at my house in Keith’s handwriting. Coincidence? I think not.
In conclusion, there are drug users and drug addicts. DRUG ADDICTS can not be trusted. They will steal, beg, borrow, whatever it takes to get that next fix. And if they don’t get that next fix, they will NOT be in a good mood. Guess who they will take that out on?! They will not stop! They will not change! They won’t remember what it was like before! All an addict thinks about is where they can get that next fix. I told my fiancé when I told him he had to leave, “When you get tired of your new love, you will know where to find your true love.”
Addicts who use a needle to inject their drugs have two problems: they have an addiction to the drug, and an addiction to the needle. I found out that I might be able to compete for a while with the drug, but the needle addiction is all-consuming. You can’t beat it. The addict has to really want to get clean. It takes a long time and it is very painful, and that’s just the needle withdrawal. The addict also has to withdraw from whatever drug they are addicted to, and that hurts – physically and mentally. I watched Keith when he was out of drugs, and the pain that he went through just because he hadn’t “shot up” in the last few hours was intense and got worse.
If you know a drug addict, pray for them. If they use the needle, pray harder.
B.
ex-codependent
Author: National Addiction Resources
America's Best Treatment Directory
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