DianaT1969 He does casual work every now and then but can’t hold down a job. To be honest this is more because of ADHD, personality disorders than the drugs. No I don’t think he would steal from me. I know he would sell something of his if he was desperate. To be honest if he did, I would see it as a thing his addiction has done rather than a thing he had done.... I know I’ll get slated for that but I can see that for him, living in his head is a really fucking difficult place to be. Everything he does, is to try and control or slow down his head. I feel strongly that if he’d been helped / diagnosed / treated as a child/ teen ten he wouldn’t have turned to self medication. I feel his chance of a real life was taken away by his childhood. I suppose that authorities tried; he spent time in and out of care, but by the time they intervened I believe it was already too late. I strongly disagree that the child is always best with the natural parent. His early experiences well and truly screwed him up and no one cared that he was being so adversely affected. He makes the best of horrible situation the only way he knows how.
Not sure about life expectancy but I would say not many of the ones I know are over 50.
Of course I don’t mean to sound blasé, it’s a absolute tragedy that these people are basically left to die by society. I feel really strongly that we should help these people earlier before they lose control of their lives. I would say the vast majority that I’ve talked to had major life traumas/ disasters between the ages of around 7-14 and it’s made me want to do something to help this.
The drug/ alcohol services do actually try to do a good job but unless the addict is engaged and really wants to stop they don’t stand a chance. My partners drug worker believes he hasn’t used for 11 months because he talks the talk and produced a clear test after staying clean for a month last year... He sees them as the enemy not as someone who can help him and improve his life. But he knows that only he can do it... it just really really really hard!
I know I need to lose weight - sometimes I do, sometimes I can’t be bothered, sometimes I’d rather just stay as I am because it’s easier and it’s what I know. Being a drug addict is exactly the same. He has the same daily struggles between what he knows he “should” do and what his addiction is telling him he needs. It could be coffee, sugar, cigarettes, shopping or heroin, it all works in exactly the same way, and this is why I don’t judge him, because if addiction wasn’t incredibly hard we’d all be slim, healthy, habit free clones with total control over our lives.... and we’re not!
Am I worried he’ll die? I’m not sure. He wants to die and if I’m honest, if it was me I’d want to die too. Life is incredibly hard anyway but having to deal with that forever? I’m not sure I could. I’ll wish I could help him more. I know I have massively changed his life and shown him life can be different. I’d hoped that this would be enough. To make him see there’s more to life but it’s hard to break 20 years of habit. I hope he gets clean, I hope he survives. He’s a wonderful person. He’s kind, funny, loving, and many more things but he never really had a chance because his life was always about surviving. Maybe we will go away for a while and see if that works. But if he does die then I know I tried all I could and I gave him by far the happiest 2 years of his life, but it still wasn’t enough. Unfortunately I’ve got other things going on right now that are taking my energy and I’m kind of taking step back. He needs me but I need to look after myself first.