Drug addicted friend

[Anon2126]

Hi I really need some advice please!! I used to be friends with this girl I went to school with, unfortunately she went went down the wrong path 3 years ago when she met her boyfriend & started with taking heavy drugs with him! I tried talking to her, giving her advice etc but she just wouldn't listen so I cut her off. I barely drink & haven't touched any drugs in my life! She has recently got in touch with me again through social media. I really don't want to let her back in my life as I now have a 6 month old baby. I also have a new phone number & have moved address, as far as I know she doesn't know where I live. So after thinking long & hard about it & discussing it with my husband, I decided the best thing was not to respond & block her. However after discussing the situation with my friends, they keep telling me how cruel I am for just cutting her off & are saying she's probably clean & I should give her a second chance. They are making me feel like a really horrible person!! I've tried explaining that I'm only thinking about the safety of my baby & I can't risk someone with a drug problem being in my life & around my child but they are still calling me cruel!!! Help, I feel awful about it

You don’t need to meet up with her. You could just have sent her a generic message though fb and left it at that.

Drug use isn’t black and white. Most of the people I have dealt with have a story to tell and few take heroin and crack for the shits and giggles.

I have an old friend who I met at work 20 years ago before I had kids. When I got to know her I found out she had a 'habit'. I was too naive to understand what that mean't but when I realised I was quite shocked. However by then we were friends. She mostly hung out with me when she wasn't on drugs but occasionally she seemed pretty out of it.

Over the years she got clean, then would go awol for a while then get in touch etc. We always had an okay friendship and I loved her and considered her one of my closest friends. I think she protected me from most of her 'dark side'.

over the past few years since my kids were born she's become more and more 'odd' and clearly struggling with her mental health. Bouts of paranoia and weird texts about people watching her and did I know anything about it.

I began to not really enjoy her visits as she was getting more random and a couple of times she was heavily sedated on some sort of tranqualisers which made conversation difficult.

I kept trying to keep some sort of relationship until about a year ago when she called me at 1am asking for money. She said it was for food shopping but I could tell we had now crossed that line into favours and she must have exhausted her other options.

I decided to stop responding to most texts and stopped answering the phone. I could never block her entirely but I basically don't want to know anymore. I still love her to bits and miss the old days.

YANBU to not want friends who don't fit into your life. Kids change your priorities and that's just the way it is! I had history with my friend but I'd have probably dropped contact much earlier if we hadn't been so close.

Would you let someone back in your life that's been addicted to heroin & crack be around your 6 month old child??

Would I accept an olive branch from a friend who has been through some tough times and is now trying to get her life in order? When that olive branch involves nothing more than adding them on social media and puts nobody in any danger whatsoever? You bet your life I would

You sound ridiculous and a pearl clutched. She's better off you blocking her. Get a grip

deathstare Which would probably mean the world to them too.

Clutcher *

She sounds 100% better off without you (and your unnecessary exclamation marks) You sound like a judgemental drama queen. Of course social services wouldn’t be interested in people you are friends with on social media. Why on earth would they be? This person is a person just as you are. If you don’t want to be in touch with her then don’t be but don’t dress it up as something it’s not.

Odd responses here. I police my boundaries pretty carefully and crack users - even former ones - don’t get access. YANBU. It’s your choice who you spend time with and who you connect with in social media. You can call it pearl clutching or you can call it being very clear about what you do and don’t want in your life.

I'd like you to explain how your baby would be in danger from you having a bit of a chat with someone you used to be close to

She used drugs. Ok. Do you think she is going to start rubbing cocaine into your baby's gums or something ?

Where does it say this woman is an ex-addict or trying to get clean? She may still be in the depths of drug abuse. I'm not saying she doesn't deserve help, but it's hardly the OP's responsibility to make sure this happens.

Funny how everyone always seems to agree that a partner who takes drugs is bad news and should be cut out, but when it's a friend is suddenly "pearl clutching" to feel this way.

It sounds like this is a friend request on social media. That’s all.

She used drugs. Ok. Do you think she is going to start rubbing cocaine into your baby's gums or something ?

No but she might start turning up at stupid o clock expecting to stay. She might start asking to borrow money, getting nasty when turned down. I know someone like this and I can do without the stress so I don't see him.

YANBU and I don't understand why you're getting such a hard time. You and your former friend are in very different places in your lives and have gone down different paths. It's not up to you to save her from drugs and you don't owe her friendship. You can ignore her friend request, but still hold some fond feelings for the past you shared.

I had a similar situation with a friend in my early 20s. We were really close, but then she started getting into drugs more and more. I tried to meet her a few times after that, but she'd always turn up to meet me high after being awake on drugs all night, or bring her equally smacked out latest boyfriend when we were meeting. She wasn't the same person I'd been friends with before and I didn't want to watch her destroy herself so I gradually became less available. There are no bad feelings; I care about her and hope she straightened her life out, but I didn't want to get dragged down with her. Self preservation is a valid choice.

I get what you mean OP.

I had a best friend all through secondary - we were inseparable. Fast forward to late teens, she got pregnant. She started using so called recreational drugs. She would get her rent from the council, and spend it before she could pay it to the landlord. I was working by then, so would pay her rent and buy milk, gas, electric etc. Our friendship ended when one of her junkie mates seriously assaulted me for nothing, and she told the police it didn’t happen.

Fast forward about 10 years and she’s had 2 more kids and had them all removed from her care. Her friends are dying from ODs, as did her boyfriend. She has a great family who have done everything they can to get her clean, and it hasn’t worked. I’m still in contact with her parents and some of her aunties etc they don’t even know where she lives half the time.

I’m just waiting on the phone call now. I know she’s beyond help. It’s horrible but I’ve did all I can :(

You don’t need to be friends with anyone you don’t want to. Your other friends shouldn’t be as involved as they sound; definitely don’t do something to appease your “friends” if it is not something you’re comfortable with.

If your other friends keep going on about it, tell them it’s none of their business and if they want, they can contact her themselves and proffer whatever it is they’re expecting you to do.

I’ve known a lot of addicts (misspent youth) and if she still has ongoing issues then if you let her in she may have an ulterior motive (conscious or subconscious) eg money/somewhere to stay/asking for support while ignoring all advice & mentally sucking you dry... if she is seeking help, she needs to go to a professional organisation/her GP as there are lots of charities and support for those who want to help themselves.

If she is now clean and sorted out, it doesn’t mean that is still entitled to you as a friend unless there’s a sentiment within you that is keen for this to also happen.

Replying to her so your other friends are sated as to your character is quite frankly cruel to her, and weird of you - even weirder of your friends tbh. They sound very judgemental and controlling!!

if you let her in she may have an ulterior motive (conscious or subconscious) eg money/somewhere to stay/asking for support while ignoring all advice & mentally sucking you dry...

Exactly. Drug users tend to be users in more ways than one. The ones I've known have been emotional vampires and financially abusive.

I wish posters on here would make up their bloody minds about whether drug/alcohol addict should be around children.

There are more then one thread on here about parents who are addicts and the OP's is always told they are putting their child/ren in harms way and should LTB. And here a OP who had a friend years ago who went down the addiction path and now for whatever reason has been back in contact after years of NC, and you think she wrong in not wanting contact.

OP I don't think you are wrong in not wanting this person back into you life let alone around your family.

This woman would have no responsibilty for caring for op's child, so your comparison does not work

Personally I wouldn't accept her friend request if I was you. I think you and your judgemental, discriminating, outdated attitude would be detrimental to her in every way. I hope she's found recovery and is doing well, good luck to her.

Addiction is a disease. Read a book, educate yourself a little before you attack an ever expanding illness.

Also, 'junkie'...really?? Are we stuck in the 80's....keep in your bubble darling...

@ BuntyBonus

Well said!

Why not just not respond to her request? Seems pretty easy to me.

Not sure what you get out of all the dramatics you've added to the situation.

I'm not saying she's going to rub drugs on my baby's gums!! And not once have I said she's clean, I have no idea if she is or not, I haven't been in contact with her for 3 years!!! Nor have I been gossiping about this woman, some our friends from the same social circle we used to be in contacted me saying they'd had friend requests from her & have I & do I know if she's still using.

I can't really tell if you were ever really friends or if you were more like acquaintances?

I probably would ignore it, if just acquaintances and similar happened to me, but I don't understand why you've blocked her too?

Even if she is now clean and well, if you aren't friends, I mean, it's not world ending if you don't want to rekindle the friendship, unless you used to be close, which it doesn't sound as if you were.

I know a lot of people who used to use recreational drugs, but I have to admit that crack and heroin sound like quite a big deal to me, but I apologise if that is me being ignorant. Chronic use of them especially sounds very worrying.

If it was a close friend, then being around as support would be important, but if you're just some woman she went to school with..?

I know people do get into drugs like crack and heroin and then turn it around, so you never know and I would never be judgy or critical about it, because there but for the grace of God
.. But I also don't know why you should feel obliged to start up a friendship with her when you weren't really friends to begin with, regardless of drugs.

Tbh, I think, if you'd been a bit less vocal about it and maybe just ignored her, your friends wouldn't be making you feel bad. But if you said, in a group situation "Sally got in touch. I don't want her anywhere near my baby, so I blocked her", that's probably why they've said you're being mean.

Normally, when people I don't know well, whose lives have taken a different path to mine, get in touch on SM, I usually just ignore if I don't want to be friends. I don't block them and then announce it to all my friends.

So it could be she has came out the other side of addiction and is trying to get back to where she was before.

If you have been friends with her many years and you know what type of person she generally is, does it do any harm to be friends with her on social media?

You are getting way ahead of yourself worrying about meeting up etc