Ok. In 2006 i found out the father of my daghter was using Coke. Way beyond his means. Way beyond our means. He changed from what I felt was overnight but had in reality been building up without my knowledge from the loving boyfriend and father that I had known for 5 years to someone I didn't recognise. Oh we had the good times, the contriteness, the promises, they were broken EVERY single time. It wasn't that he didn't love us or even that hs love for us wasn't enough to make him stop, he genuinely didn't think about us when he was on one. He was addicted. I limited his money. Or I thought I did. He went to money lenders, those payday loan places and borrowed money instead, he borrowed money off his friends, off his family, everyone. I told no one, I was so embarrassed and so ashamed, plus I was so convinced that he would see the light and stop for us that I didn't want anyone thinking badly of him, of me. I was stupid. I dragged him to counselling, meetings, acupuncture, anything and everything I could think of. I even used to make him do home drug tests. Pissing in a pot for me? How fucking degrading and not something that should ever be part of a loving relationship. Ever.
I cried so much, everytime he went out with 'friends' I'd be sick with anxiety, I'd torment myself, read his texts, open his post, time off work with stress. I dealt with everything for him, negotiating with banks and moneylenders, anything to keep the wolf at bay, he wasn't grateful for any of it. He was always so sorry, he'd cry, he'd make promises that this was the end. Which it always was until the next time. His need for cocaine was stronger than any love he had for us or desire for a normal family life. His real friends distanced themselves from him, despite my pleading for one of them to help him. They could all see what I could not. He could not be helped. He had to actually want to do it himself, not because I was hassling him. Still i tried, bargaining with him, sobbing, telling him how much our daughter would be embarrassed by him if he didn't pull himself together. Before I had found out about any of this we had booked our wedding, still we marched towards it, I convinced that I could change him. I could get him to love me and our baby more than he loved coke.
One night I discovered yet again he'd spent hundreds of pounds of money we just didn't have on coke. I was terrified dealers would come to our door as we simply didn't have the money. I rang his parents. I told them all about their precious son and his drug addiction. They were mortified, they came round straight away, they gave me the support I so desperately needed and the conviction that despite what e said this wasn't 'normal' and i wasn't being uptight because I myself have never taken drugs. They got him into a programme, things seemed good again, but of course he relapsed, he started borrowing money under the radar, telling lies, God the bloody lies he told, I used to think I was going mental because of the stuff he used to try and convince me of. Looking back I'm pretty sure I started to lose my own mind a bit. On we went, with that destructive cycle, sometimes me kicking him out back to his mothers, telling him we were through, telling him I couldn't cope, I'd always let him back after a few days, really willing myself to believe that things had changed.
It was 5 weeks before the wedding, things had been pretty calm for a few weeks, I was cautiously feeling positive. He went out for a couple of drinks with 'friends' the knots in my stomach started again, the nausea, the worry, the fear. He didn't come home that night. He came back about 11am the next morning. I was beyond worry, beyond fear, when he came back he was obviously still out of it, he blamed me for him not wanting to come home because of the way I went on at him. He walked away from me to go to bed and sleep it off. I saw red and followed him. I went for him. Kicking, puching, screaming, if I had had a knife I'd have killed him with it there and then without thinking. I had truly lost it. I just wanted to hurt him the way he had continuously hurt me. I hated him. I wished him dead so at least I didnt have to deal with it. So anyway. our daughter came upstairs. She saw me hurting her Daddy. I will never forget the look on her face. I stopped, scooped her up and left. I drove to my arents, told them everything, cancelled the wedding and moved out. Told him I no longer cared if he lived or died. I expected him to support his daughter but I wanted nothing more to do with him.
He went seriously off the rails then. Racking up debts here there and everywhere, of course I worried about him but I didn't contact him. He saw our daughter under supervision at his parents house, they were at their wits end. Then, and I still don't know what the catalyst was, he started to go to counselling of his own accord, he started to contact me again, not self pitying contact, not nasty, why did yo leave me contact, more 'i'm so sorry, I can't believe my behaviour, I don't blame you for leaving' contact. Still I stayed resolute, this had to come from him even though my heart was broken into smithereens at not being with him, the man I knew from before the drugs had their piece of him. He got himself clean all on his own, he took control of his own life and sorted it out. Whether it was me finally leaving or the possibility of losing his daughter or what, whatever it was it wasn't me holding his hand and reassuring we could do this together, because we couldn't. He had to do this of his own accord. I stayed in the (not quite) marital home, he moved into his parents and continued on his journey of getting clean and becoming the man he used to be. He asked me out on a date. I went. We started again. Me and the man he used to be. 5 years on we are married (in May this year) and we have a 19 month old son to add to our daughter. It turned out ok for us. But to the OP I must make this clear. Absolutely nothing I did other than leaving him for what I fully intended to be forever was enough to make him want to stop. I don't even think it was that, I'll never know, what I do know is this. I make myself ill over him and he didn't care, I sacrificed so much in terms of money and having a normal relationship and he didn't care. His relationship with coke was far stronger than his reltaionship with me and like I had to be the one to walk away and leave him, he had to be the one to leave the coke behind. Nothing I said made him do it. You can not control him, much as you want to. You can not control an addiction. It will always control him until he changes that. You can only control how you react to it. I feel for you OP because I suspect you have a little while to go before you rech the same conclusion.
Just as a footnote, we're together, married and 2 kids but that's not to say that time hasn't had a huge lasting effect on both of us as people and on our relationship. Coke is a fucking horrible drug.
Um sorry for the essay...