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Dating a cocaine user - experience/advice sought

312 replies

Shirsten · 15/06/2012 17:36

Hi everyone
New ish here (have name changed).

I have been dating a guy for a few months and I really like him. However, he does a lot of cocaine - I think about two or three times a month at least. He's been doing for at least 15 years and recently he did it at his mum's birthday party and at a family wedding as well as doing it with his mates at the pub.

I know that 1. it's illegal, and 2. there are major human & environmental impacts from the growing & supply of cocaine, 3. it can be dangerous, especially if taken with alcohol which he does regularly. I've only ever tried it once but I prefer to get my highs from real life rather than depending on drugs for it.

I am fairly tolerant to drug use (I wish I wasn't but I am though I do find his attitudes about fairtrade a bit hypocritical given his cocaine use), and I haven't asked him not to indulge. I was, however, a bit shocked at the family occasions at which he snorted coke. I think it bothers him that I don't do it because it's a big part of his social life more than it bothers me that he does it. He's also reluctant to make plans because I think part of him wants to make sure he has drug taking opportunities at the weekends.

Twice he's cancelled plans we had because of what I think is 'Miami flu' - i.e. the flu like symptoms associated with a cocaine comedown.

Other than that, I have seen no mood swings, just a bit of restlessness after we've spent the weekend together.

Can anyone whose been in a relationship with a cocaine user or who has done cocaine on a regular basis give me their experiences? I've been doing a bit of reading about it and I don't know whether it's going to cause a problem soon. If so, I'd rather finish it now than get more attached to him than I already am.

There are no children involved and we are in our mid 30s. I really like him but do not want to come second to a drug.

Thanks!

OP posts:
TheLightPassenger · 16/06/2012 09:29

don't make up excuses for him, that it's his friends talking him into it - his friends weren't at this family function shoving it up his nose forcibly, were they Hmm

madonnawhore · 16/06/2012 10:07

The fact that you're tying yourself in knots seeing his drug taking as a rejection of YOU rather than an inherent failing in HIM says to me that you still have self esteem issues from your past EA relationship.

This one's a bad'un. He takes drugs and it sounds like, because you don't, he's not that into you.

Stop wasting emotional energy on a hiding to nothing and concentrate on yourself. Maybe go back and have some more counselling?

Proudnscary · 16/06/2012 10:07

I know people that have used coke recreationally, still do occasionally, and are not addicted.

I know people who do take coke 2/3 times a month - and are not lying about that.

Doing coke at a family party - though perhaps childish, disrespectful, twatty - is not necessarily the sign of an addict.

I think there is too much black and white 'Just say no' advice on here that is not helpful for the OP as it doesn't reflect what she's seeing in front of her ie a great guy.

OP - a recreational drug habit now will not have a huge impact on your relationship. You are mad about each other, young and fit etc - but in the future it absolutely will.

At the very least, it will begin to bother you/embarass you. At worse it will drive you to insanity if you go on to get married and have kids - it will tear you apart if he still goes out on benders when you have responsibilities, you will lose respect for him and when you have dc you have to think of the legal aspect and the terrible influence on them. He can't have 24 hour 'come downs' if you have kids.

And very worst case, it could escalate and become a serious problem that tears your life apart.

It's such a huge risk to take.

noddyholder · 16/06/2012 10:08

You will both tire of each other tbh for different reasons so you may aswell jump ship now He will be a nightmare as the relationship progresses. I know many middle aged coke heads who have amazing jobs etc but without exception tehy chose coke over partner and kids and are tragic fuckers. Get rid

captainmummy · 16/06/2012 11:24

OP -did you say upthread that 'he didn;'t want you to see him when he was being boring?' Like when? Coming down? Is that regular - or is the 'sweet charming affectionate' man the one who is the 'high' one?

Which is he?

fivegomadindorset · 16/06/2012 11:32

Go and stand Outside a prison at visiting times and ask how drugs have affected the families of prisoners.

Shirsten · 16/06/2012 12:36

Thanks everyone for all your thoughts & advice. I've got a copy of Rachel's Holiday (thanks to the poster who suggested I read that) and am going to talk to the guy I'm seeing tonight. I think I know which way it will go, which does upset me, but I know what I need to do.

OP posts:
ike1 · 16/06/2012 12:44

Dont you find him to be an arrogant cock when he's coked up?

madonnawhore · 16/06/2012 12:48

Good luck OP. It does sound like you've had some fun getting to know him over the past three months. But it's getting harder and harder for him to hide his true colours and you're liking less and less what he's revealing.

I think this has just naturally run its course.

And remember, he's the one who's inadequate, not you.

Shirsten · 16/06/2012 13:00

Ike-to be honest, I don't know when he's coked up. I don't know if he's been on coke when I've been with him. I don't find him to be arrogant though. Confident, yes.

Thanks, Madonnawhore-appreciate what you said. I do have a sense of not feeling good enough - if I was he wouldn't want to take coke, surely? I do really like him and he's the first guy I've met in 3 years who I've liked but I don't want to come second to a drug.

OP posts:
madonnawhore · 16/06/2012 13:08

"if I was [good enough] he wouldn't want to take coke, surely?"

No no no no no no. Wrong. So wrong.

My mum was an alcoholic for most of my life. I used to feel exactly the same way. I broke my heart thinking if I could just be more loveable, she'd eventually choose me over the bottle.

But addiction and drug dependency just simply doesn't work like that. You can't 'love' someone out of it.

It is entirely their thing to deal with and nothing anyone else can do will make any difference. DO NOT MAKE THIS ABOUT YOU.

By chance, you've stumbled into the orbit of someone who's on a slow train to loserville. At first you liked him. Then you peeked a bit further into his life and didn't really like what you saw. But instead of going 'hmm, no thanks, this isn't really for me', you've started blaming yourself for not being able to make it better. But guess what? It's not your problem to fix.

Bunbaker · 16/06/2012 16:43

Please listen to madonna. She talks sense.

WhiteWidow · 16/06/2012 16:45

Get out of there now. I wasted four years of my life with a cocaine user, who also used it as an excuse to cheat on me.

He robbed my money, got us in debt.

BenedictsCumberbitch · 16/06/2012 17:03

The following was posted by me elsewhere and I know some bits won't apply to you but this is my story of life with a coke head...

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...

owlelf · 16/06/2012 17:11

Fantastic post Benedict. I think that your story will sound very, very familiar to many partners of addicts.

Its completely understandable that as a loving partner you want to do whatever it takes to control your partners' problem.

However, the terribly sad thing is that in my experience as Benedicts story shows, the only thing that can make an addict change is their own readiness to accept they have a problem, and their own desire to try to change.

UnChartered · 16/06/2012 18:18

thanks for posting your sad tale with a happy ending benedict Thanks

Shirsten · 16/06/2012 19:33

Wow - thank you Benedict for posting your story. I'm really glad to hear that things worked out for you even though you had a horrible time inbetween. I can relate to feeling like you nearly lost your mind. I was like that with my EA ex (not the guy I have posted about). I am a totally different person today away from the drama and the mindgames he played on me.

Since the extent of his coke habit dawned on me I have done a lot of reading about it and have spoken to a friend who has been going to Al-Anon for 5 years (his wife is/was an alcoholic). It was him who first suggested that the guy I'm seeing has an issue with drink/drugs (I think alcohol & coke go hand in hand). He's given me a lot of good advice about detaching and not trying to rescue him etc.

Just to be clear - I spent 5 years with someone trying to help them overcome what I now realise are deep rooted personality issues and have absolutely no intention of spending any more of my life trying to help or fix someone else.

I have had a sense that this guy values his drugs and his druggie mates more than he does me and it's not been great for my ego. He was so keen at first and is always lovely when he's with me - but it's hard pinning him down to dates, for example. I feel like I am waiting around to see if he's not too 'wrecked' to see me. If I could understand that the coke is that powerful, it would go some way to restoring my bruised self-esteem a little.

Madonnawhore - thanks again for your post. I'm sorry to hear that your mum was an alcoholic. You've hit the nail on the head with your summary of things. I can't see that he's on the way to loserville (which is again what makes all of this so hard) but you're right - I am blaming myself for not being exciting enough or fun enough for him to want to pass up a night at the pub with his mates to see me.

I'm seeing him later and will be talking to him about all of this then. Although I don't expect to get the full picture out of him but I'll see.

Thanks again everyone.

OP posts:
optionsoptions · 16/06/2012 21:37

(have only read the OP)

Run a mile!

a) Addicts are in love with their drug, you will invariably come second.
b) He will drag you down with his lifestyle...
c) 15 years of regular drug use.. you'll soon notice physical, mental and psychological impact and it ain't going to be pretty..
d) you will not be able to change him, in case you were hoping to do that... this will have to come from him and addictions have an iron grip.
e) think about all the money he is blowing!! (unless he is loaded of course)

This coming from a person who has been addicted (drugs/food) herself and been involved with addicts (drugs). They are fun for the short term as long as you are in it for some crazy partying. If you are not after that: Don't go there.

(not sure if you are considering settling down and having a family at some point - (without being patronising!) but forget doing that with a (cocaine) addict.)

MyLittleMiracles · 16/06/2012 22:42

benedict your post made me cry. I have been there with broken promises etc, always the coke being more important. I left and wont go back, we have no contact. I know he wants me back, i have been told this, that he needs me and stuff, the reality is that the coke is still in his life and therefore as neither lover or friend can i be. He done some truly unforgiveable things.

Scarredbutnotbroken · 16/06/2012 23:51

My exp smashed through 2 locked doors in my house in front of my 2 year old dc and I after a coke binge all nighter.

That was after a lot less coke use than you assess your bf to be taking.

Still want to dare him?

hellymelly · 17/06/2012 00:08

I may be cross posting as I haven't read every post-I need to go to bed, but if he takes coke then NO he does not share your politics and he is NOT supportive of feminism. He is in fact a man who values his own pleasure over someone else's pain (someone far far less fortunate than him). The coke he buys is part of a trail- of abuse of women, pornography, violence and death. It isn't a nice tub of locally grown organic carrots from the women's health food co-operative. Do you really really want to stay with a man like this, and waste the years when you might want to plan a family ? Just because he is good looking and good in bed ? Take off the love goggles and be rational, you are not 22.

fizzfiend · 17/06/2012 00:24

I can just see two massive pointers for you:

  1. you might never have seen him sober: he may be chatty because that's what coke does to people
  1. you need to tell him how you feel. And would he stop for you...honestly.

Don't waste time with someone who is not being honest with you. But also, you need to be honest with him about what you want. Because you have a right to ask for that.

LadyWidmerpool · 17/06/2012 00:30

Sorry if this point has been hammered home already as I haven't read the whole thread but drug users need drug dealers and they are really, really bad news.

oshuk · 17/06/2012 00:44

Haven't read all the thread yet, but wanted to say that I had a friend, married to a great guy, looked the perfect couple, 2 kids, lovely house, lavish lifestyle. Turns out he was a coke addict, and his parents bailed him out to the tune of 60k. He ran the debts up again in no time, well to about 30k, which was when my friend gave him an ultimatum of her and the kids, or his habit. He opted for the habit. Unbelievable, that he had a very good in an international company, and decided to throw it all away. He ended up in a one bed flat.

I'd say leave him to it, OP - not worth the bother really is it?

Aussiebean · 17/06/2012 01:12

A friend of mine started dating a guy who was into drugs. She said to him that it was fine that he had drugs in his life. But she had decided that drugs were not going to be in hers.

He was given a choice and they are married with 2 kids and drug free. But that is a very rare accurance.

You talk about it being a blow to your ego. But really? Haven't you broken up with people before. I'm sure that was a blow to their ego. He just isn't right. Because the right one will put you first.

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