Living with a drug addict, is there any happy ending?

[Badtimegirly]

My life seems to have spiraled out of control with my dp, over the last 8 months, and I don't know if there will ever be any happy ending for us. I met him just over two years ago, after being single for a long time, on the face of it I had everything, great career, financially independent, great circle of friends. The one thing that was missing was I was lonely, until out of the blue Cupids arrow struck hard, and I fell hard for this man. However 8 months ago, he returned home after being with 'friends' and was acting like a lunatic, ranting raving, wild eyes, stomping around, and generally being a pain in the backside. He couldn't sleep and then finally passed out on the sofa and slept for 14 hours. So it turns out that he is a heroin addict, I should have picked up the signs earlier but I was either to stupid or naive to be alerted to this.
He tries to stop, and then something will put him over the edge, and hes back to his loony tune time. I have suggested rehab, counselling, therapy, but he still wont admit that this addiction is something that wont go away, and deep down I think I know, there are three of us in this relationship me, him and class A drugs.
To make matters even worse, he has children from a previous relationship, who I adore, I would have thought that he would have tried to knock the drugs on the head for their sake, but no. When 'clean' we are great, but lately I never know what is walking through the door. He is high functioning, works hard, a good dad, but saying that I feel there is always this black cloud floating over me all the time.
I suppose I am asking if anyone has similar experiences of loving someone who has a serious drug addiction, and any advice.
Thanks in advance.

I'm sorry it must be terrible living with an addict. He will only get worse.
He is not interested in any solutions to his addiction. You didn't cause this, you cannot cure this and you have no control over this.
Others may come along and tell you places where you yourself can get support. He will steal from you at some time. You do need to protect yourself and your own family.

No experience but just wanted to say I'm so sorry you're going through this

Walk away now. No good will ever come of it, and I'm speaking from experience. My XH went from being a law abiding, clean living person in a very respected profession to a lying, money spending, aggressive drug addict. Life is so much better without him. Please leave him now.

This happened to my friend. She had been with her bloke for 15 years and had no idea he’d been using that whole time behind her back. They had 2 kids together.

In the end, she told him it was over. The shock of losing her and the kids was enough for him to get clean. They’re still together now and he’s still clean.

I'm sorry but it won't get better.

No experience with heroin but my ex was an alcoholic and drug addict. Mostly ketamine, mephedrone and coke.

He was always off his head, was horrible, only cared about himself and often spent rent and money for bills on drugs. It was so hard to live with and I'm now with the most incredible man who has never touched drugs and puts me and our life together first.

Please walk away before he drags you down xx

Leave him now before he takes everything from you. He will lie, cheat, steal everything. You cant save him and you wont be enough for him to change.You will have no life at all with him, cut your losses now and move on.

I have personal experience of this sort of thing.

First of all. You cannot fix it. He needs to be ready to acknowledge he's an addict. You make suggestions, he's in denial. This doesn't bode well.

You have several options here.

1. Stay with him. As he doesn't recognise he's got a problem it'll get worse and you'll be basically enabling addiction with a risk of becoming co-dependent. This path is likely to end in a grim and destructive way for you both.
2. Walk away with no come back chance - block him from all forms of communication with you. This way it's a clean break but often it's ridden with "what if" and as you love him and you haven't yet experienced the absolute pits of living with an full blown addict, you may cling to hope and be vulnerable to coming back.
3. If you do love him and don't want to cut him off, give him an ultimatum you're prepared to keep. He gets clean or you're off. I've seen it work but the person needs to be ready to do it.

You set the conditions and observe these eg. see counsellor by x date, going clean date, full transparency on whereabouts, sharing the therapy plan ie. triggers, how to support him (not you supporting him mind you - you're only there to direct him to support source, be it NA, group therapy, counsellor) etc. It's not easy. It can work but you need commitment and serious backbone on you that if he fails to follow the plan, it's done.

The thing with something like heroine is that it is incredibly powerful because of the way it makes you feel. I know it's trite but one of the reasons why heroine is so addictive is that it gives you a calm yet euphoric feeling of being in control and fully content and detached. For a lot of people having a natural anxiety about life and whether they're "enough" that feeling of contentment and detachment is worth everything once they've experienced it.

I have 3 heroin addicts in my family - all have children - and I can guarantee it will only get worse. Heroin takes away every part of your personality and just leaves behind a shell of a person who lies, steals and can only think of the drug.

Believe me, not you, not children, nothing will take precedence over heroin. If he decides to get clean, that is a different thing, but that is not something you can talk him into. Protect yourself. I have seen first hand how devastating heroin addiction is.