Brother died from heroin addiction now I’m married to a former heroin addict. Ask me anything!

[Askmeanything90]

Here if anyone wants advice or help in navigating heroin addiction

How was your DH able to stop using?

@runningonemptyish
He reached rock bottom - had his children go in to care. He now has them back 🎉
He went to church and sang and found a welcoming support network there. He loves music and the singing was like a release. He was never religious but finding faith in a higher being helped him. He went to NA meetings and did everything and anything with that crowd, from playing golf which he hates to days out walking and meals out.
NA has underlying religious connotations so it kind of went hand in hand. Anything to occupy his mind and change his routine from being on heroin 20 years.

Why did you marry him?

I commented below, hopefully the tag worked

It was refreshing not to be with someone who always wanted to go to the pub and get ‘buzzed up’ or get cocaine in on a night out.
It seemed every man I went out with in my 20s and 30s was into this lifestyle so we were a good match for one another and have the same interests.
He of course understood my family and what we’d been through living with my brother who was a heroin addict.

Did you meet your DH when he was using?

Were your parents concerned?
And if you have children, are you concerned about the genetic component to addiction vulnerability potentially being passed down from both sides?

No, he had been clean 2 years. I wouldn’t have got involved with him if he had been. His ex was also a user and it was chaotic, so much so that their children were removed from their care.

They met him and could see he was now a decent bloke and I always made it clear I wouldn’t be on the scene if he began using again.
We don’t have children but he has them with his ex. He is adamant he doesn’t want them to have self esteem issues like he did which he masked by using.

I have a sister and we have never touched drugs so I don’t believe it is passed down, even though our brother was an addict.

You say that most guys in their 20s were just looking for pub / club / drug lifestyle. Do you think that seeing your brother's struggle made you subconsciously look for guys in circles like this?

Only reason I say this is that IME by end of Uni age or certainly by mid-20s the majority of people were over that. But I know people who grow up with abuse, for example, tend to get drawn to abusers in later life.

What is your perspective on the causes of addition and how to break it, having seen both it and recovery up close?

Are you not scared that if say something traumatic happens in his/your life he might turn back to heroin?

Not at all, I think I was always into ‘alternative’ boys - musicians - and that lifestyle seemed to go hand in hand.

DH’s mum had him young and surrounded him by drink and soft drugs and let him do what he wanted. He was smoking and taking pills at age 12 and she didn’t try and stop him. She blames herself still.

I think my own brother mixed with the wrong crowd. He got on it when the Trainspotting film was released and it glorified it in a way. That film was everywhere and hyped up. We are a middle class family with a good education but he turned into a tear away even though he was so bright. He didn’t like the education system.

from talking to DH, he thinks children who are spoiled and get everything they ever want in life end up addicts as they are always looking for that next high. That was definitely my brother. He was the eldest and always got everything he wanted while me and my sister had to settle. If he didn’t get what he wanted he would kick up a fuss. My ex who had coke addiction also had this personality trait.

It’s always a worry but he knows when he’s starting to struggle and will take himself to an NA meeting or go and let off steam at the gym or a dance class!

he also knows he risks losing me and his children.

@Askmeanything90 “the Trainspotting film was released and it glorified it in a way”

That’s interesting. How do you feel about that? I must say that when I look back at the 90sI am a bit horrified as how casually normalised drug use was in youth media. Heroin always seemed a stage removed though, but maybe it wasn’t.

That’s very interesting. I have always believed that glamourising drugs and violence was dangerous. That’s why I despise people who publish books by ex-gangsters and drug dealers. They’re nothing but evil scumbags who’ve spent their lives hurting others.

I’d be interested to hear more of your views on the glamourising of drugs.

Yes I figured that might be the case. Very wise. Sorry about your brother by the way. My sister is still here but only by a thread after seven very bad incidents. Thanks for the AMA to enlighten people.

Do you think that his children would be vulnerable to drug abuse, and if so, how would you (plural) cope with this?

This thread is so interesting to me, because my brother was also a heroin addict and I can't imagine being with anyone who has been through that addiction cycle. Clearly you're happy with your DH, so the differences really intrigue me.

I'm sorry to hear of your loss firstly. Do you think that missing your brother influenced your choice of partner? That picking a recovered addict is in a sense giving you a version of life where heroin addictions can be overcome. An alternate reality so to speak.

Do you think your experience of loving your brother through addiction made your partner feel familiar in a way, or gave you more empathy towards him?

Can I ask where you grew up? Nothing identifying but like England? Scotland? Big city or town.

It must be hard for you. ❤️.

I just think maybe that film pushed it more in to the spotlight and showed young men using it. My brother and partner are the same age and it seemed a natural progression to go from smoking weed to pills to heroin at that time.

Central England, town

I’m hoping not as he and his ex are now clean although she has relapsed once. We look after them a fair bit as do their grandparents and I know my DH will do everything he can to stop them straying that way and educate them when they’re older on what he went through and how they ended up in care as babies.