Someone I know is caught up in the grip of our disease. I haven't been on this side of the disease in a long time and it's shown me some things. At first, it was something he could hide. It's easy to drop a ball or two when you get your life back. He started working full time, he's taking 10 college credits, recently got engaged, and had service commitments at the group level. That's a lot to handle with less than 6 months clean so everyone cuts you slack if you miss a meeting or two because you tell us that you're tired. The problem is that he wasn't tired from these activities, he was tired because he was trying to do all of that and dabbling with drugs at the same time. The more you have going on... the faster the balls drop when you start to use.
In less than 3 months he has gone from someone I'd want to date my sister to a lying manipulative abusive addict... it's par for the course, kids. Last night I listened to him talk about all the reasons he needed to get help and follow that up with why he couldn't take the help right now. How all he needed was to get through another 3 weeks and then he's be able to go to rehab. How he was just taking opiates, even though we could see the fresh track marks in his arm... how he needed to keep earning money for bills, even though we knew from his fiance (who works full time) that they have plenty of money to get through the next few months... that his life was manageable, even though he got rough with her the night before due to an argument about his being high - that he had cash advanced the credit card to their credit limit so he could buy drugs - how he had term papers to finish that she told us he hadn't even started - that he just wanted to get high one more time before going to detox. All of this with a straight face. We confronted him on each lie. His mouth dropped and he got back in his car and left us standing there.
This is addiction. As my amazing sponsor once so bluntly put it: "When I'm using, I'm so caught up in my obsession and compulsion that YOU just don't exist. I'm the most self centered mother fucker that you've ever have met!"
Straight up and down. It's a wrap.
I'm sorry to everyone who ever listened to me and wanted to know the truth and only got lies.
Sigh.
Love you all... I have 1,937 days clean today because of everyone who has loved me.
