Drug Addiction in Relationships: Stories about Recovering Addicts and Relationships

By Shealynd

Have you ever had to worry about how to deal with drug addiction in a relationship? Shealynd has.

Our strong anonymous author shares her stories about not one, but two recovering addicts and relationships. Drug addiction in relationships can cause heartbreak and struggle, especially when families and children are involved.

Here is her story.

Our author is a single mother to her beautiful daughter.

A Ruined Engagement: Recovering Addicts and Relationships

My life is not how I imagined it would be. Not even close.

I’m not married. I never imagined I would be 27 with a three-year-old daughter and still have my dad’s last name.

Marriage has come close a few different times. The closest would be July of 2019.

I got engaged. H proposed with a beautiful ring on the 4th of July as the fireworks exploded in the sky.

It was magical. We set a date, booked a venue. I researched dresses and rustic themed decor. We picked a song for our first dance.

Then he relapsed. All the dreaming and planning was jolted to a screeching stop and my heart shattered. So close… yet again.

From the Beginning: Story about Growing Up in a Part-Member Family LDS

“Mormons simply do not drink sweet tea or coffee, but my dad did.”

To understand my story, we need to go back a bit.

I was raised in a home where my mom was active in the LDS church and she did her best to raise my brother and me to always do the right things, to hold ourselves to a divine standard in our morals and behavior.

My dad was not a member of the church and he did not hold the Priesthood.

My brother and I went to church on Sundays with mom, and dad stayed home. As a child, I remember feeling frustration and confusion about the fact that my dad did not participate in church standards or activities.

In primary I remember learning about the Word of Wisdom. As part of that church doctrine, tea and coffee are off-limits. Mormons simply do not drink sweet tea or coffee, but my dad did.

Other kids had their dads at church with them. My dad wasn’t there. Other kids’ dads had the Priesthood. Mine didn’t.

My Parents Had a Tumultuous Marriage

My parents’ marriage was tumultuous. Mostly caused by financial insecurity, contention between my parents was commonplace.

My mom had met my dad when she was only 16 years old in a bar, almost a decade before becoming a member of the church. He was seven years older than her and they dated for seven years and had my older brother before they were married.

When they were younger, their lifestyle had been wild. Partying, drinking and drugs were their norm.

This 5-star book from Marriage & Family Therapist Judith P. Siegal shows how a child’s perception of the marriage his or her parents have created is the key to his or her psychological development and ultimate well-being.

When my mom got pregnant with my brother in 1988, her world changed. She gave up that lifestyle and turned her heart to God.

My dad also stepped away from that radical lifestyle, but it would be years before he would temporarily make any commitment to the church. Even so, they remained married and are still to this day, but growing up watching an unhappy and unhealthy marriage certainly affected my behaviors in relationships growing up.

From the time I was young, as a member of the church, family and marriage was the goal. Naturally, I was nurturing and obsessed with babies, so motherhood seemed inevitable.

After struggling for years with my faith, feeling half-in and half-out through my entire teen years, I officially made the decision to turn away from the church at 21.

I Never Thought I’d Have to Worry about How to Deal with Drug Addiction in a Relationship…

I met Adam when I was 22 and fell real fast, real hard. Our relationship was passionate and intense right from the start.

Within a few months, I uncovered his addiction to opioid pills, and that started a journey I could have never prepared myself for.

By the time I discovered that he was abusing prescription pills, I was so in love. I was also naive and ignorant to addiction.

And honestly, the idea of getting high allured me. I decided to peek down the rabbit hole myself.

I began using prescription pills with Adam and fell in love with it. I loved the euphoria that rushed through my body.

I loved the way he made me feel safe and taken care of. We would stay up all night talking and I had never experienced a love like that ever before in my life.

But there came a time when i knew I loved it too much, when my focus was to rush through every other part of my life so I could get back to him and that high.

I knew it was time to walk away from the pills, and I did. He couldn’t.

Struggling to Deal with Drug Addiction and Relationships

“Great experience. Great value.” *What if your husband gave you a kidney and you chugged a beer with your painkillers the next day? What if your loving marriage became a tortured threesome? Husband, Wife and Pills?*

Our relationship began to deteriorate as his lies piled on top of us. I was so ashamed. What had I done?

He was spiraling, losing weight, and was sick without them and I was to blame, or so I felt.

I knew I had to help him. I had to rescue him from the flames of addiction that I had so foolishly allowed him to walk into so many times.

I battled.

I tracked his location, his every move. I searched his room, his phone, his car.

I would physically block him from leaving the house when I knew he was craving. I sat with him while he detoxed and cried pleading with God to take away his pain.

It was all so dirty. The high of it all had been high, but the low. This was a beast I was not prepared to battle.

But I dug in and I stayed. I loved him and I was convinced my love would chase away the addiction.

Pregnant with Drug Addict Boyfriend

Then I missed my period. I was tired all the time. I was sick in the morning and I craved pickle juice.

I remember the moment I looked down at the test and the “pregnant” reading on the test.

It was surreal. I felt like my soul left my body and was looking down on this shocked, scared, overwhelmed girl.

Motherhood was something I had wanted my whole life. But not like this. I was terrified and so ashamed.

It broke my mother’s heart and I was devastated. But just as I had been doing for the past year, I was going to dig deeper and hold everything together.

It took Adam six months into my pregnancy until he finally got clean, and I remember thinking “It’s going to be okay. I can make this all right.”

When my beautiful, healthy baby girl was born, my heart became hers. This was a love I really had never experienced.

Adam was clean, he was there and supportive and wonderful. I was in love with our new small family and with him.

We talked about marriage. I expected an engagement to come shortly.

Instead, it was a relapse.

When Your Partner Relapses

When Kynslie was only a few months old, the pressures of fatherhood gave way to old demons, and addiction reared its ugly head back again into our lives.

I suffered with some postpartum depression, and when I knew Adam had relapsed and was using again, I came undone.

“The compulsion to use substances tends to drain every ounce of life from an individual, but this is often equally as true for their family.”

I tried with all my might to hold it all together, for me, for him for our baby, but it was pain I didn’t know how to cope with.

I became so overwhelmed and stressed that my milk production dropped. I felt like such a failure as a mother.

I couldn’t give my baby the one thing she needed most from me, and the overwhelming guilt and shame engulfed me.

Adam graduated to crack cocaine and it just felt like I couldn’t catch a break. My whole world was in pieces, and I didn’t know how to put it back together.

For three more years, we would battle his addiction. I held onto the plans we had made and the dream I created, and I held on to the hope that I could make this all right.

But I couldn’t. And I didn’t.

I had to walk away from my relationship with my daughter’s dad, and that was the hardest thing I had ever experienced in my life.

Moving On from Drug Addiction and Relationships

My daughter was two. I was back in school, finishing my bachelor in social work degree that I had started before I was pregnant.

I was now no stranger to the effects of addiction and was placed in a treatment facility for my internship. I loved it.

My heart broke with the clients there struggling with their own demons and having had the experience I did, my love for these beautifully broken people was immense.

I was able to share my experience and learn ways to help people face their fears and overcome the most powerful disease I had ever encountered. I also unfortunately watched people pass through the doors of that center multiple times.

Falling in Love Again: Recovering Addicts and Relationships

There was one client who had an undeniably distinct energy. He was funny and charming and seemed so receptive to the program.

When he left, I had such confidence in him. After a car accident delayed my graduation, I extended my internship another semester and this client returned.

I sat next to him one day in a chapel group and the chemistry was undeniable. But he was a client. I was an intern.

He also was an addict and I had just gone through a relationship with an addict. Hunter was the last thing I needed.

During his last week, he insisted that he reach out to me after he discharged from the program. He did, and we began a Facebook friendship which quickly turned romantic.

He blew my mind and swept me off my feet. I was astonished at how this person was exceeding all of expectations and how quickly I fell for him.

He told me the day we sat next to each other in the chapel, our hands touched briefly and he felt electricity run through his body.

He said God spoke to him in that moment and he told me I was the woman God had created for him. At first I was almost appalled, shocked at the least.

But with time, I would come to understand that for myself.

Endless Sacrifices for Drug Addiction in Relationships

My supervisor learned of the relationship and I was terminated, as the code of ethics strictly prohibits dual relationships. I lost all the credits and had to switch my major.

It took another whole semester to graduate with a Bachelors in General Studies. I told God this better be the man I’m supposed to marry!

Within four months, Hunter got down on one knee and proposed.

At least it wasn’t all for nothing. The Lord works in mysterious ways, I told myself. It was simply all meant to be…

Hunter had been a heroin and methamphetamine addict for ten years before he met me. He had been in treatment three times before and never remained sober for more than a month.

To say my family was skeptical of my decisions would be an understatement. Even I questioned my own sanity. What am I thinking? But he was virtually perfect for me, and he made me feel so safe.

He overdosed two weeks after he proposed. As I sat next to him as he lay in the hospital bed, I plead with God to give me an answer.

I begged him to show me the way. I did not want to go down this path again with someone else.

To love an addict is to live in literal hell, and my heart was still healing from the past four years with Adam.

I prayed long and hard. Hunter went back to treatment and God testified to me that it was not time to let go — that I was meant to marry Hunter and that things would be okay.

How to Deal with Addiction in Relationships — Is it Even Possible?

I can’t tell you everything has been perfect ever since. Addiction is a daily battle.

Our relationship has taken many steps forward since then, but also some steps backwards.

We have officially called off the wedding, but remain engaged. We got an apartment together in mid-August and are working on navigating sobriety, blending families, and learning to strengthen our relationship each day.

My world is still unsteady. It feels as if I am holding my breath most days, scared to step on a land mine.

Loving an addict is not easy, but apparently, I have a type. Life, addiction and relationships are messy and hard to navigate because no two situations are exactly the same.

But we do our best with what we are given, following our hearts and trusting that God will be there to help us pick ourselves back up when we fall.

Shealynd shows immense strength in handling drug addiction in relationships while also being a mother to her daughter. For more stories about recovering drug addicts and relationships, see this page.

Are you feeling exasperated and helpless about your family member’s addiction? Are you at your wit’s end, having tried everything you can think of to make them stop? Whether the addict in your life is your spouse, partner, parent, child, friend, or colleague, the key to changing this reality for yourself lies in shifting your focus from your loved one’s addiction to your own self-care.

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**Thanks to Pexels for our images in this post.