Years into recovery, Amy Dresner faced the pain and fear of loving a person who relapses.
“Bye. Love you.”
“Love you,” I said.
We kissed, and then he vanished for five days. I called and called. No answer. At first, I thought I was being ghosted and sent angry texts. Then I got concerned.
“Can you just tell me you’re okay?” I texted. “I’m really starting to worry.”
Nothing.
I sent another pleading text. No response.
Soon, I heard that nobody had seen or been able to reach him since the day he left my apartment, and I just knew he’d relapsed.
He hadn’t been back to his sober living for days. Didn’t go into work. My gut said this wasn’t just a run … this was something much worse.
He’d been a heavy opiate user since he was 18. When I met him at a friend’s house 15 months prior, he’d been 45 years old with about two and a half years of sobriety.
I’m not intuitive, but somehow, I knew what was happening
When you’ve been battling mental illness and addiction your whole life, it’s hard to hear (let alone trust) your intuition. I’ve never been psychic. I’m like the opposite of psychic, whatever that is. Seriously. So this is going to sound crazy. But I had not one but two visions of him during those five excruciating, mysterious days when he was missing. In one, I saw him using and overdosing in his car. I got the distinct feeling that he was going to die if somebody didn’t find him. Then I had another where I saw him in the hospital. ‘Surely, these couldn’t be real,’ I said to myself. ‘Don’t be ridiculous. Suddenly, you’re Miss Cleo? Please, Amy.’
Bizarrely and unfortunately, my visions were spot on. A good Samaritan spotted him slumped over his steering wheel in his parked car and called the cops. The cops took him to the hospital, where he tested positive for fentanyl and methamphetamine. He had been in the same position for so long, a blood clot had formed in his leg. He couldn’t remember anything. His MRI was abnormal, showing a lot of swelling in the brain. He was put on blood thinners and released to his mother. A day later, he was back in the hospital for more tests. He stayed there for five more days.
This wasn’t a sudden spree, but part of a longer relapse
He finally confessed to me that he’d been using for the last six to nine months. I had felt him pulling away, but I’d thought he was super busy, or maybe he just wasn’t feeling the relationship anymore. I noticed he was late a lot, but he had ADHD and accompanying “time blindness,” so that was hardly surprising. Sometimes his personality did seem different: angrier, meaner, more irritable … but I thought he just didn’t like me anymore. However, with this new information, everything took on a new light.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” I asked, face full of tears. “I relapsed for 20 years. You didn’t think I’d get it?”
“I didn’t tell anybody,” he said quietly.
I wasn’t prepared for the emotional rollercoaster of having a loved one relapse
I felt so violated and betrayed and angry and sad. But I also felt grateful he was alive. I had so much cognitive dissonance that I’d just emotionally bounce from rage to sadness to relief, over and over again. And he was so ashamed, he was the perfect target.
“I’m so so sorry,” he sobbed as we held each other on my bed. “I love you. I’m sorry.”
I rubbed his back. I felt sad, but then my rage would kick in. “You fucking lied to me! For months! I don’t even know who you are. What’s not a lie? Do you really love me?” Venom spewed from my lips. I know addiction is not a choice or a moral issue, nor does it deserve punishment.
“Wasn’t it lonely to keep that secret from everyone for so long?” I asked.
“Very,” he said.
The truth is I HAD been him. How could I judge him? And then an epiphany: ‘Wait, oh my god, this is exactly what I put my friends and family through. For years. Fuck.’ I never dreamt I’d be on the other side. And, boy, was it horribly enlightening.
Lies and denial surrounded us
It probably wasn’t the best idea, but I let him stay with me for two weeks before he went into treatment. He kept testing positive for morphine, and he was heading for a sober living and IOP that required people to be at least 24 hours clean. It wasn’t like inpatient treatment, with a detox.
He denied knowing why he was testing positive for morphine.
“Maybe they gave it to me in the hospital?” he pondered.
“No, they didn’t. I read over your discharge records and talked to your mom. But nice try.”
“I really have no idea,” he said. I wanted to believe him. I really did.
“Maybe it was the morphine fairy?” I questioned sarcastically.
“I already feel like a piece of shit. There’s no need to be an asshole, Amy.”
The intake person asked if he’d eaten a poppy seed or an everything bagel, and I exploded, half laughing and half screaming, “How stupid is she?!!!”
His substance use was affecting how he functioned
He was different. Alternately penitent and defensive. His memory was totally blown.
“What time is it?” he’d ask.
“2:15”
Three minutes later, he’d ask again, “What time is it?”
The same thing happened with days of the week. He’d pass our usual exits on the freeway—he needed me to give him directions now.
He had brain damage. How severe, only time and future tests would tell.
I was racked with suspicion and anger
Every time he would walk back in the door to my place, I was suspicious. I’d look at his pupils. ‘Why is he falling asleep? Why is he taking so long in the bathroom?’ One time, I’m ashamed to admit I looked through his pockets and phone. I even drug tested him.
“Are you high?”I asked one night
“No. I fucked my brain up, so it would be pretty stupid to do more drugs.”
It would be great if addiction were rational, but it’s not. I knew this from experience. I had shot cocaine and given myself more seizures after I’d already been diagnosed with epilepsy thanks to my meth addiction. I know the game.
“Who do you think you’re talking to?!” I’d scream. “I was a drug addict. My ex-husband owned rehabs. I wrote an addiction memoir. I was an addiction journalist. How fucking dumb do you think I am?”
And then I’d collapse in a ball, hysterically crying on the floor.
Trying to move forward is harder than it sounds
How would we ever rebuild trust? How could we move forward from here? How could I ever believe anything he said?
All my friends and mentors told me to just cut and run. That he was a lifer. The prognosis was not good.
But I just couldn’t. I’d seen some stupid Instagram post that said, “Love is when somebody sees all the parts of you, even your darkest shadows, and stays. They don’t abandon you. They don’t run away.” I’d been given so much grace by my parents, put into rehab so many times. Their belief that one day I’d get it had never wavered. Maybe it was my turn to be the rock, my time to be the forgiver.
“I’m sorry. I told you, I’m really sorry. Things built up, and everyone was using in the sober living, and I felt so much pressure to catch up with my life, and …”
“You get to be sorry longer,” I heard myself say. “Do you have any idea what you put me and your parents through?”
I was so incredibly hurt and scared that everything I said came out as fury. It’s kind of my M.O. I’m not proud of it. Also, I had never been in this position. I had no idea what I was doing. What was empathy? What was a consequence?
I tried to give him room to find his way
Eventually, I sent him to stay with his parents till he tested clean. I was having seizure activity from being so upset all the time, and I felt really confused. I was so fucking angry and hurt … as if he done this to me. At me.
Addiction is not personal. I know that. I felt like we needed some space and time to reflect.
Once he got into treatment, he became the person I’d always wanted. “I love you and I miss you.” He became very clingy, but that worried me. Shouldn’t he be anchoring himself in himself and not in me? In the first week, he also pleaded to come live with me, but I refused and he’s adjusted.
“You did the crime, you do the time, my dude,” I’d say jokingly.
I keep waiting for him to have some big moment of clarity that makes me feel safe that he won’t ever use again. But I know that’s not the way it works. The truth is there is no safety, no bullet-proof assurance. There never was and never will be, and if I choose to be with him moving forward, I will have to live with that. I’m still not sure if I can.
This experience makes me reflect on my own past
I went to a few support groups, but I would just cry in them. Very few people talked about friends, partners, or family members currently in active addiction. I kept hearing about “detaching.” But because of my own wounds, I didn’t understand the difference between detaching and abandonment, and nobody had a terrific explanation. The meetings make me anxious, and I find some of the people to be quite righteous (‘Okay, Hector Projector’), but I still continue to go. I also know some women who have been through this, and I talk to them. But the truth is, I have to have my own journey and my own experience.
I remember when I was using, and I called my dad for money. When he refused, I tried to manipulate him. He said, “Ames, you used to be able to ruin my life. Now you can’t ruin my lunch.” And he hung up on me. That’s when I knew the jig was up.
What I’m trying to do is focus on myself and my life and stay out of his recovery. There is nothing I can say or do that will make him “get it.” I’m not that powerful.
When he complained that he was bored on the weekend, I exploded. A friend said, “All he said was that he was bored. It is boring. There’s a lot of sitting around and downtime. You did much worse in rehab.”
It’s true. I self-harmed. I drank and got kicked out of two sober livings. I slept with other clients. I flirted with the chef. I was a fucking nightmare. But my personal history doesn’t make it easier for me to accept this.
“If you leave or get loaded or sleep with someone there, your stuff will be in a bonfire in the middle of the road. Do you hear me?” I said one day.
Yes, we all know threats are so effective in substance use recovery! Ha!
I felt and continue to feel so helpless. And I must sit with that feeling. I have no control. The only control I have is over how much I let it affect me. Some days I do well at that and other days … not so much. Maybe that’s what they mean by detachment. It would be so much easier to just burn the whole thing to the ground and walk away.
But that’s what I always do.
The future is uncertain
Here’s the truth: neither I, my friends, nor the people in the support groups know what will happen. Sure, the odds are stacked against him. Against us. But that was my story, too. So we’ll see.
I will not save him from his consequences. I will not let him take me down. I will maintain my boundaries. I’ll stop bringing up the past. But walking away? Love makes that really difficult.
People accused my parents of being enabling, but, wow, do I understand that now. Maybe they prolonged my recovery process. Maybe they kept me alive. We will never know. They are recently passed, and now I cry not just over the loss, but also over what my addiction must have done to them. In the end, none of us loves uncertainty. But such is life, with an addict or not.
