Can you help if the help that is asked for is tailored by the addict himself?

[sardine]

My husband is both and alcoholic and an addict of marijuana and cocaine. We have been married for 3 years and I always thought his problems related to alcohol. I don't know why I stayed so long, but he was always extremely remorseful and promised to stop drinking. In the last two years, I began to see his obsession with marijuana and he would stay high for most of the day, and in the last two months he told me he had a cocaine problem. It is only with hindsight that i can now identify his behaviour in the past as related to drug use. We sought intervention, and got a professional counsellor to meet with him every week. It has been two months going on three. I thought he was improving...until he proudly told me that he had been smoking pot all through the counselling, and no one knew. He says he only wanted to give up cocaine and alcohol but not weed and that no one can stop him from smoking weed. I'm so confused because I know that with his addictive personality he will start smoking pot frequently again, and then who knows what, after all he is so good at lying to me. I don't know what else to do if he doesn't want the help for ONE of the substances. How long do you try to help someone who chooses which substances he will stop. Should I be satisfied that he says he will give up cocaine and alcohol? Am I supposed to wait for him to hit rock bottom and then see if he wants help again?

[avisg]

You deserve to be happy and if that happiness means that you want to be with someone that is COMPTELY drug free then that's what you need .This will be a never ending battle and if he is not fully committed then its not going to work .Do you want to spend the rest of your life wondering if he is really sober this time .

These are all things you need to ask yourself .This might sound like odd advice from an addict but I don't know if I would want to be married to me if I was my hubby . I hope this works out for you you deserve a happy life :)
avis

[gizzy32]

i agree with avis. you will always wonder and he has kept things from you before. it's your choice if you wait or not, i hope he cleans up. good luck.

[ochooked]

Ditto to what avis and gizzy said - -  You deserve to try and find happiness for yourself -- waiting for someone else to change, who may not even have the desire or will to try may be a dead end street for you.   Find what makes you happy and go for it - ---  IF he changes in the meantime, then you have something more than empty promises to hang your hopes on.  Best to you.

[Coolio Hernendez]

Ditto to what avis and gizzy and ochooked said.......I know first hand how a husband can lie and do crazy things......B/C i am one too.....

I reallt hope this works out for you....I hope these things can be overcome for my sake as well as yours...

I deff cant give advice on the subject until i get my problems figured out...

[landbray]

hi,
do you want to spend the rest of your life feeling like you do now? B/c that is exactly how your life will be. and it can be worse. Almost always does.
For your sake & happiness I would leave, see if he can clean up for a year then make your decision. But if your choose to stay you will always be 2nd in his life, 4th in your case b/c he has the booze, pot & coke, ahead of you.
I hate to see anyone in your position. It is a very confusing place to be. If the drugs weren't there it wouldn't be.
To me you sound like you don't want anything to do with what he is doing but as long as you stay you will be draged into it everyday. It is not worth your happiness, health & well being

good luck to you
paadict

[Dezdon]

It sounds like he did stop the coke and drinking which sounds like the main problems. And he has come clean about still smoking weed, he isnt hiding it from you. Does he have behavior issues when he is smoking or is he just a recreational smoker now?
peace
-Dez

[ali3674]

hmmm. this sounds like  a tough one.  Yu've only been married 3 yrs , so its difficult to saay what will happen...How long have you known him?  what is his behavior on a day 2 day basis?  Is he verbally abusive when he is high?  Does he have a lot of pressure or stress at work?  What is the history of ur relationship?  Has it been healthy?  Does he lie about other things?  Its just so tough because Im sure you love this man, and its a good sign that he is being honest with you...Its all a matter of what yu can handle in your life...I personally could not handle someone who smoked pot everyday, but I know people who can and who do.  You have to do what makes you happy.  

[extrmeski]

Well there are certainly a ton of opinions on here but let me tell you something that my therapist told me when I was breaking free from my ex G/F.  Addicts are liers!  They will lie about everything and anything to hide their acctions, get the drugs they need/money they need for drugs/ reasons they have to go out at night etc.. Get the picture.  I'm not saying your husband is lying but I wouldn't be shocked if he was.  Let me ask you this.  Why does he need that crutch?  Why does he have to be high to bear with life??  I think that he needs some professional help.

[sardine]

First of all may I say for the first time I don't feel alone in this thanks to everyone's comments...I'm so glad I joined this forum. My husband is indeed a pathological liar and I cannot always tell when he is lying. Avis and Gizzy32 - you are right, I do spend everyday wondering if he has lied to me. I knew him for about 4 years before we got married and he was clearly an alcoholic, but since I didn't always go out with him to parties, I never knew the extent of it, until we got married and I began to see how often he was drunk. Then he lost his day job just before we got married, and began a night job of DJ work. And then it was downhill from there (so for my whole marriage of 3 years). He would leave home at 6pm and come home the next day around 10am, or not at all for a few days. Then when he was home, he would smoke all day. Since he asked for help in June this year, he has stopped the DJ work and I support us financially (well, technically I always have). His point of view is that I am trying to take away everything from him....but he is the one who came to me and said he needed help....so I don't understand why he has to be so obsessed with the weed. It really hurts that he is choosing weed over me. How can that be? Wouldn't you want your loved ones to stay? My dilemma is that I love him and don't know when I should say enough is enough...how long to I support him? What if I leave and he goes back downhill...then it will be my fault. Dezdon, I don't know if he CAN be a recreational smoker....he does everything to the extreme, I suppose I would have to wait and see. If I say I'm ok with smoking recreationally, he will take it to the max.

[wannabefree330]

Do you love your husband enough to stay and allow this to continue until you find him dead from an OD one day?  Or until he causes the death of another due to drunk driving?  The longer you let this continue, the worse it will get.  Set some clear boundaries right now!  He is an addict, and 'recreational use' is not in our vocabulary.  For us, it's all or.....all basically.  The fact is, you HAVE to take everything away from him.  That's the only way to help him save himself.  Please note, i said save himself.  YOU cannot do it, it has to come from him.  Until he really wants that for himself, you're fighting a losing battle.  Get to some alanon meetings for yourself, &/or some individual counseling.  I can't see why he would want anything to change right now, he has the best of both worlds.  He can still use and get high, while he has you coming home every night, and he doesn't have to take accountability for finances. He needs a wake up call.

[TysonRed]

Only thing I can say, is alcohol and cocaine are much more harmful than marijuana. Not that weed can't become a problem, but maybe take on step at a time. Now if he says he's never going to give up pot, well then you need to decide if thats something you're willing to deal with. I grew up being a kid having an alcoholic parent, and I look back now and wish the addiction had only been marijuana. Alcohol is one of the worst addictions to have to watch a loved one go thru, all the nasty things they say when there drunk, the constant worrying about them driving or other crazy things they might want to do. Now in no way am I advocating for smoking weed, but if hes willing to give up alcohol and cocaine right now, I would roll with that for the time being. Once that has definetely happened maybe his mind will change about the fact of using marijuana, but if it doesnt, and if you cant convince him to give it up, then go from there. But for the time being, be supportive of the fact he is taking a partial right step towards sobriety, its a start.

[Dezdon]

Good post. it was right on target, not about dissolving a marriage.
peace
-Dez

[theeagle]

I went through the alcohol and coke period. I am glad that my wife stuck with me and helped me help myself through that mess. I have observed, over 60 years on this planet, that the cultures that smoke some form of herb and despise alcohol usually have a much more relaxed frame of mind and fewer  of the many health issues that alcohol brings up. Not to mention the violence that goes along with alcohol.  And the family type violence with alcohol isnt an issue with pot. Like tyson said above, if you get him to quit alcohol and coke thats a large step. You might even like him without the liquor and powder even if he burns one occasionally..................It kept me alive through a full year of chemo - thats the truth. I was close to loosing therapy because I couldnt eat.....after I smoked one I could eat and keep some food down. And never once have I wanted to go on a spree of killing and mayhem!!! People get too worked up over pot. To this day I would rather see my own son smoke a joint instead of imbibing in a lot of liquor. But all things in moderation.  Good luck. The alcohol and coke are bad karma and really need to go.

[Larry090]

When I married my wife I told her that it comes with a condition, I smoke pot..Maybe I was wrong but I was Honest.... Lose the dude...... Just my 2-cents....

[extrmeski]

Seems to me that the base of my point was somehow lost, and that is there is something in his life that causes him to need addictive drugs to get through life.  That is the problem that needs to be dealt with here.  If you love him and want to save the marriage then that problem needs to be surfaced and dealt with.  Seems to me he is feeling emasculated.

[sardine]

I agree with extrmeski that there is some deep-seated reason why my husband won't give up the weed. I know that weed is probably the least harmful of the three drugs he has problems with, and I totally agree if it is used for medical reasons, but he has no medical ailments - other than the disease of addiction itself. He has made it clear that he wants it when he wants it. He has no idea of moderation.  I'm so unhappy with the lying, the arguments, that he blames me for making him give up his friends and social life, that I am taking away everything from him when I ask him to be drug free - including weed and I can go on and on. I have decided to put the ball back in his court and told him that I'm not stopping him from doing anything anymore, I'm not urging him to go to NA meetings, and I'm not baby-sitting him. He can do as he pleases and we will see how things go up to the end of the year. I feel that I would be giving him a chance to reflect, and then I will decide what to do with myself from there. I cant go on like this, the conflict between taking it personally and feeling emotionally hurt and telling myself its not him, its the substances....its like living in another world. I hope I'm making the right decision....and I hope he does too.