Codependent Relationships and Addiction

What follows is the very beginnings of my addiction and how I co-created some of my codependent relationships. You may be on this blog looking for support with a loved one and wondering why seemingly normal people act out in obsessive and manipulative behaviors as they make their way into their addiction. It can be easy to make assumptions on why we all act the way we do, but usually these patterns start earlier than you may be aware. I was probably considered very normal and yet I made choice after choice that led me to make decisions that were self-harming or degrading compared to who I am now. Upon reflection, these were some of my early warning signs. ⚠️ Trigger  warning:⚠️ This blog entry does talk about drug use.

The Beginning: Don and Jim

Outside my my parent-child relationship with my folks I didn’t make many real relationships before I got into middle and high school. My best friend in middle school was a girl named Don. I had transferred from elementary to middle school from a nearby town and didn’t know anyone at my new school. Don was one of the first people I met. She had some street smarts for a middle schooler and coming from a home riddled with addiction, she didn’t trust many people and she didn’t want to be bull-shitted. She saw me as having zero life experience and so she started teaching me how the world worked, and she illuminated some of the darkness on earth I didn’t see or understand.

We parted ways for a while when she was expelled from our school in 8th grade, in that time I met my first boyfriend in my Freshmen year of high school, Jim. The expulsion was because she journaled and one of her “angry-feelings” journals was taken and used against her as proof she was dangerous to the school. People write all sorts of shit in their diary assuming no one will ever find and read it, unfortunately it was found and it was evidence enough to remove her from the school. Jim was a senior when we met and he was funny and kind. We did some minimal partying like smoking weed, dabbled in taking mushrooms, little nights of drinking. As a first relationship it was good for me but it sowed the seeds of feeling like I needed him to feel whole. Our relationship lasted a little over a year.

When I was a Sophomore Jim and I broke it off and I almost immediately started a new relationship. Don and I also regained our friendship and we had a new goal in mind, to get and stay high. She said her brother told her about something new, huffing butane. Looking back now, I know this was a terrible idea but at the time it was accessible and relatively cheap. As it obliterated my brain cells I went to a whole new level of leaving reality, and I loved it. I knew that needed to end though, it was too good and it gave me a little premonition into the dark and not-too-distant future. Don and I eventually parted ways, each taking our own paths through addiction and I was on a mission to find anyone or anything that could fill the whole I had inside.

The Birth of Codependency

Codependency really blossomed in this relationship as my new boyfriend, Darren, was the rebellious son of Mormons. Where he was extremely rebellious in the eyes of his parents for dating me (his first girlfriend) he still attended school every day and never smoked, took drugs, or drank. But dating alone just enough to get them to hate and resent me for not being Mormon and perpetuating his distance from their religion. I tried to do things to gain their acceptance like go to dances and come over for dinner, I was concurrently terrified of them because of the frosty shade his mom threw every time I entered the room. I have a fabulous story to share about them, look out for it in another blog post coming soon. We were inseparable until I couldn’t take the heat from his family anymore. That relationship lasted until I was 18 and the second we ended it I went out and started using.

My third relationship was so messy I still feel guilty about it no matter how many amends I try and make. Ricky was a creative guy and went by the beat of his own drum. The way I used and manipulated him makes me so ashamed. I wanted him to fill the gaping void still growing inside, and he had no interest in being that.

I didn’t want to be alone and I would call him incessantly. I wanted him to treat me with respect because I didn’t respect myself. I wanted him to make me feel good because I couldn’t find any joy that came from inside of me. And when he couldn’t fill the void and be all the things I wanted him to be I found new friends who could hook me up with the substances that would obliterate every care in the world. These friends became the ones that filled the void and this was when I was introduced to my drug of choice, oxy. From then on I made it my mission to get those pills every single day. They made me not care anymore and they made me numb. Ricky and I stayed together for 3 years and had an ugly drawn-out relationship until I ended it abruptly (so abruptly he didn’t even realize I’d ended it).

Codependent Friendships

I became inseparable with my using friends and we crushed up and snorted oxy everyday for 4 years. We used other prescription pills too, anything we could get we would take. Crushing up Fentanyl suckers and snorting those, norcos, mystery pills. It did not matter, anything I could find I would put up my nose and I was mildly comfortable for 4 years unless the pill fountain dried up. Then it was a day of self-made suffering and sickness. When these friends I spent every day with told me they were moving to a neighboring state I was absolutely crushed. I felt abandoned and I cut emotional ties with them as much as I could because it was painful to think of my life without them. They left because they knew their addiction had become unmanageable and they were doing a “geographical” to see if they could get a handle on it. And while I understood that, I felt more broken than ever.

I saw an old friend at a party shortly after and he introduced me to shooting IV drugs. From there I dropped oxy almost completely and only shot dope. A long time ago I decided that graduating to needle drugs was a line I couldn’t cross but I barely blinked as a stepped over that line. Maybe it was my inner victim that wanted my old friends to see what I would do to myself because they left. Or maybe it was the only way I could think to fill the void. But I didn’t care about any consequence, the drive to not feel over rode any desire to grow, evolve, change, or love.

Fast Forward

I went to treatment, I listened, I let others show me the way, I felt. I accepted almost any suggestion anyone in recovery gave me and I committed to working on myself. I did these things because I knew the desperation to get outside of myself in my addiction was more painful that anything that could happen to me in recovery. I promise the story gets better. So much fucking better. One thing I wanted to mention is that as this blog progresses I will be updating it with links to posts that relate to different parts of my story. This will be an ongoing process, so please bare with me.

If you are in a place to get help or ready to try a new way, there are resources! Start by Googling “recovery meeting schedules in (insert your city/town here)”. You can find other addicts who are in recovery and introduce yourself. There are also online meetings if that seems too daunting. If you feel like you are ready to ask questions regarding treatment then there are many online resources that can help find out your treatment options. You can visit this website designated to offering treatment options and recovery resources. If you haven’t figured it out, I’m way big on treatment because it SAVED MY LIFE! So I personally know it can work and has worked. If you’re not ready to go that far, it’s ok. What I hope to get across to you that there are options if and when you are ready.