I haven't posted these in a while, we have a few newcomers dealing with a loved ones drug use and saw it appropriate to repost for them to read. I found these on on another forum last year and I still get goosebumps when i read them because everything below is so true.
Let Me Fall All By Myself
If you love me let me fall all by myself. Don't try to spread a net out to catch me. Don't throw a pillow under my ass to cushion the pain so I don't have to feel it. Don't stand in the place I am going to land so that you can break the fall (allowing yourself to get hurt instead of me) ... Let me fall as far down as my addiction is going to take me, let me walk the valley alone all by myself, let me reach the bottom of the pit ... trust that there is a bottom there somewhere even if you can't see it. The sooner you stop saving me from myself, stop rescuing me, trying to fix my broken-ness, trying to understand me to a fault, enabling me ... The sooner you allow me to feel the loss and consequences, the burden of my addiction on my shoulders and not yours ... the sooner I will arrive ... and on time ... just right where I need to be ... me, alone, all by myself in the rubble of the lifestyle I lead ... resist the urge to pull me out because that will only put me back at square one ... If I am allowed to stay at the bottom and live there for awhile ... I am free to get sick of it on my own, free to begin to want out, free to look for a way out, and free to plan how I will climb back up to the top. In the beginning as I start to climb out .. I just might slide back down, but don't worry I might have to hit bottom a couple more times before I make it out safe and sound ... Don't you see ?? Don't you know ?? You can't do this for me ... I have to do it for myself, but if you are always breaking the fall how am I ever suppose to feel the pain that is part of the driving force to want to get well. It is my burden to carry, not yours ... I know you love me and that you mean well and a lot of what you do is because you don't know what to do and you act from your heart not from knowledge of what is best for me ... but if you truly love me let me go my own way, make my own choices be they bad or good ... don't clip my wings before I can learn to fly ... Nudge me out of your safety net ... trust the process and pray for me ... that one day I will not only fly, but maybe even soar. ---Passion
What Addicts Do
My name's Jon. I'm an addict. And this is what addicts do. You cannot nor will not change my behavior. You cannot make me treat you better, let alone with any respect. All I care about, all I think about, is my needs and how to go about fufilling them. You are a tool to me, something to use. When I say I love you I am lying through my teeth, because love is impossible for someone in active addiction. I wouldn't be using if I loved myself, and since I don't, I cannot love you.
My feelings are so pushed down and numbed by my drugs that I could be considered sociopathic. I have no empathy for you or anyone else. It doesn't faze me that I hurt you, leave you hungry, lie to you, cheat on you and steal from you.
My behavior cannot and will not change until i make a decison to stop using/drinking and then follow it up with a plan of action.
And until I make that decsion, I will hurt you again and again and again.
Stop being surprised.
I am an addict. And that's what addicts do.
__________________
Dear Family/Friends/Loved Ones,
I am a drug abuser. I need help.
Don't solve my problems for me. This only makes me lose respect for you - and for myself.
Don't lecture, moralize, scold, blame, or argue whether I'm stoned or sober. It may make you feel better, but it only makes the situation worse.
Don't accept my promises. The nature of my illness prevents my keeping them, even though I mean them at the time. Promises are only my way of postponing pain.
And don't keep switching agreements; if an agreement is made, stick to it.
Don't lose your temper with me. It will destroy you and any possibility of helping me.
Don't let your anxiety for me make you do what I should do for myself.
Don't believe everything I tell you. Often I don't even know the truth - let alone tell it.
Don't cover up or try to spare me the consequences of my using. It may reduce the crisis, but it will make my illness worse.
Above all, don't run away from reality as I do. Drug dependence, my illness, gets worse as my using continues.
Start now to learn, to understand, to plan for your own recovery. Find Families Anonymous, Nar-Anon, Al-Anon or CoDA; those groups exist to help families in just your situation.
I need help - from a doctor, a psychologist, a counselor, from some people in a self-help program who are in recovery from a drug problem themselves - and from a Power greater than myself.
Love,
Your "User"
You can't make me clean, though I know it is what you want for me to be. But until I want it. I won't be. You can't love me clean, because until I learn to love myself. I won't be. I know you must wonder how can I learn to love myself when I am caught up in a life style of self-hatred and self destruction. I can learn from my own experiences. I can learn from the things that happen to me along the path of my own mistakes. I can learn by being allowed to suffer the consequences of my choices. Life has a funny way of teaching us the lessons we need learn.
I know it devastates you to watch me hurting myself. I know you want to jump in and save me. This helps ease your pain, but I don't think you understand just how damaging it is to me.
You see, although I look and sound like your loved one. I am not. That person is in a self imposed prison way deep down inside of my being and what you see before you is an addict ruled and reigned by my addiction. I am a addict and my main focus is to feed the addiction. Every effort you put forth in the name of "helping me" falls prey to my addiction giving it more power to shackle me down a little more each time.
I feed my addiction enough. So please don't help me.
The only way for the real me to get free is to be free. FREE to fall as far down as I need to go in order to find the strength to fight and find my way back. To break free.
How can or will I ever be able to get clean you wonder ...
The same way I gave myself over to my addiction is the same way I can give myself over to my recovery. BY MYSELF
By not enabling me you will be allowing me to reach "rock bottom". By trusting the process you move over and allow me to find the my own way back. You see, it is in the fight to get free that I will find myself. It is in the fight that I will learn to love myself and the more I love myself ... the more I will start to do to better myself, but I myself, must do this.
I am aware that when I use I am playing Russian roulette with my life. I know this, but that is a chance I take when I use. The addict in me is willing to take that chance in the name of getting high.
Rock bottom is but a circumstance away. I can't reach it you are blocking the entrance.
I know you love me and you only want whats best for me ... but that very love keeps you blind sighted to just what truly is best for me and causes you to act from/out of fear and emotions.
Please for my sake don't try to stop me... just let me go ... move out of the way and let me fall as far down as my addiction is going to take me ... as far down as I have to to reach rock bottom. Don't try to cushion the fall. Just believe in me and trust the process. Pray for me that when I do hit ... it is not with the impact that leaves me for dead (I know that is your greatest fear), but if it comes to that, be sure to tell my story so that others might learn from my mistakes and live.
Passion
Recovering addict |
