Hello. This is a really long post, and I apologize for that, but I something has been bothering me lately that I can't seem to wrap my head around. In the future hopefully I won't have these problems. I recently signed up for this forum to cover topics related to addiction/recovery. I have been an addict for over half my life now, but I don't use drugs regularly anymore. I do occasionally relapse, but that has been infrequent ( several times over the past 15 years). Recently though, I've run into a real problem...friends. I gave up on most of my friends 15 years ago because I just couldn't do what they were doing any more. It was screwing up my life. I attended a lot of meetings, mainly AA, NA wasn't as prevalent in my area, and learned a lot about starting over. The problem is, I'm finding out my new friends are hitting rock bottom. One guy I know in particular is having a really hard time. In the past couple of years he's lost several jobs and apartments and winds up staying at my place. One time I let him stay for 2 1/2 months rent-free so he could save his money for a deposit and month's rent on a condo. In that time he gave me nothing for my trouble. But what bothered me was he kept spending his checks on $30 bar tabs several nights a week, $120 quarters of premium weed, cheap grams and, I was told, rocks of crack. Now he never did anything but the weed in front of me, even offering me some, which I declined, but I was a literally freaked out. That was me. I used to things like that. I didn't care, I just wanted to feel better and ignore reality. But my rock-bottom didn't involve so much living above my means. I mean, I feel like I was more responsible in prioritizing. Of course, I did clean up, but that didn't solve my problems. I was still broke, and homeless. So in a way I empathize with the guy. He just wants to feel good and ignore the life he's living that keeps turning into crap. I tried everything I could, but I'm not recruiting him for NA. The question is whether I should pull the rug out from under him. He's staying at my apartment again. He's working part-time and needs a place to clean up before he goes to work as a cook. I was letting him do that, but he's shown up at my place stoned with a tin foil pipe several times in the past week, which he knows I don't want in the house. I mean, I feel like a hypocrite. He knows I tolerate people who use, but doesn't know exactly what I went through. All he knows is I'm a pushover. But do I throw him out for no apparent reason and force him to lose his only job and source of income. The shelters are full this time of year. I have no idea where he'd go. He's 53+-years-old. He's never succeded in life. Me I'm a stone's throw from homelessness myself if I don't keep up my responsibilities. But I can't take care of him. I don't know if I can tolerate him much longer, he's spent 4 of the last 7 nights sleeping on my couch. It doesn't bother me someone's on the couch. He's quiet, and only there for a couple of hours at night. (I don't let him hang out during the day or give him a key - though he resents that). I figure I'm doing the least I can for him, but he just keeps slipping up. He'd rather get high than look for a job, and he's living above his means again. All of my other friends tell me he's changed dramatically in the past several years, that he's not the same person anymore. I don't know if I should say this, but he's also been playing the race card a lot lately. He's black and that's why he's got problems. He can't live here because he's black. The bar won't cover his tab because they're racist. I don't even know how to handle that. If he's talking to the people I know who talk like that, he's back on crack again - and the man is gonna come ruin his life. I don't know what to do, shun him? That's like reinforcing the racial negativity - I'm white, I don't want to know him. I lose no matter what. If I suggested help he'd laugh or tell me I was a snitch. I signed him up for public housing and he acted like I was an idiot, that it was beneath him, and I should know that. But he calls me and asks, no, he pretends to beg to be able to stay on my couch. He's also getting very resentful and treats me like I ought to be more understanding somehow. He has my sympathy, but he's using it in a way that makes me feel like I'm enabling him. I think the whole problem may just be a conflict of interest. I'm speculating he thinks he's going to be a drug kingpin. He's going to find someone one day who will solve his problems with a bag. But if I'm thinking correctly, he's going to blow the bag and owe the guy $1000. Then it will end badly. He's already tried that and wound up owing people hundreds of dollars already. He almost been beat up several times. And the guys who were going to do it, said, "no," they wanted to be nice guys, not thugs. What was his answer, blow them off, refuse to pay them back and threaten to call the cops and tell them what was going on. Is that shooting yourself in the foot? I mean, is that delusional? I was under the impression that was a good way to get yourself killed. That's another reason I don't do drugs anymore, I can't deal with violence very well. If he wasn't my friend I would have stopped talking with him a long time ago. I don't need people coming to me to collect his debts, or showing up at my place. I'm real concerned about that. So this is weird. I haven't been too worried about being clean. I say no all the time. I just feel like shit about leaving someone sleeping on the sidewalk. I feel like he has to escalate to violence or insanity before I'll do anything. It just that he's only half-way there, maybe more and it'll take another year or two before he loses it completely. I don't want to watch him destroy himself for that long. I know most people just say to stay out of it. People doing drugs have problems you can't help because they are a problem for you. Yeah, but, what about helping someone? I don't know. I was just wondering how other people might feel about this issue. I feel like I'm going to have to find new friends again, and be left wondering if this guy died for the rest of my life. He's a very unhappy person with a very unhappy life, do I have the right to judge him? What about morals and ethics, everyone's always talking about God and Jesus or their higher power. I can't seem to do anything. I feel powerless about this situation. He doesn't know about enabling, he just knows he's in pain and nothing in life is fair, so he doesn't care anymore. Do I say, "See ya dude, wouldn't want to be ya?" Not that I'm like that, but that 's probably how it would appear to him, after knowing me for so many years.
Well, Jay, first let me say that you can't help someone who doesn't want to be helped. It sounds like your friend does not want to stop using and change his life. He wants you to help him maintain his current lifestyle.
If you're okay with that, no problem. However, your post sounds like you're not okay with that.
If it were me, I would just tell him the truth: I've wanted to help you. I can't help you. I no longer feel comfortable having you come around here. I wish you all the best. If you ever want to hook up at a meeting, my homegroup is [place and time]. I'm there every week. Good luck, man.
If he's an addict, he will most likely try to make you feel bad or to guilt you into helping him maintain his current lifestyle. Please believe that you are doing nothing wrong. You do not have the power or ability to rescue a using addict. You cannot beat the disease of addiction; it is more powerful than you. (No offense.) In fact, addiction is so powerful that it will ruin your life even if you're not the one using. Stay far, far away!
Thank you for reading my long-winded post and replying. I hope I didn't offend anyone with anything I said either. Everything you said sounds exactly right. Except I think he needs professional help, like going to dry out in a hospital and following up with scheduled support group meetings. That would be nice, ideal even, anything to cut him off from the source of his growing problems. But I doubt that will happen. There's no way to make someone do that. No, most guys like him do that in jail, if they hold them long enough, but then it just reinforces the negativity. It's kind of a shame, and as you know, a lot of people would rather die than get help. I just try and be optimistic. I don't think he's terminal yet. I had another friend who shot special K. He O.D.'d. The last call he made was to his parents. They came over and found him with the phone still in his hand. He survived, but it was close. He doesn't extol the virtues of drugs much anymore.
If I was enforcing my own standards, he would be gone. What he is doing is basically unacceptable to me, and has the potential to affect me negatively. I feel like I'm already half-way down the drain to a sea of crud because of what he's doing and has done. I've been there and I don't want to go back. I'm just still weighing my issues against his before I tell him he can't stay again. Anyway, I'll tell you what happened shortly after I read your post.
It was raining terribly. He called, saying he was cold and tired. He'd spent the night before at a bus stop. I don't think he liked that. I drove to meet him and we talked. I kept trying to think of a way to explain that I couldn't do this anymore. I mentioned I knew of another friend of mine who was living in a tool shed behind an abandoned house. He wasn't interested in that either. After we got back to my place, we talked for a while about nothing in particular. Then I changed the subject to drug use.
I asked him why he was using every day and if he thought it was a problem. He denied everything. I told him I knew he was using and was bringing drugs into my place. I also told him I knew a lot about using behavior. I told him about the last time I let him save up his money and how he spent it on drugs. He told me I had it wrong, he wasn't wasting money, he was making money. I told him whatever it was, it wasn't working, he was back at my place again and it was a pattern he needed to watch, because it was becoming progressively worse.
I asked him if he realized that every free moment he had to pursue jobs or housing was spent getting stoned, that he had started to deny reality because it wasn't pleasant, that he was under a lot of pressure and trying to forget about it by doping himself up until he was numb. He didn't really say anything. I explained I knew all about that because I used to go through drugs like water. I used every day, several times a day, even at work. It cost me money, time, jobs, success, women, a place to stay, pretty much everything I had at the time. I then told him I wasn't trying to put him under any more pressure, but that he needed to watch himself because I couldn't do it for him.
Then I told him this was about the last time he was going to be able to stay, so he should get some sleep. He kind of looked at me a little hesitantly. Then he told he'd be alright, he had everything under control. After that, we watched CBS Up to the Minute announce Hillary's victory over Obama in the latest primaries. John McCain of course, had won the Republican nomination. Then I went to crash.
I might give him some phone numbers again next time I see him. But as for now, he knows he has to find someplace else to stay. I don't want to sound cruel, but living outside and not having any money can be real conducive to changing your act in my opinion, but it's not a cure-all.
