Expert: Peter L. - 12/14/2010

Question
About two years ago I met my first love. He was had a car, a job, and was going to school. To the outside he was perfect. I started dating him and ended up giving my virginity to him.
Before we got into a relationship, he did tell me that he went to rehab for heroin, but that he had been clean for almost three years. At the time i didn't care because I loved him and he was my first love.
I lived 40mins away and i didn't know he had been using. One night i slept over at his apartment and I woke up in the middle of the night. He was lying next to me and couldn't breath. His lips were blue and his body was cold and pale. I literally freaked out. I started crying and slapping him to wake up. It still brings me to tears.
I performed CPR and he woke up. I told him that was it and i was gone.
Unfortunately I couldn't stay away. I wanted to help him. and love him because he made me feel that I was the only one who could save him. so i moved in with him. soon i starting finding needles, baggies, the missing spoons & foil. I moved out, but i still talk to him. I just don't know why I still want a relationship with him. I do want to move on, but every time i think about it i just cry. I want to be with him so badly, but I don't know if it is the best decision for me.

Answer
Hi Emma,

I get quite a few letters such as yours, and I appreciate the natural inclination so many girlfriends and wives have to help their boyfriends or husbands.  I believe these writers, that their men are good, loving, caring, decent human beings.  

The problem is addiction, and what that represents in the life of an addict or alcoholic.  The addict loses a sense of himself.  It's almost as if he is possessed, unable to intervene on his own behalf and stop the destructive behavior.  Addicts are skilled at making those around them sympathetic; you might say it is a well-honed survival technique.

I'm sorry you are finding yourself in this predicament, and feel you may have to move on.  I would say that unless your boyfriend can get back into treatment, you won't succeed in a relationship with him.  He needs help to regain his life, get a sense of self, a direction, and the stability one needs when in an intimate relationship with another.

Continue to talk to him, if you would like to be supportive.  But for now, he has an active struggle with addiction, and he needs to focus on establishing his independence from substance abuse.  He is not ready to commit to a love relationship and the demands it will place on him.  With treatment, and a period of abstinence, combined with making the lifestyle adjustments necessary to sustain that abstinence, he might be ready again to be in an intimate relationship.

Give him time, be supportive, and let him pursue (or not) his recovery.  You will save yourself a lot of upset and turmoil that would occur in your trying to "save" him, and would be losing yourself in the process.

Hope this is helpful,
Peter