Expert: Peter L. - 6/24/2010

Question
My worst fears are confirmed, my sweet, funny boyfriend is using opiate drugs and lord knows what else.  It is all extremely sudden, he openly admits to using suboxone, and in a stupor last night asked me if I had any heroin so Im sure he is doing that too. He flew off the handle when I wouldn't let him use the car to go get pills and accused me of taking money from him, when in actuality I am the one missing a few dollars here and there and I am missing my prescription anxiety medication that I just refilled 2 days ago. He is currently on probation and I am considering reporting his use to the officer just in hopes they will put him back in jail or order him into treatment. Im totally lost tho, he is suddenly so angry and violent, punching walls, and calling me a bitch and hanging around people he never would normally. Please help!

Answer
Hi Courtney,

Sorry to hear about your frustrations with your boyfriend.  I've been an addictions treatment professional for 26 years, and I've never seen anything like what's happening now with opioid addiction.  I find my heroin and other opioid clients very difficult to treat.

Opioid addiction is a vicious cycle of use and terrible withdrawal cravings.  Just a few days ago my coworker and I were trying to discover the basis for opioid addicts antisocial behaviors: lying, manipulating staff, avoiding, etc.  We concluded that when someone tries opioids they have found the "answer" like nothing else that has come before.  There are some people very vulnerable to opioid's all-consuming effects, that "what it does" that makes it so attractive and so addicting. Opioids cause fundamental changes to brain chemistry that turn people into something other than they've been.  We see this all the time, and this may be happening with your boyfriend.  Ultimately, anybody or anything that interferes with their "quest" to use opioids is to be eliminated.  This also explains how we see nice people do terrible things to get money for these drugs.  I guess the term "dope fiend" explains these behaviors.

When an opioid addict runs into consequences that signal the inability to continue the use and lifestyle, they freak.  They need some form of opioid replacement therapy, like Suboxone or Methadone, or they will simply seek out opioids.  The brain and body say: You have to get me that drug, NOW!!

I never feel one has to put up with this stuff in living with an alcoholic/addict.  Your boyfriend needs treatment, like all substance abusers.  If he doesn't get it, he'll get worse and continue to lie and steal from you, but only more so.  There is the potential for him to get more violent, as he's not in control of his impulses.  His body and brain are crying out for substances.  He's morphing into something else than the sweet, funny individual that has been the source of your attraction to him.  This can be big trouble and you have to be careful.

It will be hard to "turn him in" as it were, but without consequences addicts and alcoholics never change.  They have found, in their substances, something that works very powerfully in changing the way they think and feel. If you found something that was the equivalent of the best dinner, best vacation experience, best sex, best sunset, best book, best music concert, all at once, you'd not want anybody to take it from you.  This is how opioid users look at the effects of those drugs, and their reactions when people get in the way.

Treatment is the name of the game for your boyfriend, and if he doesn't get it, show him the door.  He needs pressure to follow through.

Best of luck with this,
Peter