r/naranon

I’m the wife of someone addicted to fentanyl. We have two children, and I’ve had to Narcan him three times over the past five years. He has been to rehab seven times.
I eventually asked him to leave after discovering he was smoking blues. He is still using, and we are now separated and moving toward divorce.
What I’m struggling with most lately is trying to understand what is actually going on inside of him.
During our separation, he has given me so many different explanations for how he feels.
He has told me that somewhere along the way I became the breadwinner and that I was always ambitious and moving forward.
Then he tells me how much he misses our relationship and that drugs are the reason he becomes so defensive and angry with me.
Then he says he is simply a lost person and talks about how his father wasn’t there for him emotionally in the way he needed growing up.
Other times he says that people around us wanted our marriage to fall apart.
And then he talks about how amazing our friendship and relationship actually were.
The hardest part is that I agree with that last part.
Before addiction completely took over our lives, this was someone who understood me to my core. We laughed together. We built businesses together. We built a family together. We had two beautiful children. We had a home. We had a life that, from my perspective, was incredibly beautiful.
I spent years supporting him through sobriety, relapse, rehab, businesses opening and closing, financial instability, and everything that came with his addiction. I worked a full-time career in healthcare, ran my own practice, became the primary breadwinner, and eventually became the person carrying most of the responsibility for our children and household.
And somehow he continued going back to drugs.
I understand addiction intellectually. I work in healthcare. I understand that addiction changes the brain. I understand that trauma, shame, cravings, dopamine, avoidance, and mental health can all play a role. I genuinely have compassion for people suffering from substance use disorders.
But being the spouse is different.
There is an emotional part of me that keeps screaming: How could this life not be enough?
How could your children not be enough?
How could watching your wife carry everything not make something inside of you say, “I have to fight like hell to get better”?
I know people will say that addicts don’t “choose drugs over their family” in the simple way that it looks from the outside. Intellectually, I understand that.
Emotionally, it absolutely feels like he chose drugs over us. Over and over and over again.
And now I resent him.
I’m angry that I spent so many years understanding him, protecting him, supporting him, believing in him, and trying to understand his addiction—and I’m realizing that maybe there was an entire part of him that I never understood at all.
That is probably one of the most painful realizations for me. This man knew me better than almost anyone in the world, yet now I find myself wondering whether I ever truly knew him.
So I would genuinely love to hear from people who are in recovery, especially those who had a spouse and children while they were actively using.
When you were using, did you know how badly you were hurting your family?
Did you actually believe the explanations you gave them at the time?
Did you love them and still feel unable to stop?
When your spouse set boundaries or stopped allowing you around your children, did you see it as abandonment at the time?
And once you became sober, did your perception of what happened change?
I’m not asking because I’m trying to save my marriage anymore. I think that part of me is gone.
I want him to recover because he is the father of my children and I want them to someday have a healthy father.
But I’m trying to understand how someone can have what appears to be everything they once wanted—and still keep returning to something that is destroying all of it.

I went no contact with my mom 2 years ago, her drug abuse had gotten to out of control, and I couldn’t take watching her kill herself anymore. She has been on pills (oxy) since before I was born. I got a phone call that she overdosed a week ago, and I’ve been spiraling since. I thought I was okay and I finally got to a point of acceptance but I haven’t. I miss my mommy, the mom I had before men and drugs and I know that mom is dead and I’m an adult but it really fucking sucks. To top it off my brother with special needs is the one that found her, I never wanted him to have to see that. I found her overdosed when I was 6 and I still have flashbacks to it. I tried for forever to shield him from that, but when I went no contact I couldn’t. So it just makes me angry on top of the guilt I feel from him being the one that found her. He went to school and said he wanted to die to a friend. I’m just really lost.

He’s sometimes homeless. He does have autism in addition to substance abuse issues. Often loses phone. What is the cheapest way locally to get a phone to add cellular to? He does not live me. In a metro area in US

My SO (46M) is 2 years and 10 months clean. He is active in NA, has a healthy home group, attends meetings anywhere from 3/week to 15/week depending on the situation and need.

And the need is HIGH right now.

I have known about his addiction and life in recovery since the very first date. This is not news to me! And I have been attending a lovely (local, but virtual) NarAnon meeting for the last 2+ months.

Early on, he also told me that times of great change are when he has relapsed in the past or self-sabotaged. When his ex was pregnant with their now 10-year-old, for example, or when it was time to send the kiddo back to his mom.

A week ago, we dropped his son off and looked for homes (!!!) in a city much closer to his home during the school year...think measurable in minutes vs measurable in entire time zones. This should be EXCITING. And on top of that, we made an offer on the perfect house and got it accepted immediately. Even MORE exciting!!

But the time of change and stress is driving him into his deepest urge to relapse. He is whiteknuckling life for the last week. He has gone almost entirely radio silent. He answers 1/10 calls. He says he is trying to focus on staying alive. He says he can’t think about me or the house or anything else and that the guilt of being there when he should be is adding to the pressure to not relapse. He is so clearly down at the bottom of a hole and I can’t get him out.

I am dying here. Yes, it is only day 5. But this is the third time in a year, and I am so afraid that he is going to relapse or cheat (that’s the self-sabotage) because he has said those are the things he does in moments like this. I feel like an exciting moment has soured because he doesn’t want to talk, is short with me on the phone, won‘t respond to 19/20 texts, won’t do anything but go to the gym and go to meetings, etc.

I am of two minds. Obviously I want to give him the time and space he needs to get back to baseline. But also, I am your partner! I am about to take out a mortgage (in my name) for a house we will both live in and get married in and pay taxes on! I need some care and keeping myself. It feels like his idea of how much of that care and keeping I need is TOO much, but how much of that care and keeping I am getting is way too little. We need a way to strike a better balance

I don’t know. I am trying but i am **very clearly spinning out**. Does anyone else have a similar experience? Is there something you did to make the lows more manageable? Do you just…live by yourself when the addict is struggling not to relapse?

please. Help.

Please share your experiences.

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What’s daily life actually like with an addict partner? We never talk about something long and he doesn't talk much. When I call him he is always frustrated and wants to hang up quickly.

I dated him for over a year. He never told me he was an addict at the beginning. This was my first time being with someone who has an addiction, and he’s not from the same country as me.

We broke up month ago and this is already multiple times. I couldn’t hold back again and called him again. Even after a month he answered coldly and clearly wanted to hang up as soon as possible. That made something click for me — he was like that the entire year we were together.

In the last few months especially, we barely did anything. No going out to nice places, no dinners, nothing. I used to think maybe it was a language/cultural barrier because I’m a foreigner here. But every other boyfriend I had before always did things with me, traveled, and could keep interesting conversations going.

I can’t talk to my family about this, and I don’t really have friends I can open up to. I only talk to my doctor once a month. Reading posts here has actually been helpful.

Is this kind of emotional distance, short phone calls, and general avoidance just… normal when your partner is an addict?

It's my husband... he did try last time he was in jail. He got out and was wonderful. We got married and months later started displaying all the same behaviors again. His drug abuse was intermittent rather than unhinged like before. So it was believable. I noticed he had a hookup app downloaded the month of our miscarriage. The day I left he instantly unblocked and began talking to the girl he cheated on me with while pregnant with our child. He also started drinking and using meth erratically and obviously. He went to jail 2 weeks later. I now have his phone. He downloaded Tinder the day I left due to him making me and the kids homeless. He promised to repay me money but spent it on himself. And had about 3 girls he was trying to create a romantic obsession love with while trying to get back with me. Ive sent him letters and proof to jail, he just has apologetic one liners and sometimes "im begging you to please let me change" im intellectually and physically out of his league, not full of myself its just the truth. I know he does love me in a twisted way. Has anybody been in this situation and had success?

Mine isn't. I'll try to make this quick.

5 years. Relapses on H every year. Stoned, drunk, or both daily - he's a polysubstance addict. Will do c*ke a lot, and even molly behind my back.

6 months ago he lied about doing subs, I found the H. He was a raging asshole. I think I should have left then.

I told him he had to get help (therapy, rehab, alanon, something) if he wanted to stay with me.

I got sober with him for two months, like stopped casually drinking. Found out that for two months I thought we were sober together, he was using c*ke (and god knows what else) behind my back.

It's now been six months. I'm sober. He smokes weed every single day, I hate him on it. He drinks all the time and gets blackout drunk. I don't trust him at all.

Today he was like, "I'm one day sober!" And... I almost just don't even care at this point. It feels too late. He got so mad at me for not acting like he was a miraculous superhero for 1 day, but I don't even know if he'll make it to the end of the night.

I think all the lies, and verbal abuse have done too much damage; besides that I honestly... Don't think he'll actually get sober. He never does. He even told me, "I'm not doing it for me I'm doing it for you." So that won't work.

I can't even imagine all the things he's actually done behind my back that I don't know about. I feel like for these last 6 months I've been grieving him and the relationship we no longer have, and he thinks one day of sobriety is going to just erase all the trauma and broken trust, but it doesn't. I used to be wildly attracted to him, and now I don't even want to be around him 75% of the time. Like, idk how to fix that. For someone who will probably just keep doing drugs behind my back forever.

Has anyone else ever felt like this? I can't afford our apartment on my own, but I think I need to just blow up my life and end it. Maybe I can find a roommate. Maybe not. I'm just so tired of being around him stoned, high, or drunk everyday. And yes I've talked to him so many times, he knows how I feel. Which just makes me mad honestly. 6 months was plenty of time to figure it out, and he didn't even try.

I had another account on here where I posted quite abit about my boyfriends crack addiction. We were together for 9 years. He gave me an amazing 3 sober and took care of me when I initially got sick. I spent a long time hung up on that man. I guess I’m here to give a message of hope to anyone who gets out, or is still in the thick of it feeling guilty for not getting out.

You do not have to judge yourself for not getting out, you do not have to feel bad because you don’t leave, you don’t have to punish yourself cause you choose to stay. There is not embarrassment in staying.

But you also don’t have to judge yourself for leaving. You don’t have to feel bad for getting out. You don’t have to punish yourself cause you left and it’s not embarrassing to give up.

I think the thing is you never know when the time to leave is right, you have to gather up the courage, the reasourses, and mental energy to do it. It’s a lot.

I miss him all the time, I think a part of me always will. But it’s a hard disconnect to the man who took such good care of me to the man who lied, manipulated, stole and gave me horrible PTSD.

The first few months were unbearable, I cried every night, and it took everything in me not to beg him to come home. I made mistakes and hooked up with him, and I wanted to ask him to stay but I knew I couldn’t anymore.

Slowly over time life became simple again. I started going to the gym, cooking for myself, I moved away from the home that was filled with trauma, I surrounded myself with people who loved me and reminded me how strong I was every time I doubted my choice. I let go of 9 years and became single again at 26. I let go of my best friend. What I gained back though was worth the loss. I gained back my routine, my confidence, my happiness, my health.

I started dating again, I’m not sure if I will love again, or trust again, but I know what it’s like to be with a man who doesn’t hate me anymore.

Everyday feels lighter and lighter.

I wish I could have stayed sometimes. Sometimes when I hear he is out there getting sober I want to know why he couldn’t for me, but I also know that I could have never continued to stay. I was getting sadder and sadder everyday, and I needed to leave.

Don’t punish yourself for whatever choice you make. And just know you are strong, you are worthy, and you never deserved the trauma your Q caused you.

My wife and I have been together for 10 years and have 3 kids together.

Before the birth of our third child she confessed that she was addicted to kratom and had been using for the past year, and was self admitting for medical detox.

This blindsided me as I had never known her to jeopardize our family, yet alone our unborn child (at the time)

Our baby ended up in the NICU for precautionary detox and other issues and we are now trying to navigate what comes next. Post- partum had been difficult for her- not able to breastfeed as she had our previous kids and we are having to resort to formula off and on.

While she is now in therapy, my world has turned upside-down. Had to go through CPS visits, double guessing where she is going when she runs errands, concern for my newborns development as well as my middle child since she was nursing while using.

Being gaslit and lied to for over a year continues to make me double think so much. I too have started therapy, but really struggle with where to go in our relationship/partnership/marriage due to her decision.

Thanks for hearing me out… addiction is miserable…

Quick backstory that I met my husband in 2006 and in 2008 after we got married, our first baby died. He relapsed with alcohol off and on for a few years which snowballed into sex and drug addictions that he struggled with off and on until his death in 2018, leaving me widowed w four kids. One year and 5 days later, my dad died. 3 months later, my mother abruptly died (parents died from health issues). I had been in nar anon and al anon since 2012 and still sponsor someone.

My lifelong best friend lives out of state and I haven’t seen her in person for years but we text regularly. I had been loose friends with a neighbor who had two kids until they moved out of state in June 2023.

I had been a homemaker during my marriage, and I remained home for a few years afterwards to be with my kids and until my youngest one was in school all day. So in September 2023, I started a job. I met a woman there who was a single mom with a young son, who had a history of struggling with addiction. She was clean and sober and we fast became great friends. I had finally found a mom friend with whom I could be comfortable and close.

All of the women who shared my faith I have met through church etc do not even attempt to form any true bonds or friendships with me. There is a disparity there that is difficult to put into words. But perhaps this woman’s history of addiction and stuff made her more humble and less judgmental and more genuine than the typical sheltered church ladies I am used to.

She and her son and m kids and I became good friends. When they wound u sick on Thanksgiving one year, I packed up a Thanksgiving buffet for her and her son and took it over there for them. Once my vertigo and stuff began affecting my ability to drive, she drove me to a bunch of places.

Then she lost her job. Then some signs of trouble began, I could tell the stress was affecting her. Then a year ago, she showed up to my driveway pregnant and scared. Unsure of how she could do this.

I was her maternal voice of reason (I was 17 years older than her), even though she had a mother they had a strained relationship. In December, I knew for sure she was sliding. Nearly all communication broke off after January. In April, her mom took her son. In May, she had her second baby, another sweet boy. He was placed in foster care.

This passed weekend, her mother spoke to me about everything. I sent my friend an encouraging message. I hoped for the best. I lost sleep and prayed.

Then yesterday I sent her another message. And she was in my dream.

This morning, her mother told
Me over the phone that she died yesterday. In an abandoned building. Those with her just left her alone there.

Poor thing. And her poor babies. And her poor parents.

I miss my friend and now she’s never coming back. I wish I had a bigger nicer house and more money so I could raise her babies with mine.

I’m just so sorry for her and her sweet boys.

It was so validating. I shared my story and the person leading the group said “your pain is our pain”. I was already crying at that point because I had just come out of a tough therapy session. Throughout my mental illness treatments and eating disorder treatments I’d met people I could relate to, but never people who had been affected by addicts. My dad died 15 years ago but I feel he had a hand in helping me find this amazing group.

For context, my husband hid a secret addiction for 5 years and when I found out in March this year, he went to rehab for a month. He got out then left me 5 days later, saying he didn’t love me.
I’ve since found out he is now seeing someone he’s been “friends with for 20 years”. I’ve no doubt this made his total discard of me and our daughter very easy for him.
How can I start to take my life back and see this as positive? I feel like I’ve been strung along supporting this man , seeing him through hardships and I’ve been left for some new woman and he’s already playing house with her barely 4 months after he left.

I apologize if this is the wrong subreddit to post this on, but I need some guidance. I (25F) am looking after my partner (30M) who was a hardcore narcotics user and alcoholic back in the day. He has been sober for 2 years now, he picked up his second 12 month chip just a couple weeks ago. He went to detox and rehab about 6 months before we started dating and our relationship has helped him stay accountable and away from the pills and drink.

I hardly ever drink and I've never done anything crazier than tripping on mushrooms a handful of times and a few lines at parties in college. I've also never experienced a loved one deal with bona fide addiction and withdrawals. This is all very new to me. And although we've only been dating for about a year and a half, I have learned so much from him.

Since I've known him, he has used these little Kratom capsules which I had no idea what they were before meeting him. He explained them as having the same effect as caffeine in small doses. I never questioned him because I just assumed they were a way to keep him off the stronger stuff. But now we're moving to a new state together and beginning a new chapter, he has expressed for a few months that he doesn't want to depend on this stuff anymore. Not to mention, we leave in two weeks and where we are going, it is not going to be regularly accessible at local tobacco shops like it is where we are currently.

Today, he finally decided that it's time to go full cold turkey. We're about 12 hours in, and he is struggling. It started with aches and restlessness, and he is now in a state where he can barely explain what he's feeling. He can walk, he can eat, I've been feeding him a constant stream of water and blood orange rooibos tea (his favorite), and we took our dogs out for a short walk about an hour ago. But this poor guy can't seem to get comfortable no matter what he does. Every few minutes he needs to find a new place in the apartment to sit and change positions. He's constantly sniffling, and he constantly feels cold. This in particular is very odd to me because this guy runs HOT. He can't be out in 80⁰ whether for more than 5 minutes before he's drenched in sweat and I often joke that he's a walking heater. I did a temperature check on his forehead, but it felt normal. What's concerning me is the nausea is starting to set in, and he's very sensitive to that. If he feels even slightly nauseous, he's most likely going to throw up whatever is in his stomach.

I am doing my best to make sure he's fed, hydrated, and comfortable. I bring him meals, I'm rubbing his back and head constantly, I'm making sure he's warm and cuddling up with the dogs, but I fear I'm not doing enough. We take a lot of vitamins and supplements namely NAC, Zinc, Vitamin C, Tumeric, and Magnesium Glycinate for bed. This has helped his physical and cognitive recovery over the past two years, and I'm hoping some extra vitamin C might help him get through these withdrawals faster.

Despite all this, I feel like it's not enough. I don't know what else to do, but I hate seeing him like this. This is so out of the norm for him and it's tough to watch. Does anyone have any advice for our situation right now? What else can I do to help?

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when I (23F) met my now fiancee (31F) she was open about her addiction to cocaine. she told me she had been clean for two years before we met

lately there have been some behaviors that started raising red flags and last night, when she told me she was going to another town (3 miles away, to be fair) to meet a friend I didn't know, I had a terrible feeling and I did something I'm not proud of and I checked her messages

there it was, she was talking to this guy about doing coke. I immediately froze and started calling her, begging her to come home, she never picked up. in my desperation I called two of her friends (to be fair, they are also my friends, but they have known my fiancee for longer) and I told them about the situation and how desperate I was

in the end, we managed to contact her and she came home, we had a sort of intervention in which she admitted she has a problem and told us the reason she wanted to use was because she was feeling suffocated (there has been a lot of issues with my family lately, and that had started taking a toll in our relationship)

I was really angry and I told her I was really hurt because I have been suspecting this for days and I gave her chances to come clean, and she didn't take them, she also knows my father is an addict and that's been really heavy on me and the reason for most of the family drama going on lately.

anyways, she accepted she needs help and she said she needed treatment. I was so tired by the whole ordeal that I took two sleeping pills and I went to pass out in our bed while she stayed talking to our friends for a couple hours.

this morning I woke up with missing calls from her and one of her friends and when I picked up she told me she had a crisis and was at the hospital with said friend. I took the day off work and I went to see her as soon as I saw the calls.

when I got to the hospital, she had been given a tranquilizer because she was hyperventilating, throwing up and punching herself, but by the time I got there she was "fine". I stayed with her until her psychiatrist arrived and prescribed her another medication (my fiancee has OCD) and then she left.

we agreed it would be useful for me to go to a therapy session along with my fiancee, with either her therapist or her psychiatrist, so we are going to work on that. I'm also attending individual therapy and I'm also on psychiatric treatment

anyways, we left the hospital and on the way home we ended up meeting with the friend that accompanied her to the hospital in the first place. she told us we can count on her for whatever we needed and was overall very sweet.

anyways, my fiancee is now sleeping, I'm in the kitchen preparing something to eat because I didn't even take the time to have breakfast.

we have a long conversation pending about what to do from now on, if she's going into an inpatient facility (although I doubt we can afford it) or how is she planning on treating herself. also the trust between us is clearly broken or at least greatly damaged so we need to see if it's even possible to repair it.

we have been building plans together for so long, we want to get married and have children, I even moved provinces leaving my family and friends behind to be with her, so all of this hurts a lot and I'm still not sure if I'll be able to get over it.

anyways, that's the post, I believe most people are going to tell me I need to leave her, but I'm not sure if I'm ready to do that, I just needed to vent and some support. thank you.

My earlier post about my sister is unfortunately relevant again. Almost exactly a month later to the day, my little sister (17) ran away from home again. We’re still looking for her, the police were involved as soon as possible. She’s likely downtown looking for drugs. I feel like I’m gonna throw up, like genuinely throw up. I don’t know what to do, but I guess there’s nothing I can do. She’s blocked my number and she still hasn’t spoken to me. I’m just so angry and so worried, anything would help. Thank you so much for the support on my last post.

VENT

My mom (68) has been using coke for the last 4 years. Despite threats I've made to move out, take my brother with me, report her to the county for being a delinquent guardian for my disabled brother and more, she still chooses to use coke or any other drugs she can get her hands on (pot, Ativan).

She lost 60% of her colon from her drug use, and had to be temporarily hospitalized for creating a new colitis; after her surgeon said straight to her face "if you keep using any drugs, you will either end up with a bag or dead."

I even had a report made by a co-worker of her's to stop her dealer at work (he's killed 1 person that we only know of). My mom is retired as of June but she was also fired due to the report made.

She blames me for not being able to ever get a job but she doesn't understand that she chose this lifestyle, it's going to get rough if she keeps it up.

I'm still waiting for the courts to transfer guardianship of my brother over to me so I can protect him. But I'm just at the end of the road for what to do for my mother.

She won't go to treatment cause "she's not ready", not even attempting to try day treatment for a few hours.

I'm scared she'll never do anything to better herself and I've already done everything I possibly can for her.

She will lie straight to my face about everything. I have no physical proof of her using except for one instance of something looking suspicious when I tracked her car. I no longer have access to her bank account. Her phone has no proof anymore. But tonight she is passed out and it's hard to wake her up. She falls back asleep in the middle of "conversations" if you could call it that-- she speaks gibberish half the time. Keeps staring out into space, talks to herself.

I'm just so frustrated, exhausted, hurt and numb from everything and the fact I'm dealing with this again after 2 months of her being clean.

It's getting frustrating talking to people who are in the know about this cause they just keep telling me non stop "you gotta do this, you gotta do that" when I can barely rest from working almost every day at my job, coming home to take care of my family and having to deal with this.

Fuck.

I found out tonight that my ex boyfriend who is a fentanyl addict is getting evicted from his apartment. Apparently he’s letting someone live there and he is staying somewhere else. I fear I am going to get a phone call that he is dead from overdose. We broke up June 27th but my heart still hurts so much.