a friend of mine has relapsed into using his most potent poison again. it's been awhile. we thought he was better. he told me, he would rather have his life suck because of his own doing (using heroin) than to have it suck and not be his fault. but, here we are, worried about my dear friend again. people tell me to cut him off from my friendship. but, he's like a brother to me. i love him so much. i could never turn away from him in a dark hour. if he needs me, i will come running. however>>>>> he's doing heroin again. what is there to do? i can't make anyone else do anything, i feel so powerless. does anyone have a suggestion?
Ask him to choose between heroin or being friends with you. If he chooses heroin, then respect his choice and depart the friendship, forget about him. If he does this, you can hope he is wise and comes back to you. If not, he will go down heroin road. Either way it is his choice and you can only do so much.
I'm sorry to hear that this is happening. this is just my 2 cents on the subject. if your friend has decided to self-destruct, there's not much that you can do about it. you might want to go talk to a counselor about this. a potential problem is that you might be tempted to do things to help him (give him money, etc.) that just helps him dig himself deeper into addiction hope that somehow he can get better
Has he ever stolen shit from you to support his habit? If he hasn't crossed that line yet, then I think you should do your best to balance being his friend and not enabling him. It's hard, and there's a good chance he will make it impossible for you. If that happens, then you have a harder choice to make. If he's been taking advantage of you, fuck him.
he hasn't. there's a line he's never crossed, and while i trust him as a person, i still dont think i can trust someone with a demon on their back like that.
I think the best thing you can do is tell him how his drug use makes you feel, and if you feel so strongly about it that you don't think you can still be friends, at least let him know you'll be there for him if/when he wants to get clean.
eh' I feel a drug is a drug is a drug.. makes no difference what drug he takes. only his personality would I be concerned about..
I have been in this situation, unfortunately I am pretty sure heroin will be picked. There are some people who are functional addicts with H, so like others have said I would focus on his personality. If he is not stealing from you or putting you in danger, it will help if you are there for him. But be very catious of that beginning.
Inform him of how his habit is a reflection of his personality in your eyes, and what that means about him as a person in the eyes of others.
i have had a half dozen friends die on heroin most recent was found in an alley with a heart beat of 6 per minute..and died the next day if he doesnt want to quit then nothing will help just be a friend....dont show him any money because a heroin addict will steal from any loved ones when in withdrawal..good luck
what would you say if someone told you that about your psychedelic drug use? that's probably sort of how he'll react...
Is his heroin use affecting you in some way? Or are you just worried about his lifestyle/drug habits? Cause it SOUNDS like his life (or so he feels) sucks, and probably the last thing he wants is someone to totally abandon him, especially, as you claim, someone so close to him. Drug addictions are kind of selfish, but you would be behaving selfishly as well if you just ditched him. Try to talk to him, ask him why he thinks his life is going so badly and offer to help as much as you can. As previously stated, you can't want someone to quit, THEY have to want to quit. Kind of sounds like he's being a baby about the whole thing.
Just make sure to maintain a level two-way dialog. I'm sure I don't need to tell you, babyjay, that he is still an adult and ought to be treated as such. He will also probably be defensive, so unfortunately the onus will be on you to be disarming. Approach him with your feelings, tell him everything: from straight up emotional responses to the more thought out ones, like what Mr. Writer suggested. Just make sure to give his input as much weight as you expect him to give yours. If he starts acting like an asshole, at that point I think it's best to cut your losses and not let the discussion escalate to an argument. I don't mean abandon him, just walk away and let both of you cool down before trying to talk again. There is a chance he will be entirely stubborn, obnoxious and belligerent. If that is the case, it's not really a question of if you will end the friendship, but of when.
If you ask him to pick, he will pick heroin or he might try to lie about it just to keep you as a friend. The last thing he needs right now is his friends to bail on him. Keep boundaries do not lend him money if you every want to get paid back and watch out cause most of the time if a junkie is talking its a lie. Being strung out is really stressful the fear of getting sick will push people to do things they would have never done before. Just remember he will quit when he is ready and not a second sooner. I know about this all to well. I spent over 14 years with heroin as my best friend.
I totally understand "he told me, he would rather have his life suck because of his own doing (using heroin) than to have it suck and not be his fault." maybe you should work with him on the issue of his life sucking and not being his fault...that would be the place to start.
I generally agree with this. You can have a friend with problems, but if they just choose to have them, and make them worse, ehh.... and there's a point where opiate users become totally worthless, and without a miraculous turn-around and being totally re-made as a person, they are totally un-trustworthy and not your friend for any reason other than the potential gain associated with boing your friend. relationships from family to friends become totally worthless.... but they'll come back to tell you how bad their mistake was... and jack your TV. And they'll do it as many times as you let them, and then some more. You could talk to him about ibogaine / iboga. There are clinics outside the US (I think in mexico, and maybe canada) and there are people who will supply it online, and if they won't ship into the US you could try to get an ally in another country to play middle-man.
my best friend had major drug and alcohol problems. It was hard to watch but he was my friend and I couldn't leave him. I did as much as I could but in the end it's unfortunate that some of us must die because of this disease. I miss him he was a good friend. www.na.org http://www.al-anon.org/
I feel ya, I too have had friends get hook on stuff for the wrong reasons, but everyone uses drugs to mask something what matters is to have respect for the drug of which your vice Hopefully Babyjay you can get him to at least have respect for the drug, so he wont over it do it if not get him off it all together. I know my advice really isn't helpful cause I've been there but all i can say to do is just be there for him when he needs you, but don't be ashamed to walk away if you feel you're being used.
actually, they tend to look down on me for my recreational use of acid. i've always been the free-spirited one, but for some reason all of a sudden, if i say anything rather open-minded, they say 'sounds like some too many hits of acid shit.' well, thanks for completely disregarding anything i've said, when you do heroin, and you huff cans of raid to get high. i'm worried about his lifestyle and drug habits. we've been down this path before. after a point he turns into this really angry, 'fuck my life in anyway possible' type of guy. he'll pop vics at work, steal beer from the bar, get off work shitfaced and fight someone just for the hell of it. he's rather private about his heroin use, and doesn't ask us for anything. he's not one to lash out. he's more of one to ask to be left alone. but i don't want to leave you alone, i worry what might happen if i turn my back for a moment. something so permenant and fucked, can't be fixed. his sister is a schizo and is in fact a danger to herself and others, but their mother refuses to send her away. his mother steals from him, makes him pay the bills. his step-father vegetates in his own filth upstairs, he's really stuck on the tv and never does anything. you can't just let your family starve. they've only got disability checks to live off of, and you can't keep the electric and heat on with just those. so he works his shitty job, to keep them comfortable, even though they don't quite deserve it from the way they treat him. it's a typical south side sob story. his brother died when he was young, from drug and alcohol abuse. his older brother is clean, finally, but he can't help out any more than he already is. shits fucked. i will talk with him about iboga. i've heard of the things it can do, but does anyone have any first hand experiences with it? and honestly, thats why i'll never tell anyone certain things. in fear of them taking whatever they 'need' from me. augh. and see? i wish i didn't know people who do shit like this. but you can't help what people do once you know them. and i hope to never lose him. but we shall see. in the past, he's gotten terrible infections. actually he's coming out of a year and a half of being completely clean. after he had gotten a ridiculous staph infection that we literally watched move up his vein in his arm in less than a half hour. i've brought him to the hospital before because he thought he was going to die. he's got all these problems, and heroin only makes them worse. i believe he has respect for the drug, but not for his life.
She didn't use it for drug addiction, but spicycat (or spicy cat, i dunno if there's a space, actually I think there is) has at least one trip report on it.... unfortionatly, I don't know what it's called. But it's in it's own thread, if you look up threads she started. I don't think it's called something that obviously states what it's about. But it gives an idea of how earth-shattering it is. One thing it leaves out (as it's not about addiction) is that it, for reasons unknown (at least to me) seems to halt opiate withdrawl, as it also gives a profound look at yourself, and the combination seems to keep people off for good. IF they want to quit, of course. But of people who really want to quit, and have determined that they must make a serious change with who they are and how they handle life, iboga has a very high (over 90%, I think) success rate. One option is that it sounds like the guys family is trash.... maybe he should stop supporting them and enabling them. He obviously means well, but they're ruining his life and not trying to change it, so they can be lazy. He should give fair notice that he's going his own way and they'll have to take care of themselves, and then do it on time, as promised, by which time they will have no excuse for not being ready.
