Loving a Junky

Loving a junky tears you apart.

It's the sort of thing everyone knows. But what they don't know is how it feels. How it happens. Why it happens. Why love a junky anyway?

Trouble is, the junky is the bit you hate. The person inside is who you love. But you can't separate them. So you end up angry and in pain, loving someone who used to be someone else, who still is that someone, somewhere.

And the person you love lies to you, and steals from you, and can't think of anyone but themselves and their own needs, which are overwhelming. And they're in pain. And they're sorry, and they need your help to get better.

And they want to stop. They always want to stop. They live in a nightmare.

Except when they take the drugs. Then sometimes they feel OK. But you don't.
That's when the anger can come out. All that emotion that's been simmering away under the surface for so long.

And they stop again. Or they get a prescription, get stabilized. You think it's working. You put loads of effort in, keep them on an even keel, keep the family together, keep the peace.

Because the kids know what's going on and they hate it too. They're angry too.

It all goes round and round and you never know if you are doing the right thing. Sometimes you remember who the person you love really is. Sometimes that person is there for you again. Sometimes you cry alone at night, missing them. Sometimes you lie next to them in bed, still angry, trying not to touch, glad they're asleep and snoring away, another drugged stupor.
Sometimes the drugs knock them out in the daytime and you get on with being a family again, without the anger. It's always better when they're not there.

You worry. You wish them dead, then the pain will stop and you can get on with life again. You worry that you would fall apart then. You feel guilty for wanting them dead. You think they're to blame for everything that's wrong with the family. Then you think that maybe it's your fault, because you should have thrown them out. Or let them stay. Or seen what was happening sooner and stopped it. Or acted in some other way and all this would not have happened.

But it has all happened and you don't know what to do next. You can't kill them. You can't bear to live with them. You dream of a different life. You try not to think of tomorrow, or next month, or next year, and whatever you do, don't think about five or ten years more of this.

You know they've started again. You search pockets and bags and known hiding places. You are suspicious. You throw accusations around. They may tell you. They may lie. You never know.

Or you catch them at it and it all blows up, you shout, you hit them, you throw them out, or try to but give in again. Or you turn a blind eye because it's only occasional, and you've had enough of being angry all the time.

Whatever you do makes no difference, really, except to you. That's why it's important to try everything – for you. You have to go through the whole range. You have to learn to live with the impossible. You forgive the unforgivable.

You let them back in. And everyone else wonders why. And you think there's definitely something wrong with you, if you haven't already been through that one over and over again. Why do you love a junky? Why do
you live with all that pain and anger?

And you don't bother trying to explain because it makes no sense even to you.