Recently I've read blog posts by two different bloggers I enjoy reading (Kristi and Ingrid) musing about why one would stay in a relationship with an addict. I know I've blogged a little bit about why I stay, but I'd like to try to put that decision in a larger perspective, and to do so, I think I need to explain my own understanding of what addiction is, and isn't.
Addiction is a disease, a mental illness, a neurological disorder; it causes compulsive behavior and distorts an addict's perception of reality. It is not a moral failing, a personality trait, a lack of willpower, an inherent laziness or selfishness, a careless disregard for other people. Like most diseases, this knows no boundaries of race, religion, socio-economic class, moral character or personality type.
It doesn't strike "bad" people and leave "good" people untouched; the terms "good person" and "addict" are not mutually exclusive. People can be mean, lazy, selfish, egomaniacal, narcissistic assholes and addicts. Or they can also be kind, gentle, loving, hardworking, caring people and addicts. The nature of the disease and its progression causes addicts to lose themselves, so that loving, hardworking person may slowly fade away, just like someone afflicted with other neurological disorders, like Alzheimer's. Good people may struggle hard against the disease, fight for years, but if untreated, will be whipped into servitude, becoming slaves to the compulsions, caring and working only for the addiction. It's merciless. It's painful. It's debilitating.
It often helps me to think of addiction as a physical disease. The way I think of this disease, it is like living with a digestive disorder: something messy and smelly that leads to metaphorical vomit and feces all over your life. It is a degenerative disease for which there is no cure, and left untreated, it can lead to death. Treatment can control, and even stop the symptoms, but even with proper treatment, there is always the possibility that symptoms may reoccur. This condition must be monitored constantly by your partner, in conjunction with a group of specialists, and treatment must occur daily, occupying several hours each week for life. Depending on the type of treatment, it may cost thousands of dollars a year, or initially even thousands of dollars a month. Most insurance will not cover it. Dealing with the disease requires radical changes to lifestyle, habits and expectations for the patient and the entire family.
There's no controlling when or where it will strike. You may go for months or years without an episode. You may become complacent and forget about it. Stress exacerbates the disorder, so there's the constant threat of vomiting or loss of bowel control at your child's wedding or your big anniversary party or the first week of his new job or in front of your boss at an important event. It will ruin your furniture, your floors and some of your most prized possessions. It will embarrass you. It may cause friends, neighbors and family members to decline to spend time with your family. You may hide it from them to avoid losing them altogether, just as your partner hid it from you.
Addiction: it's dirty, it's messy, it's disgusting, it's painful. It can be treated, but not cured, and it's with you for life.
I'm going to leave you with that and come back tomorrow with more on why partners stick around. But for those of you who are not involved with addicts, who have a relationship with a normal, everyday, run-of-the-mill spouse or partner, ask yourselves, would you stay -- not with an addict, but with your present partner, if you discovered that person had the digestive disease I just described? Would you leave that vomiting fool or stick around? And why?
I'd love to hear some of you "normies" (um, normal people) share. So, leave me a comment with some thoughts, or the URL of a blog post if you decided to blog about it yourself. Addicts and codies can just tell me whether or not they feel like they have more than their share of metaphorical shit in life. 
That is an interesting way of looking at it. You know what I wrote beore. As someone who grew up in an alcoholic family and was the Golden Child for years, I am tired.
I don't think I have what it takes (the strength, the drive, the determination) to be the caretaker of an addict. I don't want to go back to what I lived as a child. Also, I have enough on my plate dealing with my own issues with depression/ADD, being the steady financial provider while my husband builds a practice and deals with cash flow issues, and taking care of my children. After all that, I am spent.
That being said, it's not like I shun the wounded, being one myself. Gabe has a history of depression, like me. He does not ride the rollercoaster I ride, but when his moods come they are quite pervasive. I know he has been to, and could go back to, much darker, dangerous places of the psyche than I have ever gone to.
I know that both are physical conditions, but somehow, I can deal with a partner who suffers from depression much better than I could ever deal with the idea of being with an addict.
If people who are not married to addicts are normies, why then, that means that I am truly free from that term.
Why I stay? I'm pretty sure I mentioned it some where done the mantramine line- but maybe I will take the time to really respond. Thanks mpj. I will let you know
I would stay as long as I believed that he valued my well-being and not just his. I don't mind mess, and I recognize that if Sam were chronically ill I would have to find other ways to support myself emotionally, but I couldn't stay if I felt he valued only his fight with the illness and not his relationship with me. He'd have to still be invested and act on that - even if his capacity to act were limited, which I could accept.
We never know what's really going on in someone else's relationship, and I've learned not to judge people's decisions to stay, or to go.
That's the way I think about my father's alcoholism - it's a physical disease (as well as a mental one).
I've certainly learned a lot more about addicts since starting work at an addiction treatment centre.
This is well written.
Having dealt with mental illness, I get the part about having something that shapes you and asks so much from those who love you, and yet is not a fault or character flaw. And also, that it feels in remission at times, but never truly cured.
Some have what it takes to stay with those who are sick, whether with physical illness, mental illness, addiction. And some choose not to. Not right or wrong. But it takes a person who can hold onto themselves, who knows that they can offer love but are not capable of saving or fixing.
Looking forward to your further thoughts.
Why do all partners stay? Through domestic violence, gambling, emotional violence ... there is no easy answer other than to say because they think someday ... someday he will change.
I specifically set out for a normie. I dated plenty of others and nearly married an alcoholic. I grew up with three men who were alcoholics. A mother who was abused physically and emotionally.
I set out for a very different path, intentionally. I doubt I would be able to stay ... "normal" feels so right after so many years that never did.
This is an amazing post.Can I reference this post on my blog? It says so much and is explained in such a way I think it could benefit a lot of people.
Pat, absolutely -- go for it! You're always welcome to reference my posts on your wonderful blog.
Oh, YEAH. I feel like I've had my share for several LIVES ahead. I could definitely use some happiness in the present lifetime, though. It's a hard struggle for codies, too. You may leave the addicted partner/parent, but your own codependency is always there to haunt you. It doesn't go away with just leaving behind who caused the problem. It needs therapy of its own. It needs permanent attention, just as well, 'cause it's hard to control where one would end up if codependent behavior is set free.
You're brilliant, as always.
Bella, I appreciate your comment about what this requires from those who stay - I hadn't quite formulated the question that way and it opens up a very different idea to me. What you describe is also the capacity of acceptance that allows some people to stay in relationship with an addict without acting on their own codependency - turns that stereotype around quite neatly.
Two Parts:
#1-I friggin' HATE the common consensus by the addiction recovery community that, because I am married to a sex addict, I automatically get a label plastered to my forehead. I don't see why I am a Co-dependent, when I didn't do anything wrong, do not enable this disease, and do not have other related issues. I already have a bipolar label. I don't need another one. --There. I have always wanted to rant on that one.
#2-Re: metaphorical shit. Definitely have more than my fair share. Physically, mentally, sexually abused as child. Lots of therapy. By early 20's I felt strong and fairly confident. So much so that I made a point to tell my husband on our second date that I absolutely could not tolerate porn and strip clubs. I knew that it was my kryptonite (Porn was used during my rape @ 6 yrs old) and was strong enough to stand up for myself. He told me no problem. A few clubs w/ friends in college, but that was 4ever ago and juvenile. Turns out that he was already an addict and we now think that he made the promise to me as a way to change his own behaviour. He hoped that by being w/ someone who would not tolerate it, he would be prevented from following his demonic muse. Two months after we married, I found over 2,000 jpegs of porn on our computer. That was 8 yrs. ago. He's in treatment, but he had slacked off and relapsed a month ago. I told him that this was the last time. I'm leaving him and taking our young sons if he ever reaches the acting out phase again. He does it @ work, which absolutely jeapordizes our family. I love him. He is truly my best friend. But his addiction rips my PTSD to shreds every time he acts out. I can take all the precursors & will help him every single time. But further than that is beyond my capabilities anymore.
Sophie, that automatic codependent label and it's implications has always pissed me off too. I have a more complex relationship with the label these days -- I both accept and vehemently reject it. I'm definitely going to blog more about this.
And I am also going to blog more about how we end up in the midst of the metaphorical shit without knowing it -- while we're in fact actively seeking to escape it.
I live with an addict. I am not sure I believe you can't be "cured." But I do believe it is not an easy process. My husband is diagnosed with some mental disorders, you have to get to the right doctor, I guess. However, if he isn't on prozac, he'd be on his addiction, right? I don't think he would go back, but he does trade it for "safer" addictions, like computer games.
Well, I'm not a "normie" so I am probably not the person you are looking for comments from. But if my husband goes back to his addiction, I am going to leave for good. He puts me in danger, too, so I have to protect my children's mother and them.
I guess it depends on the addiction.
MPJ ... I am no normie by any means, but I do appreciate the way you described addicts. Thanks for stating it so plainly. I also may reference a link in some of my writing if you don't mind.
I am in the position of being an addict married to a "normie" ... unless I label him a work addict. Why does he stay? Why does he keep his head buried in the sand? That's a whole other can of worms ... that for now I'm happy to keep the lid on, but one I will likely need to open before recovery truly sets in for me.
turds abound. that was a fun post.
Two very good posts on this topic. I posted my own response. It also goes without saying—unfortunately—that we men have it easier than you women. Expectations of us are so much lower. And not many of us do much in the way of exceeding those expectations.
Jay makes what I think is a most important point, about not judging other people's relationships.
Do I have more than my share of shit in life? Frankly, no, I don't. For whatever unfathomable reason, and despite the occasional turd that floats by, my Higher Power has blessed me with an unceasing flow of good things.
(BTW, JD, I wrote most of this comment before reading yours. Interesting that we independently came up with the turd terminology.)
I'm just catching up here (wanted to save your blog till I had a little time to really concentrate and think!)
I don't know, reflecting on my own experience, which question to answer. Am I a normo (as we call them over here) or a codie? Is Baddie an addict? Well, I wouldn't say he is now, but thanks to my new blogging friends I have my eyes wide open for signs he might go down that route. And if he does, would I leave him? No. He hasn't invited me to promise 'in sickness and in health' just yet, but when he does, I'm going to mean it.
As someone with a bowel disease of the type mentioned above and as the STBX-wife of an addict/alcoholic, I get a bit frustrated when I hear the two compared. Not that the comparison is without merit, but there is a level of choice and distinct ramificiations involved with both. If I choose to eat certain foods, or engage in certain stressful activities, I can be sure my condition will flare up and I'll be spending substantial amounts of time on the toilet. Likewise, going to a bar or seeing certain people would likely "inflame" his desire to get altered. However, my choosing to eat chili does not result in a 22K crack binge, leaving our one-year old son for 10 months, the verbal abuse that accompanies his drunken rages, or any of the rest of the behaviors that are simply NOT acceptable in marital relationships. I struggle daily with the fact that I will be breaking my marital vow (until death do us part) when this divorce is finalized. The justification that he broken his "love, honor, respect" vow a long time ago doesn't do a lot to soothe that struggle. We never take vows to "love, honor and respect" ourselves, just our spouses - when does the former outweigh the latter? But when my son was born, I made that same vow to him - maybe not publicly, in front of a priest, family and friends and documented on a marriage certificate, but to me it trumps my vows to a man-child whom I still love, but cannot save and can no longer live with. peace and blessings on you all.