Can drug addiction go away?

by Jill

I am wondering if the drug addiction ever goes away. I didn’t grow up with alcohol or drug abuse so in 2001, when the father of my child started acting very strange and was sick a lot, it didn’t add up to me. I thought he was just a sickly person.

As a little time passed, I found lortab bottles. I realized there was a problem and confronted him and told him if he didn’t call his parents and get to the hospital, I would.

He was 30 at the time. He got clean, then took them off and on, I believe. We moved to Louisiana in 2006, he moved a month earlier to start a job. He got clean, went through withdrawals and everything on his own.

I was very proud of him and things were great. Back in 2001-2005, my family wanted me to leave him, I didn’t think I should cut and run on the person I loved because he had an addiction.

Now however, everyone at his work place, his stepbrother being one, is always high on pills.

We’ve been struggling financially, since he is the sole provider since we had a second child in 2007 (see, things were going quite wonderfully), now he is back at it and I am here, alone in Louisiana, with none of my family here.

I don’t know if my children can sense a problem or not and it’s tearing me up on what the right thing to do is. He’s never abusive but I know he lies a lot and hides why he has taken money out of the bank.

He killed a lot of my emotion back in the day when he abused drugs…I feel like I have nothing left but I guess I’m an enabler because I don’t want to see him get worse if I take the kids and leave.

Can the drug addict who has recovered, ever recover completely or is it always going to be there if there is temptation for the rest of their life? Sitting here crying, kinda funny, I guess I have emotion after all.