The heartbreak of addiction

Imagine meeting someone. Completely unexpectedly. And it just clicks. Everything seems to fall into place and your soul feels like it has finally met its other half. You feel at peace and everything makes sense. This is who you didn’t know you were waiting for. It felt like you had known each other from previous lifetimes and you were coming back to each other finally. There was a recognition on a level so deep that it was powerful and strong and life changing. Pure happiness. Pure joy. Now life can begin. But slowly things start to change. The first relapse. The anger starts to show. The name calling. The physical abuse. The insults. Being demeaned. Watching the person you love more than anything turn into someone you don’t know anymore. Alcohol replacing you as their priority. Alcohol stealing their heart and soul, sucking the life out of them. Making them hurt you in ways you never thought possible. Stealing their talent and ambition and zest for life. Stealing opportunities they had. Watching the effect it had on their family. The tears, the pain, the helplessness. Trying so hard to stick by them, understanding that it’s the alcohol and not them. Watching their addiction devour their soul. Turning them into someone you don’t recognize anymore. Watching them destroy themselves, the person you loved more than anything. Watching them give up on themselves time and time again. Begging them to seek help. Begging them to stop. But knowing that their addiction is too powerful. All consuming. All destroying.

I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy. I lost the man I loved to addiction. The devil took over his soul and he’s lost beyond saving. He doesn’t want to escape. I endured more than any sane woman would have and still stuck by him. If he ever finds another woman and is in active addiction he will see that nobody is going to stand by him the way I did. Nobody is going to love him to the depth I did. He was my soulmate. My love. And addiction stole him from me. And he won’t fight back. He’s resigned to his fate. Instead of fighting to save the person I fell in love with. The brilliant man that’s underneath the pain and the suffering. I had to walk away to save myself. If only he had sought help sooner. If only he had taken the help he was offered so often. If only he had changed before his life took such catastrophic turns. There may not be a way out now. Maybe he will end up like his dad and die in active addiction. It breaks my heart.

It’s a pain I will carry for life knowing that I lost my best friend to addiction. Heartbreaking.