My Long Journey - one that I fear I might need to walk alone

Totally get it, and you’re not alone. I don’t want to be discouraging but I think you’ll find as you read around here that it’s more or less impossible to have one without the other. Many have tried; there are many stories of it not working :grimacing: It’s liberating though to realize that neither one is really necessary to be living the life you want to live :innocent:

You’re in good company! There are hundreds and hundreds of active folks here who do that regularly (and many come daily). For me it’s a safe place and I can come here and post when I need to vent or share or connect. I use the checkin thread:

Checking in daily to maintain focus #39

Significant others are definitely a big part of our lives. Addiction is fundamentally a self-absorbed, self-centred thing, and this has a devastating effect on relationships (which require a solid foundation of trust to really flourish; addiction / addiction behaviour erodes trust). I don’t mean to be discouraging, just to be direct, to be clear. There is work here. The good news is there’s support for everyone involved in getting clean, including the partners of addicts in recovery. A program like https://www.nar-anon.org/ is for family members of narcotics / drug users, https://al-anon.org/ for family members of alcohol users, and there’s other ones too, like SMART Recovery Family & Friends | Addiction Help for Family Members - SMART Recovery, which isn’t addiction-specific. (SMART Recovery also has a different approach to its groups.) Keep an open mind, stay humble, and work it one day at a time. :innocent:

Yep. It is expensive. One way to look at it is to say, it’s cheaper than using, in many cases :innocent: But even if it’s ultimately not affordable, the recovery groups are free therapy. Major groups (like NA, AA, and SMART Recovery, among others) are based on psychologically valid approaches to recovery, and cover much of the same ground as therapy does - and free of charge. There’s a list of many different recovery groups here: Resources for our recovery

Take it one day at a time and don’t give up. You’re a good person and you deserve a safe, sober life where you can be your full self.

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