Help! I Need Al-Anon
Co-dependency
It's becoming that I have a bad habit of relating to this person. I must be doing something wrong.
It's not that person's problem - he or she is by no means suffering while he or she is using drugs.
In fact, I'm the person with the straight problem, the neat problem, the nagging problem.
Having a drug addict around is like having an adult child around. I need to pick up after this person, etcetera. Sure, I can remind the individual to place the litter in the trash, and risk annoying the person, or I can pick up the trash myself, and risk being treated like the servant.
Reminding this person a few times about things on a regular basis has turned me into the person who needs to be dodged by being reminded that the restroom needs to be visited, a feces needs to be pulled out of that third party's anus, and it might take a little time to take care of.
I've been in a state of denial for a long time about this. It took months to sink in, that this person's jokes about "quack heads" and "earth quack", might have meant something a little bit more than a cute joke. I think I actually believed the stories about searching the sidewalks for lost objects, and just refused to believe the missing money problems, thinking that maybe I was facing premature senility instead.
It took a visit to a local "head shop", where I was informed that the $11.99 per diem anti-anxiety drug was not what he needed, after still being in a state of denial about the matter when the shop clerk showed me the $45.99 per gram drug substitute, which, I, being unemployed, could no longer afford to purchase for my pet "quack head".
The person in question is a servant to the drug habit, which costs an entire government pension, part of the food stamp habit, part-time panhandling, and some of my extremely small stipend to support. Trying to run from this drug habit and this person has become my habit. I need to go to Al-Anon meetings instead.
Going to an infrequent Al-Anon meeting is not enough. I need to go regularly. I am not helping this person, I am hurting this person, somehow, and need to change something about myself in order to facilitate this person's recovery from a "quack habit".
Published by Renji Shino
Independent software designer, graphic artist, stock photographer; affiliated with PBS and IGT. View profile
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- Stop paying for someone else's drug habit(s).
- I've been told that if more than one person is involved, it's a singular habit.
- Stop supporting someone's "quack habit".