My first adult relationship was with a guy that had a pill addiction. I met him at the restaurant we worked at in my hometown right before I moved to Mobile. I should have known then that it would never work because most people that work in the food and beverage industry are addicted to some kind of drug and most of them have no desire to be anything more than a line cook that sells cocaine on the side.
I asked him to move to Mobile with me because he knew the area, had a kid that lived here and I talked myself into being in love with him. Biggest. Mistake. Of. My. Life.
The first three months were nice. We were adjusting to living together and the area. Both of us finding jobs and me settling into a new school. Red flags started popping up but since we were in that "newlywed" stage I, of course, chose to ignore them.
He found a job and suddenly my car that I had worked and saved so long and hard for was no longer mine. I had to walk to school so that he could drive to work.
(Few facts before I go further: Our apartment was across the street from campus, he had no drivers licence, he had no banking account. Oh yeah, he was a wanted man for some ambiguous crime he would never fully tell me about but of course he didn't do. Also, he had to use his brothers name and social security number in order to get his job.)
He used my checking account by depositing his check through the ATM (no questions are asked that way). Which meant that he had my debit card at all times.
We moved to Mobile in December of 2008 and in January of 2009 I upgraded my phone to a slick little smart phone that cost about 300$. I did not get the protection plan because I had never lost or damaged a phone before. He didn't have a cell phone so of course I let him use mine. After all, the only thing I did during the day was go to class and the library.Since I walked there was no worry of me breaking down or anything like that, so I would never really need the phone. About two months later he "lost" the phone one night when he went to a little bar downtown for a beer and a sack of weed. I was obviously not happy that the brand new phone was gone and somehow he turned it into MY FAULT because I had not gotten the protection plan.
He would want us to spend time with his ex-girlfriend and their kid. In the beginning I thought it was for the kid but later I found out that it was for the pills and the weed that she had and the connections she made for him.
I was awarded work study and my pay checks were direct deposited into my account. Since he had the debit card I literally never saw any of my money. He was paid every week and he would take out 200$ when he deposited his check. I was responsible for paying the few bills that we had but since I never had the money I never paid the bills on time or in full.
(Full disclosure about the bills: The rent was 475$ which included cable and water, the car payment was 310$, the phone bill was 75$, groceries averaged about 300$ depending on how much binge eating he did when high.)
I paid the rent up 6 months in advance at the beginning of the year and the middle of the year with my student loan money. My parents paid half of my car payment and took care of my insurance for me. They would also pay for half of the power bill. So, his half of the bills averaged out to be about 400$ not including the phone bill and groceries. He never gave me the money for his half of stuff. NEVER. I always paid it. He would overdraft my account and my paycheck would cover the fees and he would take money before bills could be paid. He would be so pissed when the phone was cut off and bitch at me for not paying the bill. We would eat Ramen Noodles every fucking day. Did I mention that the job he got was in a seafood restaurant? So while I was home with no car, no phone, no money and ramen noodles he was eating fresh fish, shrimp and crayfish everyday. He would bring left over food home most nights which I would gorge myself on right before going to bed. I gained a lot of weight in the process.
His work schedule was at night and my class schedule was during the day. When I would get up in the morning I would try my hardest to be extra quite so I didn't wake him because he would always pitch a fit if I did. When he came home at night he would intentionally wake me up. If I got angry he would tell me how selfish I was and how I didn't want to spend time with him. When I would try to tell him about my day, he would stop me in the middle of the conversation and tell me that he didn't want to hear about my bullshit because he would hurt my feelings.
He would get so fucked up on pills that he would sit at the dining room table and fall asleep like a tired three year old. He caught his hair on fire one time. It was my fault because I lit the candle. While I was asleep in the next room.
He came home from work one day with a dent in the passenger side door. He said he had no idea how it happened because he was at work all day. I had a rental car one time and he went to work on a Sunday morning and should have been off at 4. Well, 4 came around and he wasn't there, 5 showed up and nothing, 6, 7, 8, 9 o'clock. I had no idea what to do, no way to call anyone, nothing. Finally, at eleven he showed up looking like shit and said that he had a seizure in passed out in a park for hours. But he somehow managed to use a full tank of gas before it happened.
I finally broke down and added a second line to my phone bill so that we could both have a phone. I got the new phone and he bitched at me because he didn't get the new phone.
I was never allowed to go out while we were together. He dictated how much money was spent on everything. I visited my parents 3 times the entire year and half that we lived together.
He hated all of my friends and went out of his way to isolate me from them.
I would beg him to buy a bottle of wine and he would always tell me no because we didn't have the money but he ALWAYS had loratabs or oxycotin or 60$ sacks of weed. All I wanted was a 4$ bottle of Merlot.
I kicked him out the first time in October 2009. I left Mobile and went to my parents house and got embarrassingly drunk. And saw his best friend. I came back to Mobile and he showed up and asked me what he needed to do in order to come back home.
I told him he needed to get treatment for his addiction, he needed to clear his name up and he needed to get a licence, a car, and his own checking account. He promised to do all of those things and I stupidly let him move back in. He was clean for a month. While we were separated I promised my dad that I would go to North Carolina with him for Thanksgiving.
Over Thanksgiving he started sending me messages of his Thanksgiving dinner which was Ramen noodles. He called me in the middle of dinner with my family to cry about how I had left him alone during an important time. He could barely talk he was so high.
Over Christmas break I went to my mothers house. He had no family (except for the brother he used) so he didn't take off. He was pissed that I took my car (gasp) and went to see my family. I again got embarrassingly drunk. When I came hoem he was so fucked up he couldn't even open his eyes.
I let him stay until March 6th 2010. My birthday is in March and my sister and friend wanted to take me to Biloxi for dinner. He pitched a fit. I didn't go. He stayed in the bedroom. I sat on the couch thinking about how my life had become so incredible unrecognizable. He walked into the living room and asked what the fuck I was doing and I looked at him and said it's over. I told him to leave and that I was done being in relationship that was just a convenience.
He called me a selfish bitch that worried too much about money and appearances. He said that I was a fat whore that would never have a relationship. He said that I would never find someone as good as him. He told me that no one would ever treat me as good as he treated me. His favorite was the selfish part.
I packed a bag with my valuable (aka pawnable) stuff and some clothes and headed to Baton Rouge to stay with my dad for the weekend. He took my phone and the keys to my car and left. Called a friend and said that "he was having problems with his old lady". That pissed me off beyond means. I am no ones goddamn old lady.
I came back on Sunday to discover that he had taken all of his stuff. Which wasn't much more than his clothes because I had bought and furnished everything for the apartment.
That's when he started calling me. Asking what he could do to come back. When he realized that wasn't going to let him back he changed tactics. He would text me that he had been beat up by a homeless guy for a sub sandwich at the shelter he was staying at (he was really staying at his ex-ggirlfriends). He would go to the roof of tall buildings downtown and take a pictures of the street below and say he was going to jump.
I told him not to call me. I told him I no longer cared about his life. I no longer cared about his health. I no longer cared what happened to him.
I had to change my phone number. I moved into a new apartment. I quit talking to his friends.
So, back to the title of this post. Things I learned from dating an addict:
1. Don't believe anything they say. It is always a lie.
2. A fist to the face would have been way more welcoming than the verbal and mental abuse he gave me.
That is pretty much it.
There are so many other things he did and said to me that I didn't share today. I didn't write this for pity from the people that might skim over my blog. I wrote it for me.
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