The worst thing drugs did to your relationships?

Guzzo

After reading Edith Damn's money friendship thing I'm wondering if people have lost friendships (or worse) to drugs.Been dealing with something like this for a while and the shit is straight up heartbreaking. It's hard to watch someone just wreck themselves and know there is nothing you can do about it.For those of you that have gone through it how did you cope?

sabadabada

i found my roomate dead from an overdose in '91.

Guzzo

i found my roomate dead from an overdose in '91.

sorry to hear that, how did you handle the situation?

sabadabada

I used to live with Julie, Ed's girlfriend who worked at Spaghetti Western, and Eduardo, this guy from Argentina who went to school and worked at some recovery clinic. When he moved out he gave his room to Brennan, who was a recovering addict that also worked at the center, without consulting Julie or I. We didn't really like her because she was a serious recovering addict and Julie and I liked going out and get drunk just about every night we weren't working. I worked graveyards at Sparky's diner, so I wass mostly getting drunk in the morning when I got off work. Anyway, I think this was more than Brennan could handle, and she started drinking and then one day I found her in her room dead.

I called 911, they came and took her away, her mom lived in a SRO in the tenderloin and was useless as far as setting up a service, so Julie and I did. Her friends came buy and took everything they could carry away saying "Brennan would have wanted me to have this bike, dress, books." My girlfriend Sheilagh moved into the room cause she was living above a bar on Haight Street and the motorcycles were too loud. But the vibe in the house was too creepy after that, no matter how much sage Julie burned and we all ended up moving out.

And like a month before she offed herself, another friend of ours od'd in the house and Brennan basically had to resucitate him and was like "how dare he use drugs in our house, blah, blah, blah."

so in short, although i feel bad for her, i was, and remain, generally kind of pissed that she came in to our lives to drop dead and cause problems.

edith head

After reading Edith Damn's money friendship thing I'm wondering if people have lost friendships (or worse) to drugs.

yeah, this is part of why i valued my friendship with the deadbeat friend because i was with an addict/alcoholic for a few years and had a lot of stress as a result of horrible things happening often and also felt guilt at failing when i attempted to thwart inevitable trainwrecks. my friend was always there for me to make me feel better. i finally gave up and ended it this year and things were starting to be normal and satisfactory again...until this money shit popped up

LaserWolf

I once took some reds and started to make out with my girlfriend but fell asleep before we could get our clothes off. I never touched barbituates again.

I see saba's habit of blaming the victim goes back many years.

sabadabada

I see saba's habit of blaming the victim goes back many years.

have some real life experiences and get back to me.

kitchenknight

I'm not actually gonna fault saba for those very natural feelings.

when friends have problems, you try to be sympathetic and help. it is aggravating, but you ultimately love the person.

but, when you find yourself in that situation with a relative stranger, and handling the extremely sensitive occurance of their death, i would have a variety of emotions- and, sympathy and aggravation seem completely fair.

sabadabada

i mean, at least we had a service for her, thats more than her family or her "friends" managed to do.

JimBeam

I had a very close friend of mine overdose on heroin and pass right after i graduated high school. She was an amazing person- She was the 'climb on top of the roof and light fireworks, talk about music and smoke cigs' girl for several years, and drugs basically ripped that from everyone that knew her, including her mother, who I felt really awful for, (she was the only daughter of 3 kids, and the only one left living w/ her mom at the time.)
regarding saba's point- yeah, there is a sense of anger towards her for her overindulgence in drugs, which is a choice that she made. So I don't think he's really blaming a victim so much as viewing addiction as the result of poor choices. I don't let any anger I had tarnish the memory of what a good friend she was though.

Rockadelic

Led to the mental illness and ultimate suicide of my business partner and best friend.

Lost 5-6 friends to heroin.

My closest childhood friend wound up in an Institution For The Criminally Insane and effectively ruined his life.

Zeke

A friend I met in college had a really bad dope problem. I came home one morning after partying all night to find him covered in vomit and smelling like vinegar on the front steps of our dorm being cradled by his bawling girlfriend. She told us not to dial 911 because he had an outstanding warrant and being 18, stupid, and hungover we listened. We found out that he hadn't been able to score raw the night before and had eaten some unknown large amount of oxycodone, diazepam, and alprazolam. He went to a party with some "friends" from home, passed out outside, and these same "friends" pissed on him and then, when they realized he wasn't moving, tried to resuscitate him by pouring a large bottle of vinegar into his mouth. When his girlfriend picked him up an hour or two later he'd thrown up all over himself and had excess mucus coming out of his nose and mouth.

Long story, short(er) we got him into a cold shower, ended up giving him mouth to mouth with one of those little units that lifeguards use, and then helping him drink a bunch of sugar water. Eventually he came to. He continued to use and I stopped trying to help.

Flash-forward; earlier this year his band topped a few Billboard chart's and have a video that is getting frequent MTV and Fuse rotation. The last time we spoke he was coming out of a bathroom at a mutual friend's party with a nice, white crust around both of his nostrils, looking like his eyes were going to pop out of his head.

He tells his young fans, "Feeling the energy of the crowd is the only high that matters. This is what keeps me sober."

He is, of course, a liar and a piece of shit.

Unknown

I don't let any anger I had tarnish the memory of what a good friend he was though.

I can get with this. The one guy I lost last month, when I think of him I forget at first that he even od'ed.

sabadabada

well first, according to your own post it wasn't worse then you not being able to get it up with your girlfriend, so it must not. Second, "loosing friends" isnt the same as finding the cold dead body, with crusty eyes and hardned snot coming out of its face. I'm sorry you lost your friend and uncle. And I'm sorry that anybody throws their life away whether its self-medicating for a bigger problem or just stupid choices or whatever. But don't tell me I'm blaming the victim because I'm not all weepy over having to clean up somebody elses messy life.

Jimster

I used to go out with a drugs counsellor. Her ex was a coke and speed fiend who'd gotten into massive gambling debt and killed himself by throwing himself under a train. I'd known her before this relationship and always thought she was muy caliente, but after this there was something not 100% about her. But hey, I was getting it in untold ways.

Then after a month or two, one night she put eye make-up on that went from her eyelid to her eyebrow. I think she must have been on drugs to look in the mirror and think she looked OK. It was some raasclat Elvira shit. It was the first 2 seconds of seeing her like this that made do a complete 180 on the way I felt about her.

You may think this made me as shallow as a petri-dish, but hey, this picture painted >1000 words in a millisecond.

sabadabada

well first, according to your own post it wasn't worse then you not being able to get it up with your girlfriend, so it must not. Second, "loosing friends" isnt the same as finding the cold dead body, with crusty eyes and hardned snot coming out of its face. I'm sorry you lost your friend and uncle. And I'm sorry that anybody throws their life away whether its self-medicating for a bigger problem or just stupid choices or whatever. But don't tell me I'm blaming the victim because I'm not all weepy over having to clean up somebody elses messy life.

not get it up w/ my girlfriend? wtf you speaking on? seriously bro dont test me, second, i did find my homie as well as 3 others through my course, & ive spent many helping a friend trying to kick & dealing w/ feces & vomit, to no avail, found him too...
so go fuck yourself, i serioulsy hope we cross paths one day, no joke, i really really do...

relax, because you said "Real world experience" i mistook your comment for laserwolfs comment that i was "blaming the victim." My bad.

I once took some reds and started to make out with my girlfriend but fell asleep before we could get our clothes off. I never touched barbituates again.

I see saba's habit of blaming the victim goes back many years.

Its hard to keep track of who is who when basically everybody flips me shit over even the most inocuous posts.

pjl2000xl

Ive been on both sides of the fence. A few people lost my friendship due to drugs, but in the last few years ive been the junkie burning bridges. But had friends od, sucide(maybe murder), arrested for many years and much more, all through drug use.

Its crazy man. Ive been clean for a minute now. Smoke a little weed, and drink once in a blue moon, dont fuck with the hard shit anymore. But ive been thinking a lot about my past and how fucked up shit got. Some real crackhead shit that made my sober friends run for the hills. Which i honestly cant blame em, cause if i was in there shoes i wouldn't fuck with me neither. But its hard to try to win these peoples trust back.

Drug abuse, especially with dope, always just kind of looms around you. No matter how long you been clean or where your life is at, it just might come out the woodwork and bite you on the ass. It just sits in the back of your mind and never really goes away. Just waits to prey on your vulnerability. So if you have friends like that, you have to always remember that and understand that. You can turn your back on a person, but you cant turn your back on a drug.

But support and acceptance helps people to get clean and stay that way. I wish some of my friends stuck around when it got rough, but they left and made it made it harder for me to kick. Not that its there burden, but my real friends stuck by me and helped me get better. So if this person means a lot to you, go the distance with them and really try to help. Understand that it isnt easy and kicking is not an easy battle. There will be relapses, there will be anger, but stick it out and be supportive. It could save a life.

LaserWolf

If I were to sit here and tell you about everyone I know who has died we would be here for days. I deal with the effects of drugs on my relationships everyday.

One thing I don't do is blame the user for my life.

so in short, although i feel bad for her, i was, and remain, generally kind of pissed that she came in to our lives to drop dead and cause problems.

This statement fits perfectly with all the other times you have laughed and made fun of someone who died.

I have never seen you express the least bit of concern for an other human being.

Instead you make jokes minutes after a plane crashes. Blame soldiers for Bush's policies. belittle the lives of Americans and Iraqis who have been killed. Make jokes on people who are trying to deal with a drug abusing brother. The list goes on and on. It does not contain one redeeming comment.

Why don't you go to the bridge collapse thread. I'm sure you have lots of good jokes to share there.

Kinetic

Once a friend and I stole a laptop out of a car and traded it to a local dealer for weed. My friend and I had a disagreement about who would hold the weed.

That's as bad as it got for me.

edith head

wow, i just wrote a loooong ass post that i spent an hour on with my own experiences and coping mechanisms with an addict and that shit vanished in an sql error. jesus. adam, pm me if you want to let off steam. i got this shit down. it changed me in a bad & good way and i am still self-remedying expunging demons and rebuilding bridges due to keeping my addict drama secret which resulted in side drama and affected every aspect of my life, couldn't escape it no matter how much i thought i had it under control. everything is copecetic 85% now even though i'm still improving and i've made peace with myself which led to peace with others because i know that you can be so mired in it that that self-destructive behavior and inability to empathize with others can be infectious. i got more shit to tell you. it's still palpable even though i've moved on and am happier for the most part. but seriously, i know it too well. trust, i'm confident you will move on guilt-free. i think sometimes you need to step back an give people the freedom to fuck up their lives and have that epiphany. that holy shit i am lonely and alienated everyone i care about epiphany. coddling leads to enabling, took me a few years to understand that. as cold as that may sound, i still care about him and think of him often and know the deal from a distance due to mutual friends, but my personality smashed with his binge proclivities was oil and water, i got my own defects i need to repair before i could try to help someone else's. felt like a hypocrite until i realized it's not my responsibility. yeah it's a gamble, they'll either realize or they wont on their own. my paranoid worried-some ass being in the picture didn't help at all. they need to want it without fam and friends guilting them into it. i know he didn't deep inside and i can't be mad because i think my life would be boring as well if i couldn't get wasted with friends. only difference is that he has the sickness where he can't stop and not have it affect the daily grind where the rest of could. oh well, i tried and that stuff was under control for a while but then the reslaspes became more intense and worriesome. all night benders and sleeping on benches in my sketchy neighborhood and whatnot. guess, that's the difference between functional and dysfunctional alcoholics. the important thing is to remember is you can't control it even when you have moments where you think you can. it's a sickness for sure and i realized that he is that way due to a history of alcoholism and depression running deep in the genes, suicide, golden gate jumpers spanning decades back and all.