AHS Views

A girl who wrote to since you asked … on Salon.com just found out her boyfriend is a crackhead. She’s been going out with him for a year, thought a few things were odd along the way, and finally found out what the problem is. Now that she knows, she says she’s sticking by him and going to see him through whatever addiction help services he needs.  But she’s in a dilemma - she knows there’s a possibility that he’ll never stop taking drugs and, although they love each other, this was not the future she had in mind.

I have a few words of advice - don’t do a drug rehab program that doesn’t get to the bottom of why he’s taking drugs and resolve those issues. Don’t get involved in addiction help that makes God or any other entity responsible for keeping him clean.  And don’t get involved in a program that forwards the idea that ‘once an addict, always an addict.”

Thousands of people, perhaps hundreds of thousands, have been truly rehabilitated - by which I mean no longer takes drugs, no longer wants drugs, no longer needs drugs, is no longer tempted by drugs no matter what the situation, no longer even considers drugs to be solution.

If you settle for anything less - you’ll either wind up with someone who relapses over and over again, someone who believes they cannot stay off drugs unless they attend endless meetings for the rest of their life or, worst of all, believes the only hope they have is holding their addiction at bay - in other words, they cannot really change. They cannot really get better. They can only act better.

While it’s true that many people have gotten addiction help through programs like the above - some of them would no doubt be dead without it - it is the absolute bare minimum help you can get. There’s really no rehabilitation, there is simply control. And it lasts a lifetime, and requires endless support.

Real addiction help means you are no longer an addict. Period. And that’s what I would advise she ensure her boyfriend receives.