Hiding Addiction from Loved Ones

Where do we draw the line between denial and personal business?

I’m sure it’s different for everyone, as addiction effects everyone in their own way.

I have only told my partner, my doctor, my psychiatrist, and the lovely humans of this forum, about my relapse. My family and my closest friends are completely in the dark and it’s been a few months. I probably wouldn’t lie to them if they asked, but I wonder if I ever really have to tell them. Especially if I can stay clean again.

Does anyone else relate?

@lonewolves I'm thinking i really like you,your a deep thinker and we can overcome our demons faster by bringing them to light.Do you need to tell your family?NO.Do you owe it to yourself?YES.It is my personal opinion that we as addicts somehow got that way by accepting we are liars and deniers.For myself i told everyone,absolutely everyone not that it wasn't obvious but i had to know who my enablers were because i truly wanted my life back and if a person was going to make excuses for my use and try to cover it with sh×t like "it's not your fault"well i don't need those people because they will slowly drag me back down.If i knew what i was doing was wrong i didn't need someone who is supposed to love me telling me it was ok,because it wasn't.It's absolutely your choice but aren't you sick of living a lie?Don't you want to be able to see your reflection in the mirror and feel pride?Again this is my take on it but as you stated we are all different.Trying to suggest there is a line between denial and personal business is actually"Denial"in it's self.Again this is how i see it,but im simply one dirtbag trying to make it sober and honest.Stay Strong and God Bless Take Care

@True concernNOT A DIRTBAG,but it did make me laugh out loud.

Glad i made you laugh.Laughter is amazing medication and it's all Natural

As for telling your friends and family I have no advice.
I know when I decided to tell those friends and family members that I have an addiction, I mean tell the ones that didn't already know, I just found out that most of them knew all along.
Don't worry yourself over telling someone who loves you that you are strong enough of a person to have already beaten an addiction!
Make them proud of you and happy for you, and they will probably trust you more if you come clean and find they knew all along.
I did anyway.

@lonewolves I would love to hear more about your situation,i sense you are struggling to either speak openly or something,i could be wrong wouldn't be the first time lol.I'm curious to read what is your true struggle other than ten year's of marijuana and tar lung cookies.I remember from your other post on a different thread you bought a vap volcano and killed your bong but your back to smoking from a pipe.I care please share openly i try to put 100% of my self into my responses and i am waiting for you to feel comfortable with this process and i as well as everyone else will be here for you,you are not alone

I wouldn’t say that I am struggling to open up, it’s more that I feel addiction (or at least mine) has so many layers so I try and keep my posts on subject. But I’ve got time to kill and it’s always nice to release so here it goeeeeees:

I have struggled with the addiction demon since I was very young. Unlike most people I know, I’m one of the few who didn’t witness drug/alcohol addiction from any close family members, which is obviously wonderful, but it also made it difficult to understand the feelings I was having. By 8 years old I was already struggling with depression, suicidal thoughts, and severe anxiety. I first felt addiction that year when my brother (a year older) rolled up actually grass from the ground into regular computer paper and we smoked it. Halfway through he threw it down and stomped it out and I was filled with absolute dread and upset. Flash forward 5 years to when I discover the “healing” powers of alcohol. I self “medicated” with alcohol in attempt to drown the pain that I didn’t know how to control, eventually picking up the weed habit by 16 and the harder stuff (socially) by 19. Basically a ton of crazy **** happened along the way, and by 20 I finally started to address the mental health issues that I had surpressed for so many formative years of my youth. That started to open up a lot of painful doors, which helped me grow in so many ways, unfortunately also growing my addiction demon. By 23 I realized that my life was heading to a place that I might never get out of, and I decided to quit alcohol and hard drugs. Now I’m 27 and I’m definitely proud of how far I’ve come - even with my recent coke relapse, and the fact that I basically spend 99.99% of my free time at home hiding from humanity.

Will I find your story somewhere on this forum? I would hate for you to feel like you have to repeat yourself constantly, haha.

I am 30years old and experienced addiction very early also. Just re-read your post and I think you're asking @True concern. But I will tell you a little about me and probably you can relate.
I was pulled out of public school at 12 years old and experienced extremely low lows and horrible anxiety for the next 3years. Since I was homeschooled I was able to get my GED and get a job and car early. I drank my first beer on my fifteenth b'day and three weeks later I was facing withdrawals when I didn't drink,I was an alcoholic and didn't care because all of those emotional hurts were gone. At sixteen years old I was bringing vodka and Gatorade into work at chik-fil-a every day, and leaving drunk every day. A sixteen year old functional alcoholic. I got married early and lost my wife at 20 due to brain disease. This is when I started the hard stuff.
I remember having a stress headache after what with my wife and she had some Vicodin left over from a root canal. So I took one of the pills hoping my headache would stop. Something even better happened,,I wasn't crying over her loss anymore, so I took more.
I was working in an automotive shop at this time and finished off those pills in a few days. Well drugs were easy to come buy there so I got stronger pills. Within 6 months or less I was shooting every opiate I could get my hands on mostly heroin and oxy 80s, I would chew on fentanyl patches, take adderall to stay awake. Long story short I'm now on Subutex, tapering off and on valium, also tapering off. I beat the alcohol a while back I don't remember how long ago but I know I did have to go through a librium detox because I was having siezures so bad. I did do a lot of coke for about 5-7 years though it really isn't my thing. Honestly if I could shoot it I would do it. I lived by that for almost 11years 2 of which I was homeless because I had burned all of my bridges and couldn't even apply for a job.
Now though I have custody of my son he's 8 and I was given a plot of land 5 acres by my parents along w/new tractor and farming equipment to keep up the place,and theirs, and keep me busy.
If you had told me a year ago that I would be tapering off under a psychiatrists care, be a land owner, and have custody of my son I would have probably cried because I knewI was never going to have a life again.
But by the grace of God here I am.
That's my story in a nutshell.

This is my story of addiction.I was born in the early 80's at the age of six year's old i was diagnosed with A.D.H.D.at that time there was a new F.D.A.approved drug by the name of Ritalin.At first it seemed to be a miracle pill,I was on this pill until the age of 18 at that time i decided i was no longer going to take this pill and it began just under a year passed and someone said "Have you ever tried crystal"which i had not at that time but i tried it and instantly noticed that it was 100% the same effect i got from Ritalin only difference was it lasted longer,or seemed to but honestly it was probably the quantity i was doing was greater than that of Ritalin i struggled with meth on and off for roughly 20 year's,not only meth but i was as well consuming 750ml of Jack Daniel's a day plus a 12 pack of beer.For those who don't know when you mix the two you don't appear to get drunk which is very deadly because infact you do get drunk however you don't realise it until it's too late meaning alcohol poisoning.I experienced this a few times and actually died on a hospital bed due to this fact,it took 3 hits with a defibrillator to restart my heart and i was told the only reason I was hit 3 times was because i was only 19 year's old,but usually after the second time if your heart doesn't restart you are then pronounced dead,but a nurse pleaded with the Dr.to try one more time and he did and my heart started back up.I didn't know at the time but that nurse was actually the mother of the lead singer of Sublime who just lost her son to a heroin overdose.I am forever grateful for that nurse without her plea i would be another statistic.Unfortunately I didn't quite using drug's at that time i just traded substances.I started abusing pain pills heavily and increased that addiction to catastrophic proportions,it got so bad i started injecting heroin which i quickly traded for oxycontin because it was much stronger than heroin.I abused fentanyl as well but nothing compared to the oxycontin.At my worst i was injecting 240-320mg's of oxycontin a day,feeling i wouldn't survive another month i decided to seek help.I'm poor and i come from poor parent's so my options were limited,i ended up at a methadone clinic for help slowly decreasing my extremely high tolerance.At the clinic i had an interview with a drug addiction counselor and an addiction physician,i was hoping for good news but what i heard shock me to my core.I was told by both the same thing,"Sir we are sorry to tell you but your addiction and tolerance is beyond the point of return,whether you quit or continue either way you cannot survive you have if your lucky a month to live"My heart sank and i decided at that moment if i was going to die i would die trying.I went home and prayed and then i called my wife into the room to tell her the news.At that moment i apologized to her told her how much she meant to me and made her promise if i didn't make it she would move on re marry and live a happy life and she noded yes.After that i quite cold turkey and suffered pain and sickness i cannot describe,for 27 straight day's i did not leave the bedroom,i did not eat,i did not sleep,i hallucinated,i screamed in intense unimaginable pain,i lost over 50 pound's in that time frame and had to be rushed to the hospital 3 time's where they would rehydrate me and try to give me pain shots to stall the detox which i refused.On day 28 I took my first steps after i quite and by the grace of God i survived and this May im married 18 year's to my beautiful wife and guardian angel.This is the first time I've shared my story of addiction and i did it for one reason alone,i want everyone to know i understand what you are going through and no matter how bad it gets there is hope.I'm here for each and everyone of you,if you ever need someone to talk to,if you ever feel no one understands im all ears and i do understand.Stay Strong We're rooting for you.Alright i just did a magic trick called copy and paste lol.Anyways i apologize i passed out after i sent you that message yesterday good news is i rarely sleep and it's3 a.m. o i over slept sh×t....It's good to hear from you oddly enough this site helps at least myself alot.I repeat myself alot in my post,but i run into many who need to hear the same and thank you for sharing.It does sadden me that you are 99.99% of the time hiding in your home but i do understand it,i mean I spend most of my time running and advising,simply trying to exhaust my body and wrap my head around this insanity called addiction.Plus i do alot of research on several different topics other's find as a waste of time like the difference between analog time versus digital time.Believe it or not they are not the same 60 second minute which means we are either gaining time or losing it and depending on how long and which is accurate could explain why the season's are messed up,but there are other factors in play s well such as the current rotation of earth as it's axis is a bit off and the compass polarity confusion caused by year's of liquid magma displacement.Anyways ya this is me

In junior high i rolled regular grass up in a news paper and smoked it,i remember hearing a radio advertisement at the age of 7 that said."No one says they want to be a drug addict when they grow up"....I remember answering the radio with "i do,it looks fun" Damnit I did become one and it was and is anything but fun

Analog is really different? Interesting, where did you read this?

I didn't read it i conducted several test to confirm it

Digital time is faster than analog time and considering digital time came much later than analog time our year could actually be incorrect

I posted my story here on this thread for you as you asked about it.It starts with"This is my story of addiction"lol.....Ya we all been through some sh×t

Ya i study alot of odd thing's.The easiest way to test this is go to a coin laundry mat,start a washer and notice how long it says to finish,walk away and watch the time on your smartphone and when your phone says your laundry is done the washer usually has 2-3 minutes left.Sounds crazy but i have conducted several test for a time span exceeding a year lol

@True concern

I’m so thankful for the angels in your life that brought you back. I love your positive attitude, it truly is inspirational and you are quite funny, sir. A tip of the hat to you. It’s nice to see everyone have a sense of humour!

If i can't laugh at me than that would mean only everyone else was and i refuse to be excluded from that lol

I couldn’t agree more. I tell people about my addiction not for them but for me. I spent so much time hiding my addiction. I’m sober and I’m proud of it. Not only that but the more people that know the bigger the safety net. The more people who would hold you accountable. So when I first got sober I realized my initial instinct to almost every situation was wrong ( were kind of selfish assholes when we’re using right?) so I basically had to reasses my whole thought process and do the opposite of what “I wanted to do”. I started to realize that if I didn’t want to do something it was probably the right thing to do. So I didn’t want to go to a meeting? I went. I didn’t want to get a sponsor? I did. I felt like isolating? I went out with people in recovery. I wanted to lie? I told the truth. All we have to do to stay sober is do the “next right thing” over and over until it becomes our way of life. Your addiction wants you to hide it. Hide it from others, keep it safe so if you relapse no one will know. Our addiction is a clever fucker. He’s Slick. He’s cunning baffling and powerful and the more people we share with the less power he has.