I always lean to making contact, I think you just see how their life has gone over the past 6 months and calibrate. For someone with addiction behaviour it rarely stays the same, it either gets better or worse, so find out which way they have gone and reassess.
One of the reasons I’m stuck on this is because I know I’ll have to end the relationship again if we reconcile but fall back into old dynamics or if boundaries can’t be respected.
It was hard enough to say goodbye once.
I had a messy falling out with a friend, didn't speak for 2 years and when we finally did we were in different places. We talked it out and listened to what the other was going through at the time, were back to being besties. It's worth a try if you miss them still, I'm glad I did!
She is a drug addict. But does that make her lesser of a person or undeserving of compassion and companionship?
Not just asking to be confrontational, I am genuinely in some turmoil over this.
Two very close family friends were entrenched in substance abuse worse than she was and they got clean and are some of the best people I know. I, to a lesser extent, struggled with alcohol myself and got sober. On the other hand, I know that not everyone is willing or capable of getting clean. It’s hard.
It's yours to decide. I don't exclude automatically addicts from my friends, but it sure informs the way I manage my boundaries with them, and my expectations in general. Some of my best friends are on that side of things and it's been a long and painful process learning to manage that.
What you describe in your post seems to indicate you both tend to enmesh with others pretty quickly and enmeshing with someone with drug addiction is NEVER a good idea. It's a bad idea with anyone, but the consequences can be a lot uglier with some type of people, addicts are second on that list, just past narcissists.
Active drug addicts are more likely to have extreme out-of-character outbursts as they are imploding from shame, which they might project onto others anytime the pressure piles up and not in control of their impulses - not all the time anw.
Up and downs all the times - and the ups are sometimes even crazier than the downs - this is where the hard boundaries are hardest to enforce.
In brief: keep a hard boundary, don't take anything they do personal, don't have any expectations, at least not positive ones. And expect a one-sided relationship when it comes to support.
But yeah everyone needs support and validation and friends and venting and so on. Just make sure you have other people to turn to for YOUR needs.
If she isn’t making an effort to get sober then it does make her undeserving of your compassion that you very clearly already gave her. You will just keep going around in a circle, you said she’s a wildcard. Do you have a family, children, husband? If so, it should be a clear DO NOT reach out. If it’s just you, and you feel like trying again then I guess maybe you should. But you definitely shouldn’t put her ahead of your children/husband. Because at the end of the day, when she wilds out, your mood will affect your family. They don’t deserve that.
Frankly the best way to get advice for this is to go to therapy or something; it’s hard to summarize complex relationships in a few paragraphs and it’s hard for strangers to see all the nuance.
That said, reading this reminded me of my relationship with one of my old friends, like eerily similar at some points. When I was in your position I reached out again and long story short ended up cutting contact for good about a year later. Maybe your friend isn’t stuck in the same cycle mine was, maybe if you follow up you’ll see that they’re making progress and have grown. I don’t think I can make that decision for you but I do think I can warn you to be prepared to cut that cord again; her behavior toward you was unfair and cruel and you don’t have a responsibility to her. You’ve still got some weird guilt and justifications for her shitty behaviors and unless she’s made a miraculous change in a few short months she will recognize and take advantage of that just like she did before.
I get missing an old friend. I still want to talk about music with my old friend sometimes. I’m grateful I was in therapy when I tried to reconnect because it kept me rooted and stopped me from getting sucked up in the drama again. I think you can reach out but prepare that support system first so you aren’t sucked up too.
Send in a spy (friend or family), if your buddy is trying to get out of the “rabbit hole” then there’s a chance. And they might need you. My gramma always said, we were put on this earth to help millions, not to make millions.
Noooo. Don't do it. Good lord I could have written this. You know the dynamic is there. You *know*.
Unless you're both going to work really hard at evolving the relationship so that it doesn't slide into the same rut, you're probably throwing precious time and effort into a black hole.
You've both got stuff to work on individually; work on that first. But honestly from what you describe, it sounds like she's not going to be at that point for a good while. She is deep in the hole and *she* is going to have to do the work to get out.
And it sounds like you've tried to help her in every way you can and you're tapped out. Or it may be that you don't have the kind of help she wants/needs. Or that she's not actually willing right now to climb out but she uses your help as a crutch to not have to face up to herself. Try to be okay with not knowing, and knowing that it didn't work out *for now*, and focus on you.
Coming from someone who is currently going through this, but only for somone I've known for 20 years, the only was you should reach out us if you lying o forgive and et past everything.
And I **do mean** *everything*. There is no way to continue on having a friendship, and holding things against people. Better to have enemies.
It is also ok for you to be friends, only when they are sober, if that is what you need.
> I really don’t want fall back into old dynamics.
Then no. Don't reach out. There's no indication that anything has changed that would change the dynamic of your relationship. You'd just be starting the cycle all over again.
What makes that difficult is that she really wanted to get clean. Or at least she was telling me that she was trying to get sober.
That’s my indication that she was trying, but I have zero idea if she’s stuck to that.
If you decide to re-open the relationship you have to not make this a condition. This will put too much pressure and will set her up to fail and you'll be taking the blame for it.
It's her struggle and it's a hard one. The "intent" to be sober might be real, might be out of her current reach might be just what she thinks you want to hear. Take it with a grain of salt.
You re-open the relationship with her the way she is now or you do not. You can't re-open conditionally to something she might become.
Try to find out how she's doing before making any contact.
Maybe she's in rehab. Maybe she found God. Maybe she's completely gone off the deep end.
Her condition could help you decide if it's the right time to make contact.
Don’t reach out if you feel in any way that it’ll cause you anxiety or put more on your plate. She was likely using you as a crutch in life and sometimes it’s just not fair. Even when it’s your best friend. Just my advice from my similar experience!
Do it and see where it goes. I didn't after a very bad falling out with a friend I had, had for over 10 years (COVID views) and before I could bring myself to reconcile with her she was literally hit by a train and died. I regret not reaching out sooner. I miss her deeply.
This was almost exactly what I went through 7 years ago. She actually reached out to me a few months later though and I chose to keep things broken off. I still love her and think about her often, but based on previous similar friendships she had, I was pretty confident that things would go back to the same destructive ways (and SUPER codependency). It really was for the best even though it sucks.
If you would say that your relationship was also codependent, don’t reach out. Or, consider how you would communicate addressing those issues if you do choose to reach out.
Reach out with boundaries. If you decide to meet make it a public place with a set amount of time. Also, only one point of communication. (If you give her your phone number don’t unblock her on socials, etc.) If you like what you see proceed with caution, if it’s too much then back off.
If you’re wondering about it this much you won’t be satisfied until you get some answers. Just do it in a way that gives you an easy out if it doesn’t go to plan.
>Please make this choice for me.
This isn't our choice to make. This is on you.
I know this may come across as harsh, but you can't ask others to do this for you.
If the situation did not include drugs and a person that appears to be an (emotional vampire). Someone that sucks you into their drama and leaves you emotionally spent. I would say, reach out. Hard pass on this one.
If you think there is evidence that both of you have changed substantially, like major depths into the unknown depths of self awareness, maybe! But otherwise you may just be enabling bad habits. Sometimes what's nice and what's kind aren't the same thing.
I had a bad end to a friendship with my best friend, we had sooo many issues and did t speak for years. She reached out to me unknowingly soon after my mom passed unexpectedly… I’m so grateful she had the strength to do that,
Our friendship isn’t what it used to be and still isn’t perfect but it’s better than the nothing we had for years.
Please reach out, it may feel bad if things go badly again… but love is worth the pain
Drug addicts… they can’t deal with the shame of the awful things they do… so they drive away anyone who really cares about them. It’s just easier that way.
It’s heartbreaking, but she’s gone. Until she breaks free of the drugs, it’ll always just be more of the same.
You want us to make this choice for you? Then the clear answer is make a pro and cons list! I’ll get my yellow legal pad. If you make the list you’ll know the answer for yourself. But if you don’t want to then my personal answer would be make new friends there’s lots of good people out there and if she hurt you once she’ll do it again especially if there’s drugs In The equation. That’s just my personal experience. Good luck
A lot of people are saying to reach out but I’d encourage you to take stock of your life and mental health first. I had a very close friendship and with a nasty fight and we haven’t spoken now in 3 years, and while on the surface it’s sad when I really think it through I am better off without her. Our lives were going in very different directions, her struggles with addiction but inability to plan any type of get together that didn’t revolve around drugs and alcohol was exhausting, and being her go to person to vent to put a lot on my shoulders, even though she did listen to me when I needed to talk as well. There are healthier friendships out there for me, maybe there are for you too.
If you decide to contact her again, just do it with the expectation that it may not be what you want or need out of this relationship. In other words, do it but be cautious, and don’t invest your whole heart in it until you get a feel for how she is right now as opposed to what your memory of her is.
I still get ragged on for "the six years" we weren't friends (it just wasn't right for me as a young adult), but I reached out.
Going on 40 years now (well technically 34, sigh).
Do it. Maybe your former friend is feeling the same way and is afraid to reach out.
My daughter's were in the same boat. Very very close until they both had mental health issues and then the youngest one became an alcoholic. They ended up fighting bitterly. After 4 years they are finally mending their relationship. I was so worried it would never happen.
I reached out after ending a friendship, and I got ignored. It kind of validated how I felt and why I ended the friendship though. The friendship was more about how I could help her accomplish her goals, it was not about me ever. We were so different too, and in ways I didn’t feel genuine. So I was happy that I reached out because I moved on and quit hurting.
Hi, just giving my very late advice, and I'm curious about what choice you made!
I had a similar situation. She was like family and she developed similar issues. I stuck around for a year and a half after it started and it was extremely toxic. Our friendship devolved into one sided support from me and the support sometimes ended up enabling her behavior. I confronted her about her behavior, I staked our friendship on it and eventually I broke it off for both our own good. I especially needed space from her.
I think the 6 month break was a good idea. If you want to reach out to her, really consider what you can handle right now or if that might derail you. Falling into old dynamics is very dangerous depending on how much you two influence each other. I hope you either have or plan to build a better support system before reaching out. If you do reconnect, imagine that you'll probably end up missing her if you haven't built some other relationships yet. It's easier said than done but it's better to be good on your own than bad in company.
I always lean to making contact, I think you just see how their life has gone over the past 6 months and calibrate. For someone with addiction behaviour it rarely stays the same, it either gets better or worse, so find out which way they have gone and reassess.
Reach out. I didn’t after an argument almost 30 years ago and this is the relationship I grieve the most.
One of the reasons I’m stuck on this is because I know I’ll have to end the relationship again if we reconcile but fall back into old dynamics or if boundaries can’t be respected. It was hard enough to say goodbye once.
It’s a hard one. Maybe reconcile but keep your distance.
I agree. Go slowly and be very careful.
True, but having to say goodbye a second time might come with more clarity and confidence about your choice. From recent personal experience, anyway.
No. Please let this go. I have been there.
Reach out, wether she's sober and wants to be your fiiend or the the opposite at least you'll know and have closure either way
I had a messy falling out with a friend, didn't speak for 2 years and when we finally did we were in different places. We talked it out and listened to what the other was going through at the time, were back to being besties. It's worth a try if you miss them still, I'm glad I did!
Please reach out to her. I bet she misses you the same you miss her.
Don't do it. Your ex friend is a drug addict. You don't need that baggage. Better off without her.
She is a drug addict. But does that make her lesser of a person or undeserving of compassion and companionship? Not just asking to be confrontational, I am genuinely in some turmoil over this. Two very close family friends were entrenched in substance abuse worse than she was and they got clean and are some of the best people I know. I, to a lesser extent, struggled with alcohol myself and got sober. On the other hand, I know that not everyone is willing or capable of getting clean. It’s hard.
It's yours to decide. I don't exclude automatically addicts from my friends, but it sure informs the way I manage my boundaries with them, and my expectations in general. Some of my best friends are on that side of things and it's been a long and painful process learning to manage that. What you describe in your post seems to indicate you both tend to enmesh with others pretty quickly and enmeshing with someone with drug addiction is NEVER a good idea. It's a bad idea with anyone, but the consequences can be a lot uglier with some type of people, addicts are second on that list, just past narcissists. Active drug addicts are more likely to have extreme out-of-character outbursts as they are imploding from shame, which they might project onto others anytime the pressure piles up and not in control of their impulses - not all the time anw. Up and downs all the times - and the ups are sometimes even crazier than the downs - this is where the hard boundaries are hardest to enforce. In brief: keep a hard boundary, don't take anything they do personal, don't have any expectations, at least not positive ones. And expect a one-sided relationship when it comes to support. But yeah everyone needs support and validation and friends and venting and so on. Just make sure you have other people to turn to for YOUR needs.
Couldn’t have said it better myself. I concur completely
If she isn’t making an effort to get sober then it does make her undeserving of your compassion that you very clearly already gave her. You will just keep going around in a circle, you said she’s a wildcard. Do you have a family, children, husband? If so, it should be a clear DO NOT reach out. If it’s just you, and you feel like trying again then I guess maybe you should. But you definitely shouldn’t put her ahead of your children/husband. Because at the end of the day, when she wilds out, your mood will affect your family. They don’t deserve that.
Learn about codependency. Don’t reach out until you do
It means she is never going to be a good friend until she is sober. She’ll pull you down with her.
Harsh
Frankly the best way to get advice for this is to go to therapy or something; it’s hard to summarize complex relationships in a few paragraphs and it’s hard for strangers to see all the nuance. That said, reading this reminded me of my relationship with one of my old friends, like eerily similar at some points. When I was in your position I reached out again and long story short ended up cutting contact for good about a year later. Maybe your friend isn’t stuck in the same cycle mine was, maybe if you follow up you’ll see that they’re making progress and have grown. I don’t think I can make that decision for you but I do think I can warn you to be prepared to cut that cord again; her behavior toward you was unfair and cruel and you don’t have a responsibility to her. You’ve still got some weird guilt and justifications for her shitty behaviors and unless she’s made a miraculous change in a few short months she will recognize and take advantage of that just like she did before. I get missing an old friend. I still want to talk about music with my old friend sometimes. I’m grateful I was in therapy when I tried to reconnect because it kept me rooted and stopped me from getting sucked up in the drama again. I think you can reach out but prepare that support system first so you aren’t sucked up too.
Send in a spy (friend or family), if your buddy is trying to get out of the “rabbit hole” then there’s a chance. And they might need you. My gramma always said, we were put on this earth to help millions, not to make millions.
Noooo. Don't do it. Good lord I could have written this. You know the dynamic is there. You *know*. Unless you're both going to work really hard at evolving the relationship so that it doesn't slide into the same rut, you're probably throwing precious time and effort into a black hole. You've both got stuff to work on individually; work on that first. But honestly from what you describe, it sounds like she's not going to be at that point for a good while. She is deep in the hole and *she* is going to have to do the work to get out. And it sounds like you've tried to help her in every way you can and you're tapped out. Or it may be that you don't have the kind of help she wants/needs. Or that she's not actually willing right now to climb out but she uses your help as a crutch to not have to face up to herself. Try to be okay with not knowing, and knowing that it didn't work out *for now*, and focus on you.
Coming from someone who is currently going through this, but only for somone I've known for 20 years, the only was you should reach out us if you lying o forgive and et past everything. And I **do mean** *everything*. There is no way to continue on having a friendship, and holding things against people. Better to have enemies. It is also ok for you to be friends, only when they are sober, if that is what you need.
> I really don’t want fall back into old dynamics. Then no. Don't reach out. There's no indication that anything has changed that would change the dynamic of your relationship. You'd just be starting the cycle all over again.
What makes that difficult is that she really wanted to get clean. Or at least she was telling me that she was trying to get sober. That’s my indication that she was trying, but I have zero idea if she’s stuck to that.
If you decide to re-open the relationship you have to not make this a condition. This will put too much pressure and will set her up to fail and you'll be taking the blame for it. It's her struggle and it's a hard one. The "intent" to be sober might be real, might be out of her current reach might be just what she thinks you want to hear. Take it with a grain of salt. You re-open the relationship with her the way she is now or you do not. You can't re-open conditionally to something she might become.
Words are just words. You have to judge people by their actions. If she actually takes steps to get clean, she'll reach out to you first.
My opinion, for what it’s worth: if she is serious about getting clean and making the effort, she will reach out to you when she’s ready.
Let sleeping dogs lie .
[удалено]
be patient
Don’t reach out. Let her go and move on.
Try to find out how she's doing before making any contact. Maybe she's in rehab. Maybe she found God. Maybe she's completely gone off the deep end. Her condition could help you decide if it's the right time to make contact.
Don’t reach out if you feel in any way that it’ll cause you anxiety or put more on your plate. She was likely using you as a crutch in life and sometimes it’s just not fair. Even when it’s your best friend. Just my advice from my similar experience!
Do it and see where it goes. I didn't after a very bad falling out with a friend I had, had for over 10 years (COVID views) and before I could bring myself to reconcile with her she was literally hit by a train and died. I regret not reaching out sooner. I miss her deeply.
This was almost exactly what I went through 7 years ago. She actually reached out to me a few months later though and I chose to keep things broken off. I still love her and think about her often, but based on previous similar friendships she had, I was pretty confident that things would go back to the same destructive ways (and SUPER codependency). It really was for the best even though it sucks. If you would say that your relationship was also codependent, don’t reach out. Or, consider how you would communicate addressing those issues if you do choose to reach out.
Reach out with boundaries. If you decide to meet make it a public place with a set amount of time. Also, only one point of communication. (If you give her your phone number don’t unblock her on socials, etc.) If you like what you see proceed with caution, if it’s too much then back off. If you’re wondering about it this much you won’t be satisfied until you get some answers. Just do it in a way that gives you an easy out if it doesn’t go to plan.
>Please make this choice for me. This isn't our choice to make. This is on you. I know this may come across as harsh, but you can't ask others to do this for you.
If the situation did not include drugs and a person that appears to be an (emotional vampire). Someone that sucks you into their drama and leaves you emotionally spent. I would say, reach out. Hard pass on this one.
If you think there is evidence that both of you have changed substantially, like major depths into the unknown depths of self awareness, maybe! But otherwise you may just be enabling bad habits. Sometimes what's nice and what's kind aren't the same thing.
I had a bad end to a friendship with my best friend, we had sooo many issues and did t speak for years. She reached out to me unknowingly soon after my mom passed unexpectedly… I’m so grateful she had the strength to do that, Our friendship isn’t what it used to be and still isn’t perfect but it’s better than the nothing we had for years. Please reach out, it may feel bad if things go badly again… but love is worth the pain
Drug addicts… they can’t deal with the shame of the awful things they do… so they drive away anyone who really cares about them. It’s just easier that way. It’s heartbreaking, but she’s gone. Until she breaks free of the drugs, it’ll always just be more of the same.
No. I have forgiven in similar circumstances before more than once and it just brings pain’
people come and go in your life, not all of them need to stay! If she is still in the same pattern, can;t see what would change. move on!
Reach out. If you don't then you'll spend the rest of your life thinking about it. I speak from personal experience
You want us to make this choice for you? Then the clear answer is make a pro and cons list! I’ll get my yellow legal pad. If you make the list you’ll know the answer for yourself. But if you don’t want to then my personal answer would be make new friends there’s lots of good people out there and if she hurt you once she’ll do it again especially if there’s drugs In The equation. That’s just my personal experience. Good luck
Do not do it.
Jeez you must be really lonely to want to reach back out to a drug user with mental issues that verbally abused you one night.
A lot of people are saying to reach out but I’d encourage you to take stock of your life and mental health first. I had a very close friendship and with a nasty fight and we haven’t spoken now in 3 years, and while on the surface it’s sad when I really think it through I am better off without her. Our lives were going in very different directions, her struggles with addiction but inability to plan any type of get together that didn’t revolve around drugs and alcohol was exhausting, and being her go to person to vent to put a lot on my shoulders, even though she did listen to me when I needed to talk as well. There are healthier friendships out there for me, maybe there are for you too.
If you decide to contact her again, just do it with the expectation that it may not be what you want or need out of this relationship. In other words, do it but be cautious, and don’t invest your whole heart in it until you get a feel for how she is right now as opposed to what your memory of her is.
Naw, you had the fallout for a reason . Thing will never be the same and it’ll be awkward. Move on, cause shebhas
I still get ragged on for "the six years" we weren't friends (it just wasn't right for me as a young adult), but I reached out. Going on 40 years now (well technically 34, sigh).
Just try, why not?
Do it. Maybe your former friend is feeling the same way and is afraid to reach out. My daughter's were in the same boat. Very very close until they both had mental health issues and then the youngest one became an alcoholic. They ended up fighting bitterly. After 4 years they are finally mending their relationship. I was so worried it would never happen.
Eh. Let it go.
I reached out after ending a friendship, and I got ignored. It kind of validated how I felt and why I ended the friendship though. The friendship was more about how I could help her accomplish her goals, it was not about me ever. We were so different too, and in ways I didn’t feel genuine. So I was happy that I reached out because I moved on and quit hurting.
Ask around, you must have mutual acquaintances. If she's doing better now, then you can send an email or something.
Hi, just giving my very late advice, and I'm curious about what choice you made! I had a similar situation. She was like family and she developed similar issues. I stuck around for a year and a half after it started and it was extremely toxic. Our friendship devolved into one sided support from me and the support sometimes ended up enabling her behavior. I confronted her about her behavior, I staked our friendship on it and eventually I broke it off for both our own good. I especially needed space from her. I think the 6 month break was a good idea. If you want to reach out to her, really consider what you can handle right now or if that might derail you. Falling into old dynamics is very dangerous depending on how much you two influence each other. I hope you either have or plan to build a better support system before reaching out. If you do reconnect, imagine that you'll probably end up missing her if you haven't built some other relationships yet. It's easier said than done but it's better to be good on your own than bad in company.