The partner or spouse of an active addict often has a difficult time trying to understand the addict’s immature behavior and his inability to fully participate in a loving and respectful relationship. Addicts are certainly not as emotionally mature as their biological years would suggest.
Addicts are emotionally immature because their emotional growth stagnated or slowed down at the age they started drinking or using. For example, if someone started actively drinking or using at age 15, if at 30 they are still drinking or using, they would still have the emotional maturity of a 15-year-old. Furthermore, their immaturity is also compounded by the fact that a high percentage of addicts come from chaotic homes where healthy relationships were not modeled due to addiction or other challenges.
I recently asked my first wife to describe what I was like when I was an active addict. He said he could sum it up in two words: emotionally unavailable. I didn’t know that I didn’t have the emotional maturity to be able to contribute to a healthy, mature, and intimate relationship, and I don’t think I was any different from most addicts. As the disease of addiction progresses, addicts become more distant and emotionally remote. We are too busy being sick, sad, sorry and tired, or too preoccupied with our own unhealthy needs to be truly emotionally available to those we love. Our energy, time and life force are, for the most part, occupied with our drinking or consumption and all that goes with it.
Emotionally unavailable people cannot fully commit to being an equal partner in the process of creating an intimate, meaningful, deep, and long-term relationship. This despite the fact that deep down it is what they most long for. Addicts are very manipulative, so they can usually attract a partner whenever they want. But when the courtship stage ends, they return to their preoccupation with the drug of their choice and their dysfunctional lifestyle.
In my experience, it is not unusual for addicts to move on with others outside of a relationship because moral values like monogamy are often hijacked by their addiction. The lifestyle is one of lies, deceit and defensiveness and significantly hurts those who love them the most or who would like to love more. A phrase I always use with loved ones of addicts is: “How do you know when the addict is lying? His lips are moving.” Addiction is the most selfish disease known to humanity and is recognized as such, because the addict always wants what he wants, when he wants it later, in the way he wants and not in another way, and he wants it now, or to hell with you.
One sign of immaturity that I have noticed in many addicts is that they like to be rebellious and intentionally go against the grain, just to be different or defiant. It is a classic case of addicts who say that something is black when we say that it is white. Usually these people are quite proud of being rebellious.
Many addicts suffer from deep-seated anger and fear issues that are often linked to the past and have a lot to do with trust. The underlying problems of anger are experienced aggressively, expressed through acts of verbal or physical violence, or passively and aggressively, where it simmers as a silent resentment and is often expressed as sarcasm and abrasive humor. In either case, the way an addict handles anger becomes a conditioned pattern of behavior that he or she believes is acceptable.
In the first few months of recovery, much of the addict’s accumulated anger and resentment is likely to surface and need to be handled appropriately … or there will be a high probability of relapse. There is a saying that anger is only one letter from danger (d-anger), and this is very true for the recovering addict.
My experience has been that when addicts have stopped using, perhaps even for years, and start drinking or using again, they quickly return to where they were emotionally when using, or perhaps even further back. The disease wakes up and all the pain associated with drinking or using is forgotten, and they quickly return to the same way of thinking or acting, and the same mental / emotional place they were in when using. This can happen even if people have worked on their emotional and personal growth during the years that they abstained from drinking / using.
Emotional maturity is a process that requires considerable time and effort. By working on a 12-step program and working with our Higher Power, we can learn to grow: learn to love ourselves, to forgive, to act with honesty, honor and integrity within a relationship, to express our innermost feelings, to stop Be selfish, empathetic and act compassionately.
As for someone’s partners in a relationship with an active addict, the best advice I have is to work on your own personal and spiritual growth program, and then decide what to do for yourself.