Back in 2020, I dated this guy for a few months, was very into him. Gave him way too much and was to available… then he ghosted me right when the pandemic started.
When I meet him, he was sober. He used to have a driving problem. When he ghosted me, he started dating someone else who got him into heroin and crack. Things obviously got pretty bad. Went to jail, halfway house etc. He got clean, started making his amends and came back around to apologize and reconnect .
We were kinda seeing each other again last year and things seemed like they were progressing well. He seemed happy, was sober for over a year.
He came to my birthday party and spent the night. The next day he told me that he would be taking someone else to a friend’s wedding, so that I wouldn’t find out from someone else.
I basically told him I was done. The woman was an ex of his that was abusive towards him. He seemed to prefer women that were bad for him so I decided to remove myself from the equation.
He started sniffing around again about 2 weeks ago. I was going through a break up. It’s kinda he could sense my vulnerability. He always was very intuitive and could tell any time my moods shift.
He came over to ‘talk’ but he wanted to have sex. I was annoyed and didn’t sleep with him. He fell asleep on my couch so he ended up spending the night and we cuddled.
I was grossed out by the encounter so when he kept reaching out, I ignored him. He tried at least 4 times in the last week to get a hold of me. Our mutual friend contacted me asking if I’d heard from him, he was worried.
A friend of mine text me that she needed to tell me something last night. My heart dropped. I checked out our friend’s page and saw his profile pic was black. I figured out it.
He overdosed. He’s dead. And I feel incredibly guilty. He needed a friend or an outlet and I didn’t answer him.
For once in my life, I put up a boundary and put myself first and now I feel awful. Not that I should have just slept with him, but I was one of the last people he talked to.
Now he’s just gone. I loved him. He hurt me by choosing another woman… Twice. But I still care for him. I wish I could have been there for him. Or that someone was with him so they could have administered narcan and taken him to the hospital.
This is a weird, guilty pain that I’m dealing with right now and could use some support
27 comments
> And I feel incredibly guilty
I’m sorry you’re going through all this. There isn’t much that one can say to help you through a situation like this, but I will remind you of what you already know. You had no fault in this. You can’t predict what people are going to do. What their motivations are. You can’t predict what tomorrow will bring any more than you can change what you did yesterday. You can’t hold yourself hostage to other peoples intentions.
Grieve in whatever way you feel acceptable but know that you did the right thing in all of this. It’s natural and normal, healthy even, to feel like you could have done more. We all feel that way any time we hear of tragedy. You did good.
That’s probably not going to make it feel better right now, but hopefully you can stop yourself from feeling worse.
I wish you all the best.
This is a little beyond Reddit I think but I will offer some advice from my own life experience.
There’s always more in your mind that you can do for people who have passed, especially when that relationship was turbulent. However it was never your job to be his therapist or his outlet or let yourself be used for him to save himself a little longer.
Those kind of problems are so persistent and can’t be fixed from dragging you down into them.
Mourn his passing since you clearly cared for him, but don’t confuse that with some kind of obligation or personal responsibility. Addiction is such a hurdle and even if you had been an outlet for him it may well have just resulted in the same outcome.
You have nothing to be guilty about. He made his own choices and that’s what led to his downfall. There’s nothing you could have done or not done. It may not feel that way in the moment, but over time I hope you come to realize that. His trajectory was etched in stone long before he met you. You have nothing to be sorry or guilty about.
I think about this a lot. I’ve experienced a lot of death in my life, and my best friend died a few months ago.
When we think about death, about what we would do if we knew we had one day to live, our imaginations run amok with romanticized and grandiose things. You’d love with your whole heart. You’d forgive. You’d be at peace. You’d live dangerously.
That, however, is just a way for you to think about what you aim to be, not how we should live every single day. We don’t know when we’ll die. We could be the person who breaks the record for oldest person to ever live. There’s a lot of in between. There’s a lot of growth and wisdom to have. There’s a lot of lessons to learn that we’ll miss if we live every single day as if it’s our last.
There’s beauty in the mundanity of life. It’s *very* possible his intentions weren’t pure just as you felt they weren’t. If he had lived to be 100, is that something you would have wanted to validate for him? Would you want him to think it’s ok to treat people like that and create a whole lifetime of using people? You wouldn’t. So his life being cut short shouldn’t change that. It’s just tragic he didn’t have the chance to fully learn that lesson. Because if he had the time to learn it, maybe he would have thanked you for being a nudge in the right direction.
You’re experiencing completely normal and valid feelings. Don’t be ashamed of that. Life ends suddenly sometimes, with no warning, and the living are left to make sense of it. He did his best. You did your best. The lesson is, we’re all deeply flawed just trying to make our way until death takes us. There’s something very beautiful about that, so don’t hate yourself for it.
In all honesty if talking to him a couple times could’ve been enough to save him, he wouldn’t have had the problem in the first place. It’s so beyond what a conversation in his time of need could’ve fixed.
This is really sad. Please don’t blame yourself, it’s not your fault. Even if you had communicated with him in the last week, he still would have had his own struggles with addiction to deal with. You being available would not have prevented his overdose from possibly happening. Because being there for a loved one with addiction doesn’t prevent them from using.
It’s completely understandable and healthy that you feel grief and feel like if there was anything you could have done to prevent this it would have been worth it. But there’s nothing that you could have done with absolute certainty to prevent him from overdosing.
It’s incredibly sad, and I am truly sorry for your loss. I hope that as you’re processing and grieving that you can honour his memory by living your own life to the absolute fullest. It makes no sense to lose people this way. Life is truly precious and this is not your fault. And (i think) it is really meaningful to love someone on the otherside and really focus on living and enjoying life here and now and very consciously following your dreams every day.
It’s not an easy loss to deal with, but I hope that you find some peace and make the absolute most of your life partly in honour of loved ones who have passed too early.
So sorry but you didn’t do anything wrong. ❤️He was responsible for his own actions and the last interaction was him crossing your boundaries, coming back around whenever you were vulnerable, harassing you, and possibly being mad you didn’t put out. A friend doesn’t treat you like that. You’re allowed to have boundaries and cut people out of your life that treat you poorly. His actions and sobriety was his own responsibility and sadly he made some poor choices. If somebody wants to do drugs, they’re going to do them no matter what.
That’s really really rough, yikes. So sorry this situation happened to you 🙁
Lots of others have said, but you can’t blame yourself for this. It’s nobody’s “fault” when stuff like this happens, least of all yours. It’s also normal to feel guilty and get caught in a spiral of “well, I shouldn’t be feeling this way because people told me it’s not my fault”… just recognize that for what it is – your mind dealing with overwhelming grief. My younger brother passed away from an overdose, and it took me a long time to come to terms with my guilt over not being there more for him… but ultimately, it was an accident that nobody could have foreseen or meant to happen.
Definitely try and get in touch with some professional help if you’re in a place to be able to afford it. I don’t have a lot of regrets in life, but not getting mental health support after that happened is definitely one of them.
Take good care of yourself <3
I’m really just going to echo what others are saying. I am so sorry you are going through this right now. And I know it’s SO much easier said than done, but please be kind to yourself. This was not your fault at all. I definitely understand feeling guilt over a loved ones addiction. My current bf is an addict. He relapsed a year into our relationship and for so long I felt guilt over that. Like somehow I could have prevented it if I only done this better or been “there” for him more. But know this, none of that thinking is true. I couldn’t have prevented that relapse any more than you could have prevented that overdose by talking to him or sleeping with him. An addict will always find a way to use if that’s what they want. Be kind to yourself, hold your loved one close in your heart but realize that his life and his choices were not things you could control.
Be well.
I agree with others who say that he made his own choices. But another thing I think is relevant – we do our best with the information we have at the time. You had no way of knowing what would happen.
Of course you would have done things differently if you’d have known, but you had no way of knowing, and we all need to put up boundaries at some point. You can’t be there for everyone all the time.
You can’t be too hard on yourself. You two weren’t right for each other, and once you stop dating someone – especially someone with a drug addiction – you have to cut ties sometimes.
Your last encounter with him wasn’t positive, so it’s understandable that you thought he was looking for more of the same. And I’m guessing if he had texted you to say “Hey, I’m in a really bad place and could use some support. Please give me a call” you would have done so. But he didn’t, so you had no way of knowing what was going on.
We can’t be everyone’s keeper; sometimes people make bad decisions and there’s nothing you can do. Sorry for your loss, and please know that there’s not much you could have done here. This guy needed professional help to overcome the things he was dealing with. And as someone else here mentioned, if you not being there for a chat was enough to send him off the rails, he was probably too far gone and it was a matter of when and not if this was going to happen.
It sounds to me like you were there for him, but he was trying to use you. You did the right thing. You can’t save people from themselves! I’m sorry that he chose to do that to himself and the ones that cared about him, but that was his choice. Everyone who cared for him now has to live with the choices he made.
You cannot help people who will not help themselves. Please do not let this eat you up. This isn’t your fault.
Come on, OP. He was always going to OD. That’s not on you.
What if you had answered the phone and then he overdosed after that? You’d still be feeling bad. There is no way this could have gone down without you grieving for him and guilt is one of the phases. So grieve.
He had a life-threatening disease from the moment you met him: addiction. Life-threatening diseases get their man in the end (unless their man dies of something else first).
Speaking as someone who loves an addict very much: you didn’t cause his addiction, and it wasn’t in your power to save him. Signing up to be someone who just accepted his poor treatment wouldn’t have done a thing except hurt you. Take care of yourself.
Don’t you deserve better? There has to be better out there than this.
I’m so sorry, friend!
I can relate. In 2013, I dated a guy who ultimately ghosted me and got a girl pregnant. I was devastated, but I eventually forgave him when I moved on and started dating other guys. He would text me every now and then to check in. On some level, it always irritated me because I knew he was only doing it because he had gotten out of a relationship and looked to me to give him attention. He even asked me to get coffee on my birthday, only to flake, which really annoyed me to the extent that I just stopped engaging with him.
(But on another level, it felt good to know that one of my exes thought about me enough to find out how I was doing from time to time. All my other exes have generally just moved on and not looked back.)
Anyway, the guy was a recovering addict, and three months ago, I found out that he overdosed and died. I felt guilty because I realized at that point how much he struggled internally – and this was really the root of all his bad life choices.
Here’s what I’ve learned since. It’s normal to feel like you didn’t do enough in situations like these, but the truth is that he also didn’t let you be there for him. One cannot be reckless with someone else’s feelings and expect them to bend over backwards for them at every turn.You’re allowed to be upset with him for the way he treated you. Just because someone is dead, it doesn’t absolve them of any wrongdoing. In addition, being upset with him doesn’t mean you care about him any less.
Sending my deepest condolences to you during this difficult time.
Take some time to take care of yourself and grieve your life. It’s not your fault and if it wasn’t today it was going to be tomorrow. We are all on our own paths.
Sounds like Stockholm syndrome. You did nothing wrong and you shouldn’t feel guilty.
be gentle with yourself. this was not your fault. like a previous redditor said – you could have done exactly the opposite and still be in this position feeling guilty. you could have never rekindled with him at all and you’d likely still feel guilty after hearing the news. it’s a natural thing when this happens to someone you care(d) about.
I’m a nurse in a hospital and I see death a lot- sometimes from very young people and there are certain ones that stick with me. Things I feel guilty about, if only i had more control or did something differently or saw something earlier. But i try to remember something an older colleague told me – people aren’t in the hospital because they are perfectly healthy. We can do the best work with what information we have and still not save everyone. People are very rarely only one variable away from death.
I say that because he wasn’t in the position of OD’ing because he was perfectly healthy other than you maybe upsetting him. He could have had someone with him to administer the narcan and he could have still died. You could have taken him back 100% and he could have brought you down with him.
Substance use disorder and relapses and overdoses are very complicated. It’s not one variable.
Please continue to exercise your boundaries, you did a good thing. Consider talking to a counselor when you’re ready.
Not your fault. I’ve seen a situation similar to yours and it ended with them having a child, him doing heroin while she worked a night shift to support them and their baby dying because he wasn’t watching her in the crib while he was shooting up. She kept trying to make him change and sober up for years- never happened and he had affairs and days of being missing with friends doing drugs. Losing her baby was her wake up call to leave him, but she lost her child in the process.
It would have been an endless cycle for you until he himself wanted to change it. Not your fault and it wasn’t your responsibility to change or rescue him. Grieve and mourn him and what you had. But remember to be kind to yourself, you need that right now.
The alanon mantra goes along the lines of – you cannot make someone use drugs, and you cannot make them stop. None of this has anything to do with you, addiction is a disease and just as much you cannot love someone out of cancer, you cannot love someone out of their addiction. I know you’re hurting and grieving right now but just know that you couldn’t have influenced his use in any way.
You are not responsible for the choices of others. It’s possible that the way you responded to him played a part in his decision making, I’m sure a lot of things did, but this was his decision.
My ex husband put a gun to his head one year after he came around wanting to move into my spare room to get his life together. I made him an offer to agree to stay here with various conditions. Ultimately, he didnt because he knew I wouldnt tolerate the drugs. We have a son. A son who up till then had seen him more in traffic than for visits. Well he also felt to drugs when we split 12 years earlier and being completely out of control is why he wanted to come here, stability.
He lost a job of 17 years that he loved, his friends had all backed away, got a dui on his birthday, his motorcycle was about to be repossessed, he was behind on rent, everything was falling apart. That same month I called asking for our sons new heath insurance card number for an appointment. He gave it to me but failed to tell me he canceled everything. I took off work, kept son home from school, sat in a waiting room for two hours after filling out stacks of paperwork only to be told if we couldn’t pay the whole amount in cash we couldn’t be seen. He knew that was going to happen. I wrote him a letter telling him off up one side and down the other. Plus both my kids were in a car accident the month before that and a friend on scene took them to his house near-by and he refused them. So my letter was a diplomatic up yours. He sent me a text the night he did it, I didn’t reply or call, it was garbled mess that made no sense and we were leaving for a trip to my grandmother’s funeral. Come to find out he sent texts or called everyone he knew that night and made contact with no one.
Do I think my letter and not responding played part in everything that he made that decision on? Yes. I do. I’m sure of it.
I was upset when I got word, while at my grandmother’s funeral, but I was upset for my son. My mother asked me if I was feeling guilty about the letter I sent. I said, “No, absolutely not. He earned that letter and he got it after a whole lot of restraint. His choices and decisions that negatively impacted his son and I compounded and led up to him getting that letter. His boss is feeling guilty for firing him and he shouldn’t, he earned that too after they bent every which way possible to try to keep him.
Do not carry this on your head and heart. He made a permanent decision as way to solve temporary problems. Choices….. all our lives currently reflect the choices we have made. You didn’t do anything wrong.
My ex texted me and asked me for a pic that was significant to him the night before he OD’d. I ignored him because of a boundary around my sleep schedule. That pic wouldn’t have saved him, he was an adult who made his own decisions. I’m sorry, OP. I know how painful this is. Hoping you find the peace you deserve 🙏🏼
It’s completely ok and expected to feel sad, bad, and even guilty. But how could you have known what was going on? It’s sad to say but he was also not your responsibility. You put up a boundary for good reason! Don’t feel guilty about putting yourself first. It’s an awful tragedy for sure but it’s not on you. I’m sorry for your loss and that you are good through this. I hope you can see that this wasn’t on you.
This is awful and I’m sorry you’ve lost your friend. You can’t spend your life dancing around ‘what if’ when it’s detrimental to you. It’s natural to assume that he was calling you for help, maybe he wasn’t, maybe he was calling for money for more drugs or to try and initiate the intimacy he didn’t get. Even if he was calling for help, who’s to say that whatever you said or did would have saved him from what happened. You are not responsible and, whilst easier said than done, shouldn’t assume any role in what happened to him. Take care of yourself.