There are a few people from my addiction-past who asked me to never contact to them again because of how I treated them. One such individual was a guy named Jeff who was an overly generous homeowner that I used to live with. While I’d love to make a formal amends to him in person, I’ve been unable to because of his request, and sadly, that is something that occasionally comes with the territory during one’s recovery work from a serious addiction.
When I first met Jeff, it was during an Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) meeting in downtown Boston when I was in dire straits looking for an immediate place to live. During my share that evening, I brought this up and after the meeting ended, Jeff approached me and said he was actually looking for a roommate. I was ecstatic because not only was the rent he was asking for in the range I could afford; his home was also in a great location and the space where I’d live was his entire upstairs that even had a working fireplace!
Within a week, I signed a contract with Jeff and things got off to a pretty good start between us. Unfortunately, around this time was when my sex and love addiction was also severely taking off. As it did, I began bringing many “guests” into his home that I was either sleeping with or wanting to sleep with, never once thinking about Jeff’s feelings in any of it.
At times, I also secretly consumed some of Jeff’s food and gave it to my “guests” as well, mostly never bothering to replace it either. In addition, I allowed a number of my “guests” to stay the night, some of which were also recovering heroin addicts. None of which fazed me one bit, even though it did Jeff, as he was growing more and more uncomfortable with me and their presence. I proceeded to push the limits even more by allowing my “guests” to actually use his washing machine and dryer to do their laundry and take showers as well, sometimes causing delays in Jeff’s own schedule because of it.
As Jeff’s patience grew less and less with me, another unhealthy addiction grew stronger in me as well, that being my codependency. Every time I had fallout from my sex and love addiction behaviors, I’d run to my best friend, who was also one of Jeff’s good friends, for help and use them for whatever they could offer me to feel better. Because of this, it ended up creating a lot of drama in Jeff’s home and ultimately caused a rift to occur between Jeff and this friend.
The tension between Jeff and I grew even worse when he met someone and began a full-fledged relationship, as then he established a number of boundaries that I resented and purposely broke them at times. The strain of my presence in his home rapidly came to a boiling point one evening not too long after that when we had a confrontation over a bag of garbage that I had left on his porch out of laziness. When I discovered he had placed it at the bottom of the stairs to my apartment, I argued that he often left his garbage out there too. His response was not one I expected, but one I truly did deserve and that was that I had thirty days to find another place to live. I became so resentful after that towards him that I totally refused to talk to him anymore.
When I finally found another place to live, I didn’t even bother to tell him, even though he had asked me several times to keep him in the loop, as he wanted to be there when I moved out. Instead, I moved my stuff out while he was at work one day, and actually took two pieces of his own furniture from my upstairs apartment, justifying that they had become mine from living there with them as long as I did.
When I finally found recovery from my sex and love addiction a few months later, I began to see how sick I had become in my thinking and knew I needed to return those two items of his furniture immediately to him. I did so on a day when he wasn’t there, as I had received an email from him prior to that indicating to never contact him again because I had abused his generosity one too many times.
As I write this amends, I once again am saddened over the realization that my addiction caused a lot of pain to another beautiful soul. Overall, Jeff was such a great roommate, kind, and considerate, giving, and also a loyal friend. He was someone who would always go the extra mile to help when I needed it and regrettably, I took advantage of that, far too many times, because of an addiction that I allowed to get the best of me.
So, Jeff, I hope one day you may somehow end up reading this and know I truly am sorry for all the selfish and self-centered behaviors I exhibited that affected you when I was your roommate. You deserved to be treated far better than how I treated you, especially in light of the kindness you showed me from the very beginning. I rarely respected any of your boundaries and can see how inconsiderate I had become while living with you.
I pray you may forgive me one day for all the pain and frustration I caused you and I want to extend a sincere thank you for offering me so much goodwill during a very dark period of my life, even though I didn’t deserve any of it, treating you as I did. I truly am sorry and wish you the very best in all your future endeavors…
Peace, love, light, and joy,
Andrew Arthur Dawson
Powerful story. Shows the power of addiction, but the greater power of recovery and love. Thanks.
Thanks Martin! Glad you connected! And yes I agree. 🙂