This likely will be a bunch of rambling so I am sure it will be long. I guess maybe I just need somewhere to put this out there, where my friends and family won’t see it and reach out. I appreciate their support but sometimes it’s more frustrating than helpful.

125 days since my boyfriend passed from an overdose, losing the battle he had fought off and on for 15 years. I knew from day one that he struggled with addiction and that it was always possible he would relapse. Maybe 8-12 months into our relationship, he did for the first time...and it resulted in an overdose. I didn't know he had picked up the night before, but we were lucky that I hadn't left for work yet, that I heard him throw up in his sleep. He had aspiration pneumonia, but he was alive. While we may have used other things recreationally after that, he stayed away from opiates again.

But.... we weren't lucky this time. June 21, 2024 he overdosed again. His depression and mental health had gotten so bad, he turned to the one thing he knew would numb everything... I don’t fault him for that. The narcan, the CPR, the mouth to mouth, the EMTS...none of it mattered. I was too late. I knew it when I found him, I felt that shit in my gut. I had hoped maybe that feeling was wrong, but it wasn't. It was too late. I knew he was using again... He wouldn't admit it to me, no matter how I tried to bring it up. But, it was obvious and I am not as naïve as he would have liked to think. I am no saint and have used other things myself, and I have seen him on an abundance of things. I know his mannerisms on coke, on ketamine, xanax, molly, meth... everything. So yeah, it was obvious.

But I get frustrated sometimes because I think some of his friends want to know if a toxicology report was done. To know if it was fentanyl or heroin, or what it was he took. Why? So they can say he picked up something cut or didn't know what he was getting? Maybe they want that to blame, so it's easier for them to accept. Honestly though, it doesn't matter. He wasn't an idiot, and whether it was fetty or it was heroin, I know he knew what he was getting.
His friends didn't have to see it or go through it with him. Hell, some didn't even know he was a heroin addict as a teenager. I was the one around him every single day. I was the one with him when he went through withdrawals when we first moved (while still never admitting he was using). I saw him getting worse, I was the one he stole pain meds from two days after my surgery. I was the one being gaslit and manipulated, being yelled at and having everything that could hurt me thrown in my face. I pushed for him to get help, while trying not to push him too far in the opposite direction. So sure, maybe it would give them closure or make them feel better if they could blame it on a cut batch of something. At the end of the day though, it doesn't fucking matter. What they want to be true, isn't. He knew what he was getting, and that's the reality of it. He was an addict and he was struggling.

You never can truly understand until you go through it yourself...how hard loving an addict is. The last month and half of our relationship was obviously not great (hell, it was barely good), but I never resented him, I never loved him any less. I knew that the person he was in active addiction was not the person I spent the last (near) 5 years with. I always knew relapsing was a possibility, and I still chose him. I still would.

It was the very night before he died, that he finally admitted to being scared and worrying that people wouldn't like who he was clean. He finally admitted to being so tired and goddamn frustrated at still having to battle it after 15 years. It was the very night before, that we had discussed and agreed to start NA meetings in a few days. But we never got that far and it still fucking hurts. It hurts just as much today as it did when I found him on the bathroom floor at 4:00am.

I'm sorry, bean....you deserved so much better than your end. I'm so fucking sorry. I miss you and I love you more than I could ever express.