Nar-Anon Chat™

My best friend of over two decades is gone. He was 51. It was most likely an overdose, but I’m not sure whether heroin or crack. He used both and injected both.

I’m so devastated. I feel lost and alone. I’ll never see him again, never hear him laugh, never get annoyed by him. And because of the virus, I can’t even travel cross country to attend his funeral, assuming his parents have one for him. His family all gave up on him long ago, and that’s not me blaming them. I should have, but somehow I just could never let go. And for a long time, I thought I was being a good friend.

I’ve been in therapy most of my life, and have often talked about my friends. (I have two, or had. Now I have one and she doesn’t do drugs.) No therapist ever suggested I should save myself and walk away, or suggested I look into Nar Anon. I’m still not sure I’m allowed in…he was my friend, not a relative.

I always knew there were only two possible outcomes from all of this: more prison or death. I hadn’t been optimistic about him getting clean for many years. But somehow, I wouldn’t have been surprised by a phone call from jail. When I got the news he was dead, I am absolutely gobsmacked. I’ve spent the day going from staring into the air, to crying and sobbing, to wanting to lash out at something, someone. And still not entirely grasping this is true. There’s a tiny part of me that keeps holding onto what if…what if his ex girlfriend, who was always trying to pump me for info, was lying, trying to manipulate me into telling her all the women he’d been with.

I knew this was a likely ending to this story. Why am I so shocked by it?