By Vincent Casolaro & Robert Smith

Q. My boyfriend and I have been together for nine years. His drinking and pot smoking have been getting progressively worse. He’s tried to quit on his own, but it never sticks. I’ve urged him to get help, but he refuses. What I don’t understand is how he can look me in the eye and sincerely tell me he wants to stop, but then turn around and do just the opposite. I know about hitting bottom and all that but what does it take for him to really hit bottom? I know he cares about me but it doesn’t seem to matter. Why does he do this to me? Some nights he doesn’t even come home. –Donna, NYC

The short answer to your questions is that your boyfriend has an illness. It’s called addiction. He will make promises to you that he just can’t keep. On some level he really does want things to be different. He may actually try and stop using drugs, but as you have learned through experience, most chemically dependent people are unable to stop without help.  T: New Jersey Legalizes It

Your question about what it will take for him to finally hit bottom is unanswerable. When it comes to bottoms, every chemically dependent person can be different. Ironically, where they show the most similarity is when they are offered help. They almost always reject it.

You are unable to find peace in this situation because there is an inherent paradox in your questions. Instead of asking, “Why does he do this to me?” ask instead: “Why do I let him do this to me?” Another valuable question would be, “Why am I willing to settle for so little in this relationship?” The self examination needed to answer these questions will very likely require you to ask for help. You may realize you are afraid to leave the security of a relationship – even a bad one – or that your behavior enables your boyfriend’s drinking and drugging.

In our experience, the best suggestions for how to deal with your situation come from other people who have dealt successfully with similar circumstances. We suggest Al-Anon, Nar-Anon and CoDA (Co-Dependents Anonymous), three self-help organizations that are for people whose lives are negatively affected by the deadly disease of addiction. If you are able to take advantage of professional counseling within the addiction field, we would encourage you to do that as well.

When you accept your need for help, the odds of your boyfriend agreeing to get help for himself will improve slowly over time. T: Ask the Interventionists: Considering Intervention

Q. What’s your opinion on legalizing drugs? One state after another is now legalizing marijuana. Are these test cases for something bigger? Frankly, it has me a little scared. –Scott, NYC

To us it is no coincidence that California legalized marijuana while under severe financial pressure. There has been talk on the cable channels that the state is not that far from bankruptcy. “Show me the money!” is what we think may be on California’s mind – by taxing the sales of legalized marijuana, the state stands to gain financially. However, we question whether this financial gain will outweigh the negative consequences to citizens’ health and the risk of addiction.

Marijuana may have a small legitimate role to play in the medical field. The original idea started with the hopes of helping terminally ill cancer patients with their nausea during chemotherapy treatments. However, now it seems if you have a two minute headache and a friendly doctor you can qualify for medical marijuana. It will be the only medication that is delivered to patients by encouraging them to smoke, which carries some risk. Today’s marijuana contains 10 times the amount of tar that a regular cigarette has. The tar is where all the carcinogens are. Emphysema, chronic bronchitis, weaker immune systems are much more common in regular pot smokers.

Do we think there will be a huge increase in people becoming addicted to marijuana? Only time will tell, but there is reason to be worried. Today’s pot is at least 10 times stronger and can be as high as 18 times stronger than it was back in the 60s. Legitimizing it by legalizing it will have more people trying it, so we expect more people will end up abusing it. Right now, the percentage of all Americans who become addicted is around 7 to 10%.

Vincent Casolaro, LCSW, MAC, CASAC, and Robert Smith, LCSW, are addiction specialists in private practice in New York City. In 1999 they founded the Together Family Foundation (TFF), a not-for-profit 501(c)(3) corporation, now the parent organization of Together magazine and Together Warmline. Send your questions to: asktheinterventionists@casolaroandsmith.com