When someone you love is an addict
By: E.B. Johnson
Tags: Mental Health, Psychology, Family, Addiction, Nonfiction

by: E.B. Johnson

Addiction is a disease that strikes at random. Once it strikes, it haunts individuals and families alike, and follows us throughout the generations. Unlike other illnesses, addiction is not a disease that affects only the initial victim. When addiction touches one person, it reaches out and touches everyone else in their life. One-by-one their hearts get broken as they watch their loved ones disappear.

Is there an addict in your family? Are you dealing with someone who has become lost to the shade and misery of drugs and alcohol? There is only so much that can be done to help them until they decide to help themselves. No matter how much you may love them, you cannot rescue them and you cannot change. We are the only people we are able to control, and the only thing we can truly do is surround ourselves in understanding and push our loved one to make better choices for themselves.

Addiction is a family affair too.

When our family members fall to addiction, they take us down with them in a number of mental and emotional ways. We watch as the person who we once loved becomes a ghost of themselves. We watch them destroy their bodies and their souls as they become trapped in a toxic cycle of pain-and-release. Addiction is a family affair. If one of us is touched, we’re all touched. There is little we can do to change it, though, save to insulate ourselves.

You need to take action in the name of your own happiness. If you’re determined to help your loved one, then you first need to arm yourself in knowledge and understanding about how addiction works. You can’t control or change what they’re doing. You can’t talk them out of it or “rescue” them.

All you can do is to be a support as far as the limits of your boundaries will allow. If you put yourself out there on a wire, the addict will take advantage and you’ll erode your relationship even further. Know that you’re dealing with a disease that sees no reason and cares for no logic. Encourage your loved one to seek help, but ensure that you yourself are getting the help, care, and compassion that you need to remain happy and healthy.

What happens when a loved one faces addiction.

When addiction takes hold of a family member, it’s something which affects everyone. You are forced to stand by and watch as your trust, faith, and love is eroded. And you have to watch as conflict and heartbreak become a part of the norm. A loved one who faces addiction destroys not only themselves. They destroy their parents, spouses, children, and friends too.

Erosion of central trust

Addiction is a disease which requires a lot of secrecy, and which can force a lot of bad behavior. Over time, all of these secrets and all of these conflicts add up to erode the trust we share with our family members and closest friends. This erosion of trust makes it impossible to reach out to one another, be vulnerable, or otherwise open up in any real and genuine way. It destroys the bonds we share and pushes us away from one another.

Normalizing conflict

Where there is addiction, you will often find conflict. This conflict comes in many forms and can stem from many causes. Perhaps you decide to confront your loved one or intervene. More often than not, this result in blowback from the person involved and conflict which creates an air of distrust. Beyond this instance, the increasingly erratic or changed behavior and moods caused by addiction can lead to even more conflict and confrontation.

Destroying connections

If you can’t trust one another and you can’t talk without fighting, then there is little chance of maintaining healthy connections with one another. We have to know that the person we love is safe. We need to know that they support us and that they want the best for us and from us. This can’t really happen with addiction. It’s an invisible wall that keeps our true selves from communicating. It detaches us from the world and from the resolutions we so desperately need.

Challenging dialogue

Have you ever tried to have a serious conversation with someone who is battling with an addiction? It’s an impossible twist and turn of justifications, excuses, and lies. Having an honest dialogue is rarely possible. It’s understandable. To be chained to addiction is to be in pain. You can’t be open and honest about that pain until you’re ready to wake up to it yourself — and that (by itself) is a process which is both uncomfortable and long.

Simmering resentment

Addiction always leads to resentment on both sides of the fence. On one side, you have the addicted person — who resents anyone who gets in the way of their pursuit to feed the shadows that haunt them. On the other side, you have all the other victims of the addiction: the mothers, fathers, spouses, children, and friends of the addicted person. They come to resent the decisions and behavior of their loved one as they watch them disappear into a spiral.

Deep-rooted trauma

Trauma is one of the biggest and most common side effects of addiction in the family. The addicted person (who may already be dealing with trauma) inflicts an array of harm on themselves, and can put themselves in some dangerous or compromising situation. Likewise, the addict’s family members are subjected to deep-rooted trauma from seeing the physical, emotional, and mental transformations in their loved one. It’s a toxic cycle of trauma which creates more trauma for all involved.

Unhealthy coping styles

Addiction, among many other things, can lead to adoption of unhealthy coping styles which keep us afloat while also undermining our wellbeing and happiness. Among these coping styles we can find that (alongside the addict) we develop codependent behaviors or toxic attachment tendencies. This can vary from enabling the addict to a poisonous game of give-and-take which reinforces emotional manipulation and conflict as the norm.

How you can help the addict in your life.

There is only so much you can do when it comes to helping the addict in your life. There is a fine line between being supportive and being an enabler. If you extend yourself too far, you risk making life harder for both yourself and your loved one who is suffering. You’ve got to arm yourself in iron-clad boundaries. You’ve also got to make sure you’re seeing to your own mental and emotional wellbeing.

1. Build a base of understanding

It’s imperative that you go into your dealings with any addict armed in empathy and understanding. Addiction is a disease, and it’s a complex one too. It can’t be yelled out or coerced. Dealing with addiction requires that we understand how it really works, and how it really takes a toll on the inside of a family. We have to form a base of greater understanding and seek to build our relationships and our plans atop it.

Addiction is not a choice or a moral failing, it is a disease of the brain. It’s a condition that a victim must learn to manage — no one can fight that fight for them. You can be a support to them, but you have to ensure that you don’t cross the line into enabling. You can love them, but you can’t give them the love of self they need to overcome. Educate yourself and learn all that you can about addiction.

In order to truly help them, you yourself need to know how to manage the ups and downs of addiction as they relate to us. Reach out to a support group, or even an addiction counselor. Express your emotions and explain what you’re going through at home. Ask them questions. Build a base of understanding that allows you to protect yourself even while you try to love them through their pain.

2. Establish iron-clad boundaries

You will not survive any relationship with an addict (no matter what role they inhabit) without iron-clad boundaries. Our boundaries are the walls which we put around our wellbeing. They are the “no-go zones” or limitations that express what we expect from our relationships with others, as well as what we require from them in terms of behavior. If you’re dealing with a family member who’s fallen into addiction, you need to make sure you have boundaries made of steel.

Find your backbone and lean into the art of saying “no” and saying it often. Your love doesn’t entitle the addict to abuse you or take advantage of you. It doesn’t give them a right to take your happiness or destroy your home. Stand up for yourself. Don’t allow yourself to be walked over in their name of their disease.

You’re not responsible for who they choose to be. Once we know we are dealing with mental illness or complex addictions, it’s our personal responsibility to get ourselves up and get ourselves the help we need. Their addiction isn’t your fault. We each make our own choices. Don’t allow yourself to become a catalyst of blame. Put up walls around your wellbeing and make it clear that you won’t tolerate your boundaries being disrespected.

3. Support them but don’t enable them

There is a fine line between the act of supporting an addict and the act of enabling them. Addiction is a delicate and a complex thing. The addict has to learn nuanced means of manipulating their environment in order to keep their habits going. They often become masters of the micromanipulation; pushing us into corners we didn’t know existed with techniques that make us feel as though we’re helping (when we’re really making things worse).

Don’t fall for the tricks. Don’t allow your ego to blind you to the reality of your loved one’s condition, or their intentions. Find the line between support and enabling and get yourself on the right side. If your actions allow the addict to remain dependent, or if you allow them to maintain their habit — you aren’t helping them. You’re enabling their addiction.

Real support sometimes looks more difficult or challenging that we like to imagine. It can mean walking away from someone we love very much. It can mean cutting off communication, or leaving them in dangerous positions when all we want to do is scoop them up and take them home. We cannot be anyone’s savior but our own. Beyond urging the other person to get help and offering them your services in getting it, there’s little else you can control.

4. Encourage them to seek help

While you will be driven to fix or change the addict in your life, the help that you can realistically offer is limited. We aren’t made to control the lives of others. The only thing we are able to control in this world is our own thoughts and our own responses to the world around us. No matter how much begging or fighting that you do, they are the ones that have to find the power to manage their pain — or not.

This doesn’t mean you can’t do something, though. You can still encourage the addict in your life to get help, and be a sounding board for reason whenever they surface to reality. Addicts know they are addicts. They know something isn’t right and (in many cases) have moments of clarity when they are become open to the urging of friends and family.

If your loved one comes to you and asks for your help, urge them to seek their own. Be a motivation to them. Empower them, but don’t cross the line. Make it clear that they have to be their own savior. Show them, though, that you are willing to support them and you’re willing to offer them comfort, respect, and empathy every step of the way. Their journey won’t be easy, but it doesn’t have to be made alone either. When they get help, you’ll be able to be there with them more fully.

5. Prioritize your own wellbeing

The pain which an addict experiences and inflicts expands far beyond their own immediate circle. Everyone who is close to them gets burned by their behavior and pays the price for the decisions that they make. It’s hard to love someone who is determined to destroy themselves, and that’s why it’s important that we don’t lose sight of our own wellbeing. We still deserve to be happy, even if they are dead-set on tearing apart every inch of themselves.

You may love the addict in your life more than anything in this world. You may love them more than you love yourself. This doesn’t change the fact, however, that you cannot save them from consequences of their decisions. We are the only ones capable of controlling ourselves. We’re the only ones who call the shots when it comes to our behaviors and the paths we take.

At some point, you’re going to have to make the decision to prioritize your wellbeing too. You need to look after yourself; nurture your physical and emotional body. In order to keep looking after your own needs, you need to make sure that you’ve got enough time to focus on your own tasks. You also need to be able to “recharge your batteries” and ground yourself so that you can make sense of your life and all the complexities it contains.

Putting it all together…

Addiction is a horrible disease which destroys not only the affected person, but their friends and family as well. It erodes the sense of trust they share and it erodes the connections which are built naturally through love and mutual vulnerability. Saving a loved one who is being destroyed by the disease of addiction isn’t possible. All we can do is love them, support them (where we can), and ensure we’re protecting ourselves with boundaries and compassion.

Build a base of understanding to work from and educate yourself on the ins and outs of addiction. By arming yourself in understanding, you’ll be able to build better and more effective iron-clad boundaries which allow you to love the addict in your life, even while you protect your own wellbeing and safety. Support your loved one, but don’t enable them. There’s a fine line, and it’s easy to cross when you listen to your emotions more than you listen to your knowledge. Let your loved one know that you support them and encourage them to find the help that they need. Know, however, that you can’t be their savior. We are each responsible for finding our own way to peace. Prioritize your own wellbeing and know that you can’t change them, and you can’t fix them.