It’s hard to be there for an addict when you see their destructive behaviors and the painful consequences of their addiction. It’s even harder when you want to help, but you don’t know how to love an addict without enabling.
You’re doing the right thing by researching and gathering the advice you to need make the right decisions for yourself and for the addict in your life. Above all, take care of yourself and remember that you can help an addict by first helping yourself.
These 7 tips can give you the actionable steps you need to help someone while also reminding you that you need to value your needs just as highly as the needs of the addict in your life.
This post is all about how to love an addict without enabling them.
HOW TO LOVE AN ADDICT:
1. Create a safe place for the addict in your life
A safe place quite literally means that you listen without judging. It can be incredibly difficult to create a safe space for someone when you disagree with their decisions or fear for their safety.
When you’re juggling a relationship with an addict, all of this feels heightened and more impossible. That makes and it’s okay to admit that you aren’t ready for this step.
However, it can be incredibly transformational for an addict to feel like they can be completely honest with someone they trust. Instead of turning to unhealthy relationships or painful connections, the addict in your life can come to you for support.
That’s powerful and can benefit their recovery process simply because they have healthy relationships that give them a reason to help with their drug use.
You can create a safe space by letting them they can always come to you for emotional support. Even if that’s all you give them, that might be all they need as long as you truly avoid judging their mistakes.
2. Recognize the painful signs of an enabling cycle
An enabling cycle occurs when someone unintentionally reinforces someone’s addiction by limiting how much an addict experiences the consequences of their actions. In other words, people can enable addicts by giving them loans and covering for them at social events.
It’s challenging to watch your friend, partner, or family member become addicted to something and not want to help. However, the enabling cycle hurts both you and the addict because it never ends.
When you help an addict and keep them from experiencing the negative of their addiction, you are keeping them from truly understanding the extent to which their addiction is hurting them.
Addiction can cause people to lose friends, money, jobs, and more. So, when you give an addict the opportunity to avoid losing that, they may not notice when they have hit rock bottom.
3. Facilitate open communication
Addiction hurts everyone involved. There’s no way to avoid that outcome. Maybe you are the friend who watches someone isolate themselves, lose their job, and become homeless. You are the mother who has to say no to their addicted child asking for money again.
The brain of an addict doesn’t work the same way that other brains do because it’s geared toward finding the next high and avoiding withdrawal. With all of that said, open communication is one of the most important parts of any relationship.
Whether you are in a relationship with an addict or not, you need to work towards open communication. As painful as it might be to hear, an addict is not always capable of forming healthy relationships based on meeting the needs of everyone involved.
However, that does not change the fact that most relationships are built on that foundation and open communication is key to making that happen. So, when you approach your relationship with an addicted person, start by asking for honesty.
This is part of creating a safe space and it’s important to remember that addicts are less likely to be open and honest if they feel like they’re being judged.
Unfortunately, it’s also possible that the addict in your life will lie to you and mistreat you because of alcohol use or drug use. Take care of yourself first and foremost as you work toward open communication.
4. Create clear boundaries to take care of yourself
When someone displays addictive behaviors, you have to assume that they will not act in your best interest naturally. Addiction affects everyone differently and some people are completely capable of understanding that their addiction hurts everyone involved.
They may distance themselves from their entire family because they see how they hurt their whole family. Unfortunately, an addicted individual will not always notice that their addiction is causing them to use people. So, you need to watch out for yourself.
Your desire to help your addicted spouse or family member comes from a place of love. That does not mean that you can’t set boundaries to take care of yourself. You can be present in an addict’s life to an extent and you can show up way before they hit rock bottom if they ever do.
But, to be present in an addict’s life, you need to be ready to develop a level of self-awareness that will keep you safe when an addict becomes unsafe in their close relationship with you.
5. Acknowledge the reality of the situation
There’s no way to be in a relationship with someone who deals with a substance use disorder without acknowledging the facts of it. The facts are that an addicted brain is fundamentally different than a sober brain.
Therefore, an addict’s behavior will be different than a sober person’s behavior. It may seem irrational and addicts may exhibit destructive behaviors that isolate them from family members and friends.
You may be actively harming yourself by attempting a relationship with certain people who are addicted, depending on the substance abuse problem and what the substance is. However, if you are here and reading this blog post, you are ready to attempt it regardless.
That’s brave and it’s admirable. However, you need to remember that the most important thing is taking care of yourself no matter what happens in your relationship with an addict.
When attempting this relationship, you have to acknowledge the reality of the situation as it exists. This means the reality of the person’s addiction and what addiction does to people and how the addict understands their situation.
For many people, they simply refuse to acknowledge that they are addicted. For others, they may not see their addiction as a problem because it keeps them from feeling poorly or they are afraid of the recovery journey.
6. Identify your own needs during this challenging time
Ask yourself what your needs are. When have an addict in your life, it’s impossible not to feel conflicted, angry, and frustrated about the situation. You want to do everything you can to help them even if it feels like it’s not working in the moment.
Check in with yourself frequently about what you need in a relationship and what you can forgo. It’s fine to say that you can handle a relationship in which the other person doesn’t contribute like they should because they’re experiencing active addiction.
However, you also need to be honest with yourself if this changes. The core of enabling comes from neglecting your needs in a relationship in favor of the person’s needs. However, you can certainly be in a relationship with someone who has alcohol addiction or drug addiction.
To do this effectively, you need to know what your needs are and what healthy boundaries you may need to set. It’s okay to figure this out as you go and to change your mind.
But, you do need to keep checking in and evaluating how much you can keep putting into a relationship that may be taking all of your energy.
7. Recognize the immense benefits of professional help
You are not alone and neither is the addict in your life. Neither of you is solely responsible for figuring this out alone. Addiction, as we’ve talked about, changes the brain. That means that addicts become different people.
While they’re in that state of being a different person, they have to find a way to quit the addiction. That takes effort, stamina, and strength. And they can do it with help.
Whether they attend support groups, family therapy, Alcoholics Anonymous or something similar, or an addiction treatment center, addicts don’t have to go into recovery alone. Plus, you can get support, too.
Mental health professionals, especially those with rehabilitation and addiction certifications, are trained to help you and the addict in your life overcome addiction and live a full life outside of drug and alcohol abuse.
Not only can mental health professionals, like therapists and psychologists, help an addict overcome a substance, but they can also help ease the pain that will come after.
Through coping mechanisms and talk therapy, you and the addict in your life can work through the issues that you have been avoiding due to their addiction. Instead of neglecting the past and their mistakes, they can atone for things they did while addicted and be held accountable.
There’s no easy way out of addiction, but it’s possible and it’s also not your responsibility. They have to want it and they have to follow through. It’s your job to support them and help them find additional resources to support sobriety.
