Loving an Addict, Loving Yourself: Top 10 Survival Tips

Find 8 tips below for how to balance supporting the positive health behaviors of your partner, while also taking care of yourself. An addiction specialist can help you find the right treatment https://ecosoberhouse.com/ for your partner. Once you stop your enabling behaviors, you can then begin to truly help your loved one. These kinds of actions on your part will not help your loved one in the long run.

loving an addict

Set boundaries and keep them accountable whenever they abuse substances. BetterHelp can connect you to an addiction and mental health counselor. Many develop depression and find that their interactions with the addicted person affect their future relationships. Drug addiction often alienates the addict and their loved ones. It can also damage the trust and intimacy of your relationship.

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They make promises of improvement and change, only to stumble and fall, time and time again, extinguishing any glimmer of hope. An important first step in helping your partner is understanding their substance use. Educate yourself on substance use disorders and available resources. By doing this, you are not only empowering yourself to make well-informed decisions, but you are also ready and equipped with information when your partner decides they are ready to seek help. Setting boundaries protects your personal health and well-being, is more likely to help your addicted loved one, and can help ensure that you’ll be satisfied with the relationship as well.

Opinion: The other pandemic: alcohol addiction – The Colorado Sun

Opinion: The other pandemic: alcohol addiction.

Posted: Fri, 27 Jan 2023 08:00:00 GMT [source]

When addicts know they are loved by someone who is invested in them, they immediately have fuel for their addiction. You dread seeing them and you need to see them, all at once. At Westwind Recovery®, we offer a number of addiction treatment programs in our Los Angeles recovery center. Our luxury treatment center is a safe, supportive environment where your loved one can focus on the journey to recovery. Connect with a member of our team by calling us or reaching out online today.

Loving a Drug Addict

You recognize the immense capacity they have to be an amazing partner, employee, friend, parent, or relative — if only the grip of drug abuse would release them. It is also possible that the adult co-addict or codependent is aware of the abusive relationship they endured which imprinted their lack https://ecosoberhouse.com/article/what-to-do-if-the-person-you-love-is-an-addict/ of sense of self. In either case, the adult codependent is a person who puts more value on the person they love then on their own welfare. The only identity they create is through the person they are codependent on. If you really need help, and you just can’t ask, then pay someone to help you.

  • If they had not been there 100%, no questions asked, I would have given up, so yes, THEY DID change me!
  • As supporting them becomes increasingly arduous and challenging, your patience wears thin, and your trust wavers.
  • Im sorry i fell asleep in my car, im sorry i was at my grandmas, im sorry someone had a crisis, im sorry i was narcaning someone to save, Every single excuse as to why he was gone so long.

Despite the horrible things he did behind my back, I love him. I am also the loved one of an addict and I know how frustrating it can be to maintain these relationships. But most addicts were really good people before the addiction took hold and become that way again once the addiction is arrested, so many of these relationships are worth trying to salvage and improve. I wish you the best on your journey, as you learn how to assert yourself and speak your truth.

Treatment Options for An Addicted Loved One

His expertise sheds light on the challenges faced in relationships with drug-addicted partners and provides guidance on maintaining one’s own well-being while offering support. Getting the courage to leave someone with a substance use disorder is never easy, and it requires changing behaviors that you have engaged in for a long time. Before leaving someone struggling with addiction, you can try to get them to seek the help they need. Sometimes, stating your concerns and asking for them to get help can motivate a loved one to go to treatment. Society tends to view addiction as a personal struggle affecting only the person who’s addicted to drugs or alcohol. In reality, people who are close to the addict experience trauma, and their lives are negatively altered by their loved one’s actions.

You can’t take care of your partner by neglecting your personal needs. “Self-caring” means that you respect yourself enough to take good care of yourself in healthy and holistic ways such as making sure your physical, mental, emotional and spiritual needs are met. How can I share with her how deep love and connection worked for me? I struggled before with addiction, and focusing on the one person that I was in love with was what I needed, it worked for me! If they had not been there 100%, no questions asked, I would have given up, so yes, THEY DID change me! I would be lying if I said that my compassion has been undying.

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