Addiction is a deeply painful and complex condition, with consequences that ripple out far beyond the individual; this is what we mean by a ‘system of addiction’. It includes the immediate family, loved ones, and all relationships that surround a person who struggles with addiction
If you are reading this article to determine how you might motivate your addicted spouse, adult child, friend, or coworker towards recovery, this may not be the article for you. We cannot tell you how to control or influence another person. What you will find here is a bold but compassionate invitation to turn your gaze inward, towards your own self. To honestly and wholeheartedly consider your side of the street, to become un-numb and attend to what is happening in your mind, your heart and your spirit.
Perhaps you have tried for long enough to control, influence, motivate and help your loved one. Maybe you are exhausted, worn out, depleted and utterly convinced that your approach is just not working. If this is you, and you are still reading this article, we can tell you that there is no more powerful catalyst than one member of the family seeking out their own healing. Recovery ripples out and touches the whole family, and any member of the family can exercise this power. You could be the one. We have seen it happen many times.
If you are truly ready to try something different, here are our best suggestions, drawing on scientific research, case histories, clinical insights and personal experience:
1. Firstly, be willing to do whatever you think your loved one needs to do.
This principle is simple, yet crucial. If you expect the addicted individual to go to A.A., then be prepared to go to Al-Anon (a program of recovery for family and friends of alcoholics). If you expect them to go to therapy, be prepared to see a counsellor yourself. You may not be responsible for another’s addiction or life history that preceded it, but many painful situations could be avoided if you are willing to recognize that you are responsible for your corner of the problem. Confronting your part involves a commitment to estimable acts rather than trying to control that which cannot be controlled.
Recovery is not simply the absence of addiction, but a new way of living for all those who have been touched by the disease. It includes an honest acknowledgement of the realities of an addictive lifestyle (i.e. betrayal, dishonesty, unreliability and emotional withdrawal), but without slipping into oppression and hostility. The goal is to learn how to be a more tolerant, peaceful, self-aware person who takes more responsibility for themselves, and less for anyone else. Recovery requires each person in a relationship to engage in a deeply personal, unfailingly honest examination of themselves.
2. Recognize that you are the one who needs to change
The next few questions require both humility and courage to answer honestly:
Is there a particular role in this relationship that you repeatedly find yourself playing out? Are you policing your loved one’s behaviour? Or, are you their rescuer, springing into action when they need help (often at great consequence to yourself)? Do you often feel victimized by your loved one, and draw sympathy from others for the many hurts you’ve experienced? These roles are very common in relationships affected by addiction, and there’s really no shame if you can relate to any of them. The truth is, if you can relate to them, you probably learned these patterns in your family of origin.
Perhaps you found yourself playing the peacekeeper for your parents’ volatile marriage. Perhaps you were the messenger between people who otherwise refused to talk to one another. Perhaps you were the secret keeper, the shoulder to cry on, the sounding board, the rational one, the good girl/boy, the easy-going child, the straight-A student, the athlete making your parents proud so that they could focus on your achievements rather than the tension and anger they felt towards one another. Whatever the case, you learned that you are valuable and worthy when you can help others with their problems. Without even trying, you can pick out the victims and the perpetrators in a room full of people like Harry Potter could pick out the golden snitch.
The truth is, your parents’ problems were not yours to fix. Your aunts’ and uncles’ secrets were never yours to carry and hold on to. It was never your responsibility to cover up your brother’s lies or mistakes. Your sister did not overdose because you were not there to save her. Moreover, continuing to play this role today will not fill the void inside. And by continuing to play this role in the life of your spouse or loved one who is currently struggling with an addiction, there is less of a chance that he or she will recover. The impetus for trying to recover must come from the person themself.
3. Acknowledge and experience the emotions that underlie these relationship patterns
Emotion plays a fundamental role in guiding our decision-making and behaviour in relationships. It is the resistance to feeling our feelings, and acknowledging our needs, that causes us to remain stuck in patterns that no longer serve us (or others). The truth is, if we want to open up a healing space for others, we first have to find it in ourselves.
It can be exceedingly difficult to sit with intense feelings like fear, guilt, rage, shame or sadness. In fact, for most of us it requires a lot of support and professional help to learn to do this. One well-researched approach that is gaining in popularity is mindfulness. With the practice of mindful awareness over time, you gain the ability to tolerate and observe your intense emotions, as though from a distance. Then you do not have to act out against these overwhelming feelings by withdrawal or by impulsive, intrusive action such as rescue attempts, boundary violations, or attempts to control the individual.
4. Consider that what we experience in our external relationship, often reflects our relationship with ourselves
By sitting with your hard stuff and observing your reactions with compassionate curiosity, you might make an amazing discovery. You might find that you are rejecting in others, what you reject in yourself. If you were punished or criticized as a child for being out of control, overly emotional, or impulsive, you may have learned to hide the parts of you that were expressive, spontaneous, and emotional. When we reject or deny parts of ourselves, it creates inner disconnection, and pain, and we act out this pain by criticizing, controlling or rejecting others. Real healing, the deepest kind of healing, means making peace with all parts of ourselves… especially the parts we don’t like.
If you can reconcile with those exiled parts of yourself (e.g., the part of you that feels chaotic and out of control, or the part of you that is emotionally expressive and needy), then you will most likely see the relationship with the other change.
5. Seek support
For those in close or intimate relationships with someone struggling with addiction, it is not only
possible, but probable, that you will become emotionally overwhelmed. Hearing about the frightening and destructive things that a person can do to themself in the midst of addiction can revive strong feelings, perhaps connected to earlier traumas or losses you’ve experienced. As such you should expect to lose balance from time to time. You are not infallible. Individuals who work with or journey alongside those struggling in addiction require an ongoing support system. Just as no addict can recover alone, no family member or loved one can cope with the bruised and inflamed emotions alone. It is important to seek help or connection and, to put it simply, deal with your own stuff.
In Conclusion
As clinicians working in the field of addiction, we have slowly discovered that every misstep has been a step toward epiphany, understanding, some kind of joy. For those caring for someone in addiction, the avoidance of what you bring to an encounter with your loved one (or any other person for that matter) is a real mistake. It is a real missing out on life. It is those very things that shape us, those very things that offer growth, that make the world a better place, oddly enough, ironically. That make us better. As the self-work teacher Byron Katie wrote in her book, “Loving What Is”:
Much of our stress comes from mentally living out of our own business. When I think, “You need to get a job, I want you to be happy, you should be on time, you need to take better care of yourself,” I am in your business… I realized that every time in my life that I had felt hurt or lonely, I had been in someone else’s business. If you are living your life and I am mentally living your life, who is here living mine? We’re both over there. Being mentally in your business keeps me from being present in my own. I am separate from myself, wondering why my life doesn’t work.
Partners, friends, and family, whether despondently or optimistically trying to pressure the addict to change, would do well to recognize that what you are rejecting in others is what you are ultimately rejecting in yourselves.
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