The substances involved, whether it’s alcohol, heroin, cocaine, or prescription medications, create intense surges of dopamine, rewiring the brain to crave more, no matter the cost. This is why even people who desperately want to stop using often can’t do so without professional help. Our state-specific resource guides offer a comprehensive overview of drug and alcohol addiction treatment options available in your area. If you slip up on some of the commitments you make to yourself during this time, it’s okay, and you can continue moving forward without being too hard on yourself. What’s most important as you learn how to let go of an addict you love is simply to do your best.
Environmentally, childhood trauma, stress, marijuana addiction life changes, and mental health issues can change brain functions in ways that fuel addictive tendencies. Many loved ones of addicts hesitate to set boundaries because they fear rejection, retaliation, or making the situation worse. But healthy boundaries are the foundation of self-respect and real change. If you have other children, family members, or friends who witness your enabling behaviours, they may learn that this is how relationships should function.
The Recovery Village Ridgefield
Set boundaries and keep them accountable whenever they abuse substances. Many develop depression and find that their interactions with the addicted person affect their loving an addict future relationships. However, it’s still possible for your partner to recover from their addiction. Many people who recover from addiction live happy, healthy, and fulfilling lives. Unless the family surrenders to letting go of old ideas, their loved one will not either.
Treatment Services
These groups are free and open to the public, and they have frequent meetings in most towns (see the Al-Anon/Alateen website for more information). There are more factors to consider when breaking up with someone in a precarious place. You have to ensure that your departure won’t make them sink further.
How to Let Go of An Addict You Love: Knowing When It’s Time To Let Go
If you are ready for change and other family members are not, leave them out of it. Do not allow unhealthy family members to play out dysfunctional family roles with a hidden agenda. Doing so will take away your ability to try and help your loved one and yourself. A family getting better can greatly increase the substance user’s opportunities to seek help as well. It will also strengthen a family’s ability to do something different and become less afraid to confront the situation and intervene.
That approach acknowledges the loved one’s suffering, conveys caring and love and reduces the person’s shame—both lessening the need for denial and removing major obstacles to seeking treatment. A next step is to open the door to a calm, respectful conversation about your concerns and your loved one’s deep values and goals in life. Understanding addiction and recovery is also important in mental health.
When you hold resentment toward another, you are bound to that person or condition by an emotional link that is stronger than steel. Forgiveness is the only way to dissolve that link and get free. We just have to accept the fact that some people are going to stay in our hearts even if they don’t stay in our lives. We are told that people stay in love because of chemistry, or because they remain intrigued with each other, because of many kindnesses, because https://www.cortecannobio.it/it/alcohol-s-effects-on-the-body-national-institute-13/ of luck. But part of it has got to be forgiveness and gratefulness.
If nothing ever changed
As time goes on, this constant state of tension starts to show. You may react in ways that don’t feel like “you.” Some people shut down completely, building emotional walls to protect themselves. Others go into desperation mode—pleading, threatening, or overreacting to small triggers. Loving an addict doesn’t just mess with your emotions—it hijacks your thoughts. Their addiction can take up an unhealthy amount of space in your mind. You become desperate to “fix” the problem or find some way to make it stop affecting your life.
The instability in this pattern can heavily strain the emotional resilience of both partners, making it very hard to establish a sense of security and reliability. Loving someone with addiction is one of the hardest challenges you’ll ever face. Join our community and learn how to stay five steps ahead of addiction—for your sake and your family’s. On top of that, you may struggle with setting boundaries. If you hold firm, you might feel guilty or worry about being too harsh. If you let things slide, you feel resentful or like you’re enabling their behavior.
- Detachment is the process of emotionally and often physically distancing yourself from a loved one.
- People who love addicts tend to feel lonely and isolated.
- Putting up with discomfort might sometimes feel easier than risking a possible confrontation.
- It is always necessary in families to set boundaries, ground rules of behavior.
Communication and Boundaries
- It also models good interpersonal skills for your loved one.
- I loved them then and I love them now even though they are no longer alive and haven’t been for decades.
- Before anything else, it’s important to reframe how we see addiction.
Unless a family is willing to accept this and address it, the chances of growth and change are far less than average. Before a family and the intended patient can improve the situation, they both must be willing to let go of their old ideas, behavioral patterns, and beliefs. A substance user wants to be a better person and still use alcohol or drugs, and you can’t have both. A family wants things to change and still wants to stay in control and hold onto their unhealthy role in the family system, and they, too, cannot have both. The problem is neither the family nor the intended patient can have it both ways; you have to choose a side.
Addiction Science
Similarly, when our emphasis is on how our partner makes us feel or how he or she feels about us, our “love” is based on a self-centered, codependent need. Addiction in families and relationships can make individuals feel hopeless or alone. At Gateway Foundation, we offer addiction education and support for families facing addiction. From family counseling to individual therapy, we can help you regain control of your life and start feeling better. More good news is that drug use and addiction are preventable.
