Unconditional love

The biggest thing that people who have active addicts in their lives seem to struggle with is the idea that they can somehow blackmail or force an addict to recover. That blackmail can come in the form of emotional pleas (If you really loved me, you’d sober up) Pavlovian psychological warfare (If you don’t stop looking at porn, I won’t have sex with you) or fear mongering (You’re going to die awfully young if you don’t change your ways). The fact of the matter is, even if these tactics work in the short-run, they are destined for failure over a longer timeline.

A person’s sobriety can never be dependent upon anything human or related to other humans. You see, as humans we are assured to disappoint and upset each other fairly frequently. The last thing an addict needs is an excuse to drink or use in reaction to something someone else thinks, says, does or doesn’t do. If an addict bases his or her motivation for getting or staying sober on anything in their environment instead of something inside themselves that no one else can corrupt, they almost surely fail.  We come with enough built-in, preconceived personal excuses to use and abuse our “drugs of choice.”

If you suspect that there is an addict in your life, your best approach to getting them to help themselves is NOT to force anything or anyone on them. Love them in a truly unconditional way, but don’t enable or condone their behaviors. Chances are they are just as guilt-riddled and full of shame as anyone else in active addiction, so you don’t have to make grand gestures to punish them. Just let them know you love them anyway. No big hyper-emotional scenes or pleading, no blackmail in any form and no manipulation. We are master manipulators and can see right through your bull, to be honest. We learn to play that stuff against you pretty quickly, so just love us for who we are.

Now, when the time comes for tough love, don’t hold back (bit of a confusing transition, I admit). There can be no reservation. Remember that not giving us money we didn’t earn, not allowing us to stay with you rent-free while still using, or really not doing anything for us that we can’t do for ourselves isn’t really blackmail; it is simply requiring of us that we be adult and handle our responsibilities as such. None of these things should even be offered to the active addict, because it’s probably in the form of you attempting to leverage them into sobering up.  These things can’t be the carrot dangling off a rope at the end of the proverbial stick, because all of it is temporary. What happens when it stops or becomes unavailable? Nothing on this Earth is permanent enough to be a truly solid foundation or motivation for successful addiction recovery.

Worried that you may have an active addict in your life? Put down the torch and pitchfork. Give them a hug.