What Now?

There is an immediate and very real danger to each and every recovering addict the moment they decide to get clean, and that is the reality that their support network may have been alienated to the point of no return. Most of us have driven our loved ones to the very brink of sanity and in some cases they completely wash their hands of us, and deservedly so. We have destroyed many of the relationships we may have developed in the years before the madness set in and those that we cannot revive become dangerous pitfalls of guilt and remorse on our journey.

The addict must somehow make peace with the fact that not being able to revive some of our friendships and relationships is simply another form of being held accountable. Our transgressions are not wiped clean just because our eyes become clear once more. There are repercussions for all our actions (sober or in active addiction) and some have lifelong implications.

On the off chance that the people who love and care for them haven’t been driven as far away as they can possibly get, odds are strongly in favor of those people not really knowing how to support them in their recovery. From the first bender to the last breath, it is a tenuous, tedious balance between support and enabling. How do you know where that boundary lay?

An addict who chooses to be admitted to inpatient treatment has made a significant step towards living the kind of life they have fooled themselves into believing only exists at the bottom of the bottle. If you are a friend or loved one, the key then becomes supporting them in such a way as to not set them up to fall back into the self-destruction by enabling. How do you help without inadvertently hurting their chances for survival?

First things first, you cannot give them anything without receiving something substantive in return. The recovering addict is only set walking down a path of manipulation and ill spiritual health if given anything for free. Everything must be earned, no matter how small. This also serves to boost the long-shattered sense of self-worth and gives him or her something about which they can be proud.

Structure and regularity are also necessary. The chaos and insanity of their past lives must be supplanted with the type of routine in which they can become grounded and upon which they can rely. This means schedule and routine must be the order of the day every day for as long as it takes.

Finally, love and acceptance must be in abundant supply. The extension of these is much to ask, but if you’ve stuck by them this long the odds are that you have both by the boatload. Understand that a recovering addict can be the loneliest person on Earth, and everyone has good and bad days. The key is remembering that eventually the good will greatly outnumber the bad.

Good things happen when a person adopts an upright way of living and the residual effects are sure to touch their loved ones even more than the heartbreak ever did. Love, integrity, patience, honesty, kindness and loyalty are adjectives that only scratch the surface of what’s in store when an addict resolves him or her self to becoming who they were born to be by laying down the very thing that without fail cripples their ability to be happy. If you have been there while they were crawling, you deserve to see them fly as well.