10 Things To Remember When The One You Love Suffers From Addiction

They need you, they’re suffering, please don’t push them away.
Addiction is a disease. For many people, it can be the main culprit in propagating a terrible life. Addiction is a dark and terrible place where troubled people go to escape from the harshness of reality. A lot of people carry with themselves demons that live inside of them.

These are demons that have the power to continuously eat away at their insides. They force their hosts to self-destruct and it’s beyond the victim’s control. The only way to really destroy these demons is with light; and that light is love.

Love can’t solve everything in the world, but it sure does have the power to help people who are suffering with addiction. Love is a powerful agent in defeating the inner demons of the world. Love is able to put blinding light in the darkness of human lives. That is why when you happen to be in love with someone who is suffering from an addiction, you have to understand that your love is the only way you can get out of this mess. You also have to be patient and kind.

You have to know that your partner who is suffering from addiction won’t necessarily have the same mindset as you. You have to be more empathetic and understanding. You will have to stretch the limits of your patience to the point where you will have to bear lots of pain on behalf of the both of you. Here are a few things to keep in mind when the person you love is an addict.

1. Addiction can change a person.

Addiction is an illness so severe that it has the power to complete alter a person’s personality and character. It may be common for people who are battling with severe cases of addition to be completely different from who they were previously. Know that the person you love is still inside there somewhere being suppressed by the addiction.

2. Addicts need to be told “no.”
They will have their cravings. They will be resilient. They will be persistent. They will try their best to reach for their sources of satisfaction, but you will need to deny them that reach. You will need to tell them that they can do without these unnatural substances.

3. You will need to balance optimism and realism.

You want to bring in lots of light and love into an addict’s life and that’s why you always want to maintain a certain sense of optimism and positivity. However, that doesn’t mean that you should be turning a blind eye to reality. The life of an addict can get very dark and heavy and it’s only after understanding the darkness wherein you can actually start bringing the light in.

4. Do not believe that their disease has defeated them.
Addiction is always going to be difficult to overcome, but it never wins unless you let it. You and your partner must always maintain an attitude that refuses to give in. You cannot just accept defeat and let the addiction run its course. You are the ones who always get the final say.

5. Stand your ground.

You will want to give in sometimes. You will pity your addict partner and you might want to just throw in the towel. But you can’t. For the sake of the both of you, you need to stand your ground and stay strong. You can’t afford to give in just yet.

6. Set boundaries in the relationship.
Boundaries are normal in any relationship, but they are of particular importance in a relationship with an addict. The reason these boundaries are important is that they teach an addict that they aren’t entitled to doing just whatever they want to do in life. But you also have to make sure that these boundaries are nurturing and loving in nature.

7. Be a helper, not an enabler.

There is a stark difference between being a helper and enabler. You want to be supportive of your partner who is suffering from addiction. But you don’t want to support your partner in a way that actually supports the addiction. You want to help them out of the disease. You don’t want to propagate it further.

8. There’s no point in playing the blame-game.
You will want to find someone to blame. You might blame your partner. You might blame yourself. But you should know that playing the blame-game gets you nowhere and it helps absolutely no one.

9. Don’t forget to take care of yourself.

As you are taking care of your partner who is battling with addiction, you might end up neglecting yourself in the process. Remember that you can’t possibly take care of another person unless you take care of yourself first. Make sure that your physical, mental, and emotional well-being are stable before you devote yourself to helping your partner.

10. Don’t be afraid to let them know that you love them.
Love is the key. Let your partner know that love will always be there; that love has the power to drive away that darkness; and that love should be worth enough to go on living a wonderful life for. 

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