Last night, before falling asleep, I was scrolling through Twitter and I came across a story that gave me pause. A woman had posted that she had spent the last forty-eight hours wondering if her addict was even still alive. Luckily, he was found unharmed. She posted a picture of herself crying, and she asked her followers this:
Can someone please tell me it’s going to be okay . . .
In a matter of just a few hours, over four hundred people wrote back to her, with kindness, love, deep empathy, and for the most part, the same message, just written in different words. The gist was this:
It’s going to be okay, but you can’t fix this for him. You have the power to save yourself, and no one else.
Many of us who love alcoholics/addicts have had to let this message really sink in. Many people who answered the woman’s question suggested Alanon. Alanon is a great organization. It is geared towards focusing on the loved ones of alcoholics/addicts, and most of us go to our first Alanon meeting hoping that we will get a written, step-by-step guidebook on how to “fix” our addicts. It’s shocking, and at first, somewhat deeply deflating to hear the truth: You can’t do anything to help someone in denial, or who really doesn’t want to change. You MUST take care of yourself. You must take all of the energy that you have been putting towards your addict, and you must refocus it on to yourself.
This is a short article that explains an addict’s thought process better than most I have ever read (and I have read a lot):
https://www.verywellmind.com/understanding-an-addict-21927#toc-experiencing-consequences
All of the tools in the world, i.e. therapists, ministers, self-help books, rehab, 12-step programs, yoga, family interventions, affirmations etc. won’t do a lick of good for the person who is not deeply invested in using these various tools in order to help themselves. It’s a hard pill to swallow, but sometimes alcoholics and addicts don’t want to be “helped.” And being overly invested in “fixing/helping/changing” someone else and their lives, is its own form of addiction called codependency.
When you wake up to the realization that someone you love is deeply entrenched in alcoholism or addiction, I liken it to realizing that you and your loved ones are on this scorched earth, burning island. You, in your newly awoken state, realize that you can no longer live in denial of the destruction and the damaging fires. You realize that there’s a lifeboat, and you jump on it and you desperately try to get your loved one to get on to that lifeboat with you. But, unfortunately, your addict may not want to get on to the lifeboat. They may try to pull you into the water, where you both will drown. They sometimes want and choose to stay on the burning island, and they are angry that you longer want to be there, pretending that all is well. It’s heartbreaking to get on the lifeboat by yourself, but it is the only choice available, that at the very least, saves one life. It is the only choice that leaves a glimmer of hope for anyone involved that there is a way off of the burning island. And as the example I read last night, with hundreds of responses in a matter of just a few hours, you are not alone, floating on your lifeboat. There are many, many of us, floating in these wavy waters with you, willing to give a helping hand, and full of understanding, from our knowing, pained hearts.
****Readers, I choose to keep the identities of the addicts in my life private. I assure you that everyone in my immediate family is healthy and well, at this time. Thank you for your love, understanding and concern.
Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.