As the family member of addicts, I have many different viewpoints on how to cope with this debilitating "illness". Being the child, sibling, and wife of addicts and living a life surrounded by addiction has not been easy. I have had to learn many lessons in this journey.
The hardest lesson to learn along this journey was to love self. In my world of addiction self love was seen as selfish and not selfless. The next lesson I had to learn was how to love my addicted family member without enabling them in their addiction. Love without enabling, I struggled through this process; because often I felt saying "no" to my addicted loved one, meant I was not being supportive. The thought of being unsupportive fed my own guilt which kept me in the process of codependency and enabling; thus the codependent/addiction cycle continued.
I found "my way" out. I want to reiterate I found "MY WAY" out of the cycle. What works for me, may not work for you and vice-versa. I am not here to say my way is right and the only way. It is just my point of view!
The journey has not been easy, and the road has been long, agonizing, painful, lonely, and rewarding. I have been enlightened, uplifted and released, as well. The journey is all about recovery for the family not just the addict, though many do not see it that way. Many see the addict entering recovery and "they" receive the healing from addiction. The missing piece... The family needs to recover also. The definition of recover means to "return to a normal state of health, mind or strength". The family AND the addict both need to recover all that addiction has STOLEN from them.
I hope to share the many tools, strength and hope that I have picked up along the way that have helped me endure the journey through the life of addiction. Some are spiritual in nature, and some are medical as I am also studying to become an addiction counselor, but neither is the authority, just my point of view from the family perspective.
Cre8ed2serve~
