Are You Living With an Addicted Person?

Are you Living With an Addicted Person?

Are You Living With An Addicted Person?

Addiction. Addictive agents are those persons or things in which we form an excessive dependency (1).

Are you living with an addicted person? If you answered yes to that question then you are part of about half of the U.S population, but congratulations. You are among the group that is not still in complete denial.

Next question. Do you still consider addiction to be a problem? If you said yes to this question, then you really need to continue reading to absorb some basic truths that may profoundly improve the quality of your life! (BTW, if you answered no to both of these questions, then congratulations again…only a small fraction of people experience lives totally unaffected by someone else’s addiction).

We are three men who had our lives smashed by the addictions of people close to us, and we want to relay thoughts that will make the experience of living with addicted people less devastating for others.

First, we had to learn that addiction is addiction, whether it is to alcohol, drugs, sex, bingo, or chocolate, and that addiction cannot survive in a vacuum. For example, it takes at least four functioning adults to enable a single dysfunctional alcoholic.

Second, addiction is not a problem, it is a fact, and facts simply cannot be solved. For example, if you have looked forward to a picnic and it has started raining, then that is a fact. You cannot solve this fact.

“Oh no…it’s RAINING!” (insert humorous drawing with a shocked man)

Your only option now is to decide how you are going to react to this fact. Our weather example works to a degree, except that with addiction the costs, in human terms, are much steeper than just being a bit inconvenienced. Living with addiction is never a picnic.

What we are saying is that we had to stop denying that we were totally powerless over someone else’s addiction. Whether we were a spouse, relative, neighbor, a CEO, minister, physician, police (person), a famous talk show host, or the president, it didn’t matter. We were each just another man who kept dancing to the tune of addiction and we were part of their problem. Until we admitted that we were powerless over another person’s addiction, first to ourselves, then to the God of our understanding, and finally to another human being, we were mentally, physically, financially and emotionally trapped.

Please. End the denial. The most effective program for achieving personal honesty and removing denial that we have found is the Al-Anon program. Al-Anon is a 12-step support group for people trying to deal with the situations created by living with people addicted to alcohol. Here are some thoughts from an Al-Anon man raised by an alcohol-addicted mother.

I had always considered myself an honest person, but as I progressed in the Al-Anon program my understanding of honesty deepened. I had to be honest about everything in my life: my past, my intentions, my choices, my thoughts, my desires, and my reality. Honesty became not just refraining from lies in relationships during daily living with other people (i.e., “cash-register honesty”); it was honesty with myself and with the God of my understanding.

Recovery from my own addictions: co-dependency, people pleasing, perfectionism, the need for applause…this kind of honesty, was impossible until the hold denial had on my mind was broken. Denial is like a good paint job over poor construction. I always looked good from a distance. Denial covered my inner despair. Denial, while actually protecting me as a child who lived with addicted parents began to destroy me as an adult. It was like the destruction of a tree; first a few leaves wither, then the trunk, and finally the roots.

Denial impedes growth. It destroys the spirit by allowing poor behavior and choices to guide your life. Denial hides the symptoms so well that the cure becomes unthinkable.

“Mom is just under a lot of stress right now.” She’s a good Mom; she just hits us when she has to let out her frustration. And besides, us kids are her biggest problem anyway” or

“Hello, Robert? Deb can’t make it in this morning. She has a horrible migraine, and she has had trouble getting enough sleep lately,” or

“My daughter works so hard in a helping profession. Nurses all need to unwind after a long shift treating sick people. Besides, she has always been able to hold a job in spite of the drinking.”

Here are some words about denying powerlessness from a father who had to accept that he was powerless over his daughter’s addiction.

The first step states that “We admitted we were

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