Against All Odds

A question I get asked a lot is “Can I help my loved one overcome an addiction even if they do not want help?” It’s a valid question because this does happen a lot, or at least, seems to.

The answer has two sides: First, No, there are elements of addiction that you simply cannot “make” your loved one address. The biggest and most important is whether they will take steps toward recovery. They are the only ones that can own that. Although there may be other elements in play that can obscure whether they really are “owning” the responsibility for recovery. The biggest is called “Ambivalence”, it means both. The article called “The Fallible Mind” explains it very well and applies to something we all do.

The second answer is yes. Yes I can help my loved one move toward recovery while at the same time take care of myself. That last part is equally important!

Albert Einstein has had many quotes attributed to him. Two are very similar but very important to answering the question “Can I help my loved one move toward recovery?”

“The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and thinking I will get a different result.” Albert Einstein

“If I always do what I have always done I will always get what I always got.” Albert Einstein

The reason the answer to the question is yes is because I can work hard at changing the way I interact with my loved one that has the potential to produce a different result. To say it another way “I can interact with my loved one in a way that creates a different atmosphere in our relationship.”

As I mentioned in the post “There Can Be a Path Home” where I answer and provide resources to answer the questions: “I just discovered someone I love is addicted, what should I do next?” and “How/why addiction is happening in my loved one’s life?”

Today I want to offer three posts that will answer the question: “Can I help my loved one overcome an addiction even if they do not want help?”

Posts you may find helpful in beginning to take care of yourself and encourage your loved one toward recovery:

Junkies are people too – information that will help you to have a new perspective on addiction. How we understand it, treat it, and fight it. This quote from the book says it all “The opposite of addiction is connection”. The post also includes a link to an eye opening TED talk about addiction.

The Best Thing I Ever Did for My Daughter – Addicts often end up feeling worthless. I understand that there are lots of reasons for that, some of their own making. As someone trying to help my loved one they need to know from me that I care and I will support them as they move toward recovery. This post shows some simple yet powerful ways we can do that.

Why can’t we be friends? – Discover a very effective means of offering your loved one the wherewithal to keep going.

Conversations – “Be brave enough to start a conversation that matters.” Margaret Wheatley .  Taking Margaret Wheatley advice can be crucial to helping my addicted loved one. They can be the hinges that great change swings on, for us and for them.

Two action steps you can take relating to this:

Watch these two shorts (3 minutes each) and powerful videos that demonstrate this is so important for your addicted loved one.  Allie and Johnny on CNN.

An assignment that can help. I read an article this week that related to people with a very specific mental health issue that can be very taxing on relationships. The article highlighted 50 positive traits of a person suffering from this issue. The article called 50 Positive Traits Of Many With Aspergers  A good excercise for us if we love someone fighting an addiction issue is to list 10 positive things you can say about your loved one even while they are in addiction. It will help you feel good and positively imapct them.

This weeks featured image is by Brooke Shaden, I am not aware of its title but it grew out of an experience where Brooke felt she had failed because she was trying to get everything perfect. Especially in our interactions with our loved one they do not have to be perfect, they only need to show we care. Sometimes the notion of perfection causes us to do nothing at all.