When you love someone who is addicted, life feels harsh. After many years of being addicted, working with the addicted, and working with those who love the addicted, I can share with you my experience as seen through the eyes of a recovered addict now recovery coach. These are principles I believe to be true. While there are concessions, I encourage you to contemplate where your situation is not the exception.
If you aren’t participating in the solution you are a portion of the problem. If drugs and alcohol are the problem, you trying to control, manage, change, and/or regulate them is your problem. There is a huge lesson here for the pupil willing to listen. Look at what you can change about you to make your life better. Not easy when you love an addict. The tendency is to keep the focus on them and how much better your life would be if they’d just straighten up.
Here are the 12 universal laws for those who “love an addict” as derived from Sober Identity: Tools for Reprogramming the Addictive Mind. My hope is that you glean strength from these words and gather courage to be your part of the solution. These are easy words to write—challenging words to implement. They are, however, the tools that helped me help another addict to become a recovered addict.
Law 1- The Law of Divine Oneness
We are connected. Get yourself healthy first. It will aid you in thinking more clearly. You’re addicted to their being addicted. Find strength with those who have walked a similar path.
Law 2 – The Law of Vibration
Redirect your detrimental thinking to constructive thinking. You obsess too much over them. You fuel and perpetuate a situation you do not want. Observe when you are fixating and be willing to stop. The addict is often fueled by your obsessive objection of them. They use it to turn the blame toward you.
Law 3 – The Law of Action
Get into action. Find a support group. Do something—anything different. If that doesn’t work do something different again, and again. Never give up hope. Stop the cycle that has now grown to feel “normal.”
Law 4 – The Law of Correspondence
Connect with a Source greater than yourself that you can relate to. There is help out there. Your job is to look. You are one of many to experience these feelings. You aren’t alone. Stop acting like you are.
Law 5 – The Law of Cause and Effect
For every action there is an effect. Look and see what you did to create this life. Work on yourself healing: physically, emotionally, and spiritually. Stop blaming the addict. Stop cleaning up after them. Let them experience the nature effects of their actions. Your buffering is slowing their process.
Law 6 – The Law of Compensation
Give what you wish to receive. Sometimes saying “no” is the best gift of all. Exercise your right to choose whom and what you include in your life. Without question, addicts need help. Sadly they reject it from the ones who love them most.
Law 7 – The Law of Attraction
To the best of your ability, act in accordance with your principles. Do not give in to the addict’s demands and manipulation. Learn to separate the addict from their behavior. Be true to yourself at all times. Live your words. Set the vibration higher rather than sinking to the addict’s lowered standards.
Law 8 – The Law of Perpetual Transmutation of Energy
Everything you need is inside you. You are not a hostage to your addict and his/ her behavior. If you are stuck choose to get un-stuck. The addict needs courage, and so do you.
Law 9 – The Law of Relativity
We all have rights-of-passage. This may be yours. Step into this challenge and decide you will not let it drag you down. Be firm in your communication. You have taught the addict it is okay to treat you the way he /she does. Choose again.
Law 10 – The Law of Polarity
The good and the bad exist on a pendulum, (as do all opposites). Learning to not let the pendulum swing too hard in one direction is a skill. Regularly engaging with the addict at either end of the continuum is perpetuating a swing to the other side. Middle ground is best. Learn techniques to not engage.
Law 11 – The Law of Rhythm
All things that come pass. Life is moving forward, not backward. See that there is an end in sight and this too will come to an end. Everything turns out good in the end and if it’s not good (yet) it’s not the end (yet). Give this situation to your Source. If you don’t have a Source greater than your own thinking, my suggestion is that you willingly open up to one.
Law 12 – The Law of Gender
You have strengths and weakness. Don’t be a bulldozer where you are strong. Don’t be a doormat where you are weak. Learn and apply balance. You will continue to grow in direct proportion to your willingness to evolve.
We teach people how to treat us. Treat yourself better. Teach the addict in your life that you wish to be treated better. Ask for help and watch your life change. It will happen, but only when you choose for it to happen.