24 Things People With Loved Ones Who Are Addicts Want You To Understand

Watching a loved one suffer through addiction is extremely hard.

Some of us have already begun the grieving process of someone who is still alive.

Watching someone we love self-destruct makes us sad, angry and even resentful.

Sometimes we wonder if it's our fault.

Is there something we could have done to prevent this?

We often find ourselves assuming roles with them we never thought we would.

Some of us end up parenting our own parents, siblings or friends,

Or even weirder, treating our romantic partners as if they are our children.

It’s easy to judge us for not being hard enough on them...

TV shows like Intervention will show you that enabling our addicts is the worst thing we could do for them,

Which is probably true.

Giving our loved ones money that may sustain their habits doesn’t really help them.

Giving them food and shelter may show them that we’re complacent with their unhealthy lifestyle.

But you have to understand how hard it is for us to say NO.

These are people we love with all of our hearts.

We know deep down inside that cutting them off completely or letting them hit rock bottom,

May be the best thing for them in the long run.

But it's always hard to let go.

No matter how much we want them to get healthy and clean,

We also want to protect them.

Some of us can't afford to send our loved ones to fancy rehabilitation programs...

But there is always help available. We need to show them tough love, support them on the road to rehabilitation,

Stop enabling them and start empowering them to want to help themselves.