Partners Of Addicts Look For Help For Their Addicted Loved One Before They Look For Themselves
This is the true *tale as old as time*.
I’ll look for you! Photo by Marten Newhall on Unsplash
The Disney of our past, which used folk tales and old stories, managed to take traumatic events and twist them into a happy ending for all. The lives of the characters were full of pain, suffering, and abuse, but somehow it all worked out in the end.
The Disney nightmare is what most people get.
Their Prince Charming never transforms from a beast into the man of their dreams. He stays a monster. The witch doesn’t get killed and the bad guy often gets off with a slap on the wrist.
It is what it is.
That doesn’t stop us from HOPING that a happy ending will come for us.
This is why so many partners of addicts reach out for help for their partners instead of for themselves.
Snorting The Hopium and Getting High Off Wishes
I heard this term from a podcast by The Chump Lady.
She is referring to the partners of cheaters but it applies to partners of addicts the same way.
Hopium (like opium) is highly addictive. This is the space in which self-gaslighting and toxic positivity live. All sense of reality falls away. You are occupying the realms of One Day and This Time…
One Day:
they will get help.
they will realize how much I am trying to love them.
they will see how much this hurts me.
we will have the future we have always talked about.
it will get better.
This Time:
they go to rehab.
they will do the work.
they will go to therapy.
it will work.
I can help them.
It’s a sad place of longing and eternal blind optimism. It has to be because the only alternative is acceptance. If you aren’t snorting the Hopium, you are sitting in reality.
And reality sucks.
The word addict in this instance can be interchangeable with the word narcissist. All addicts are narcissistic when they are in addict mode. You have to be to get your fix.
Why Are The Addicted Partners Prioritized?
It’s simple -> Their issues overshadow everything else.
They are the squeakiest wheel.
The partners of addicts want their loved ones to get help. We want it more than anything else. We want it more than we want their own happiness.
We want it because our happiness is tied to the addict’s happiness.
It is a codependency issue.
The addict has their drug or action of choice and you have the addict. They have a high. Partners chase their loved ones. It’s a dysfunctional circle that both people run.
Like a mouse in a cage on a wheel, it’s not getting anywhere no matter how hard it tries or how fast it runs. It’s on a neverending path. This is the cycle the partner stays on until they decide to stop playing the same old game.
Many partners of addicts do not realize that this is an enabling behavior. They see it as helping, not enabling. But… it is yet another symptom of dysfunctional behavior.
If you are the partner of an addict and you are the one looking for therapists, counseling facilities, rehab, or coaches then you are enabling them.
I’ll put a small disclaimer in that of course there are exceptions to this. If they truly want help and do not have a way to contact places because they don’t have a phone or internet and have asked you to help them, then it may not be enabling for you to do a Google search for them.
This is contingent upon them being the initiator of the help and then for them to activate on that assistance. If they ask for help, but then show no interest in actually using the info, then you know they were simply future faking you so you wouldn’t abandon them.
Assisting is a minimally done activity. It is not something you do over and over again, because at some point it does become a pointless endeavor. Why continue to do something that has never once worked?
Partners! Change The Focus Back Onto Yourself
This is the only way to help your addicted partner. You must work on your own issues before you can even begin to help them with theirs.
It will feel selfish and as if you are abandoning your addicted loved one at first. That feeling will subside as you work on boundaries and learn new habits.
In reality, it is the most loving thing you can do for them and it will increase the odds that your relationship will be successful.
It is not possible to anchor into unstable soil. If you are not healed, the environment they will live in will not sustain sobriety. As their partner, initially, you will carry the majority of the responsibility for maintaining a clean living environment. They will struggle until they have had a significant amount of time being clean.
Sobriety is more than not doing drugs. (or drinking, sex, gambling, spending, etc…)
Sobriety is a way of thinking. It is a lifestyle. As their partner, you are part of that new lifestyle, which includes healthy boundaries and new habits to replace old ones.
For both of you.
The way you accomplish this is by finding a coach or counselor who specializes in trauma, addiction, and codependency recovery. You are already a pro at finding help your your addicted partner. Use those same tools to find help for yourself.
It can be done. Good luck.
