When Helping Isn't Helping

Living with an addict is like riding a wild rollercoaster, only it isn't fun. Sometimes things "coast" along smoothly and you settle in, enjoying it like a ride in the country on a beautiful Spring morning. You begin to feel happy again, loving again, and your hopes and dreams about the future resurface. You may even stop anticipating that next "drop," believing in your heart that it was all just a bad dream.

Inevitably the drop hits and you feel that gut wrenching adrenaline in your stomach once again. The fear is back, the enveloping sadness and overwhelming dissapointment returns and you wonder how you ever could have believed that it was over, that they were "cured."

It's so easy for concerned friends and family to say, "Why don't you just leave?" Sounds like great adivce, if only it were that easy. Especially if we have children, whom we know should't be exposed to the chaos created by our addicted loved ones. But how do you stop loving the person you know is burried beneath the avalanche of addiction? It's like they've fallen into a deep hole. You're standing at the mouth of it looking down. You know they're in there. You can still hear the faint but familliar sound of their voice. You can barely make them out way down there and you're filled with compassion and empathy and fear for them. To "just leave" is to walk away from the hole, leaving that person that you love more than your own life trapped in that hole - leaving them to die in there. How can you do that? How do you just give up on them, even when you know their illness is killing you too? Some people can, in a very matter-of-fact fashion, assay a situation, determine it's value for their own welfare and, if it does not suit them, simply walk away and move on. Is there a shut off valve that the rest of us are not aware of? Where is the spiggot? Why can't we just shut love off, forget it and move on?

My next "disspoinment" returned with my husband's return to work just yesterday. I thank God that he's back at work because we were almost out of money. But it gives my husband the "opportunity" that he is, apparently, unable to resist. It's is a pretty sure bet that, if he is out of my sight for more than 15 minutes, he's going to go pick up his crack. He did it yesterday. I'm certain of it. I saw the dealer's phone numbers on the cell bill online. I saw that look in his eyes and saw it in his behavior when he wouldn't eat and wouldn't sit still for more than 2 minutes. I'm really getting good at this. He knows I know, but he lies anyway. Now I'm back to checking the bank account and cell bill, checking his pockets and the trash can... back to being sick to my stomach and wondering how I ever could have believed...

That's a pretty typical scenario for most people involved in a long-term relationship with a self-destructing addict. What seems to escape us is that, while thinking we are "helping" by sticking it out with them, we are in actuality "enabling" them to continue self-destructing. It seems that hitting bottom is paramount in recovery from addiction. Maybe not for everybody, but I know it was for me.

"Just leaving" sounds simplistic and rather cruel, but strength can come from the realization that it may just be the best thing for them. So perhaps, as it was in my own case, without the loss of something important to him, my husband may never change. Maybe walking away is, instead, truly putting our loved ones first and our needs, wants, hopes and dreams second.

But I'm so afraid. I don't know where I'll go, don't know what I'll do, how I'll live, where I'll live. What about my animals? What about my stuff? What about me, me, me? Everything I do, I do for him, right? Then why isn't it working? I stay and suffer and cry and pray and all the while, all this time I'm trying so hard to help him, he's still down there, way down deep in that hole and I realize I not helping him at all.

God's Words of strength and encouragement:

2 Timothy 1:7
"For God has not given us a spirit of fear and timidity, but of power, love, and self-discipline."

2 Corinthians 4:8,9
"We are pressed on every side by troubles, but we are not crushed and broken. We are preplexed, but we don't give up and quit. We are hunted down, but God never abandons us. We get knocked down, but we get up again and keep going."

Philippians 4:7
"And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus."


A Prayer for Strength and Serenity:

Father God, help us to be fearless, Lord. Fill us with a true Spirit of Love. Help us to know your Will in this situation, God, and help us to take the necessary steps. Give us your strength, oh God. Lift us up and help us to move forward toward your truth, your light and your everlasting peace. In the Holy name of your precious Son, Jesus, Amen.