Tough Love or Something Else?

how to support your loved one struggling with addiction

Love is tough: ask any family member who is supporting a loved one with a substance use disorder or who has supported their loved one through addiction into recovery or who has been impacted by addiction loss.

Love is also sacrificial. Patient. Hopeful. Forgiving. Transcendent.

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One of the most touching memories I have of my dad is when I was seventeen years old. After being jostled between households, my mom’s apartment in the city and my dad’s home in rural Wisconsin, and still struggling with addiction and untreated mental health symptoms, my parents were at a loss.

They didn’t know what to do or how to support me.

My dad picked me up from the run-down apartment where I was living temporarily with a couple of girls who had just graduated. Cans of mountain dew with ash sprinkled on the top, floating cigarette butts, crusty dishes piled high by the sink, probably rats or cockroaches or both waltzing across the old wooden floors but I didn’t notice. I was too high. Too sad. Too desperate.

When I stepped out into the daylight, something unusual for my then routine of keeping vampire hours, my dad took one look at me and started to tear up.

“Oh, honey.”

He shook his head and pulled me into him and wrapped his arms around me. I felt like I was four years old again, slow dancing across the bronze ceramic kitchen tiles, my little feet on his feet. I breathed in and smelled old spice and peppermint. I felt his whiskers on my forehead as I nuzzled in and started to weep.

“I’m tired, Dad.”

After a long embrace, something that I desperately needed, he took me grocery shopping: something else that I desperately needed, too. I’d been living off of Lipton noodles and soda and whatever scraps were left over from my friends’ dinner when I had an appetite which wasn’t often.

Then, he took me to Country Kitchen and I pushed an omelet around with my fork. He asked me about the future and I told him I wanted to go to college and I wanted to write books and I started to see in his eyes a glimmer of hope for me.

Maybe there was hope for me yet.

Maybe I could grow up to be someone.

Maybe yet, I could dream.

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You see, I didn’t know at the time but the simple actions of showing up and providing tangible support, even just an embrace, was what I needed. I didn’t need tough love. I didn’t need my family to turn their backs on me. I didn’t need to be left alone.

I needed love, community, hope, and purpose.

Just like I’d never experienced being in active addiction and the stress, unease, and distress of a roaring substance use disorder, they’d never raised a teenager whose brain and body and emotions and spirit were crushed. They didn’t know about my being sexually assaulted, bullied, or any of the other challenges I was facing as a teen. They didn’t know my “acting out” and dishonesty and hiding was my immature attempt at trying to control an out-of-control life. Quiet my trauma. Control my addiction.

Now that I’ve been in recovery for some time and have worked in the helping field for over two decades, I’ve encountered thousands of family members who are in or were in the same situation as my parents back then.

Their eyes, bloodshot and pleading:

How do I support my loved one?

What do I support them towards?

Should we stay present with them in this and risk enabling their behavior or should we turn away?

Photo by Hannah Busing on Unsplash

Back in the late 1990s, I didn’t know at the time but there was something called recovery that I needed to access to save my life. My parents didn’t know either.

Today, things are a bit different. There are countless recovery options like a menu at an Asian fusion restaurant. Even if (sadly), not everyone has the same access to these supports (like women of color, folks who are pregnant or parenting, and other under-resourced folks).

Today, I don’t think we have the luxury of ignorance.

At the tips of our fingers are countless resources, meetings, and direction. Our loved ones depend on us to be able to show up. Just like when we struggle with our own challenges, we need family and community to step up and be there to support us.

But I also acknowledge, especially after considering my own family’s experience and after talking with countless parents and loved ones who have walked alongside the excruciating road of addiction with their loved ones: that it is tough. It’s tough to know how to show up in a way that truly helps another person.

In a recent article, I learned about a Massachusetts family that was trying to support their son Brendan with an opioid use disorder.

This family was told to show tough love to their son by a treatment center:

“They went to peer support groups [the family]. And while helpful, Ken says the advice was clear. Distance yourself from your loved one, or you're enabling, almost like putting a syringe in your child's arm.”

What they learned over time, however, was that it was the opposite. Love is what helped their son the most: Love with healthy boundaries.

Just like my dad had shown up for me. He didn’t give me a wad of cash AND he didn’t stop answering the phone. He saw a need (I was hungry) and he did what he could.

Alicia Ventura from Boston Medical Center says that due to the deadly crisis posed by newer drugs like fentanyl, family recovery interventions need to evolve:

“We need to start trying new things. And part of that, really, is going to be improving their interactions with their families and taking advantage of these people who innately love them and want to care for them.”

Why We Keep Going Back to Them

Every individual and family needs to do what is right for them and certainly, every situation is different. I’m not intending to tell you what to do, only what worked for me and what is working for others.

Continuing to show up in love in simple ways (a call, a text, a meal) can make all the difference.

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Here are a few incredible resources from organizations that support families:

Understanding & Supporting a Loved One's Recovery, NY

Take Charge Ohio

How Does My Loved One’s Addiction Impact Me?

What are some other resources for families? Comment below or send me an email. I’d love to hear more about them and share with this group of recovery supporters.