Does Tough Love Help Addicts?

Does it really help?

Well, it depends on how far you go with it.

Most of the time tough love comes at a point of frustration, not at a point of love. Do not let frustration and anger guide you.

It has been years and you have tried and tried to help a friend or partner or child get through tough times and addiction.

Over and over again you have bailed them out. You have paid bills. You have pulled their fat out of the fire, and they just keep doing it.

It seems like they are just taking advantage of your love. They are. But, they are trapped.

You’ve tried everything you can but they still keep boozing and drugging and betraying you.

I have been on both sides of this. I was an alcoholic who was bailed out and forgiven and supported over and over again.

Then, after getting sober, I had a friend who I helped over and over again.

Both of these ended in tough love.

My family cut me off, and I fell into rock bottom. Which eventually led to my getting sober. After 20 years our relationships are either totally ruined, or still being built.

Depending on how you look at it and who we are talking about.

My relationship with my mother and brother is rocky. It has never been fully restored, but it is better.

My relationship with everyone else was destroyed and never recovered.

As far as the friend I helped.

I finally handed him a wad of cash to take care of his needs and told him in as firm a voice as possible. “Get yourself some help”

I have never heard from him again.

Tough love is often about frustration, not love.

I understand it. But it does not come from a place of love. It is a sense of responsibility and frustration.

I have a different take on addiction than others do.

A person will hit rock bottom on their own. It’s coming. Our enabling just delays it. Our tough love, can bring it to pass and even make it worse than it naturally would be.

If you love the addict, then you want to be available when they hit rock bottom so you can guide them and support them and have a relationship when they get sober. That’s love.

If you show tough love and drive them away or make the rock bottom experience unbearable, then you will likely never see that person again.

You might be ok with that.

But, let’s say your son is a drunk and loses their job. Then, they lose their wife and kids. If you help your son’s wife steal his kids from him, at the time of his most desperate need. Your son is very likely to never forgive you.

Even when he is sober and has a restored life with a new family and kids, you will never see those new kids.

Ok?

That’s an example.

Tough love has consequences for everyone.

Think about it. There are ways to be tough and not enable someone, while not totally destroying them.

You want rock bottom to be a natural consequence of their actions, not something you brought down upon their head and made worse for them.

Unless your plan is to never have a relationship again, or to have a fractured one.

I cannot tell you how to navigate it. I just want you to be aware of it.

“Do unto others as you would have done to you.”

There is no real formula. You have to let God guide you. You have to consider the long term ramifications.

If your child is losing custody, your tough love could lead to never seeing the grand kids.

If your friend is losing their job or family, I would not betray them or add to the trouble. Unless you are done.

Take each thing case by case.

Forced sobriety never works. Forced rehab. Forced court ordered rehab does not work.

The person must want to get free.

Tough love must be based in real love, or it is not love at all.

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Bio: Chris Bunton is a writer, poet and blogger.

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