In this episode:
In this episode, I shares my personal journey with addiction and the painful realization that no amount of love or intervention can save someone struggling with addiction—only the individual can choose to change. Drawing on my own experiences and a listener’s inquiry, I explain that while setting healthy boundaries is essential for those who support someone in recovery, self-care must come first. Ultimately, recovery is an inside job and that while support is available, the decision to heal must come from within.
Resources:
Bottomless to Sober – Coaching, Classes, and Workshops
Atomic Habits Book Study With The Luckiest Club – Starts February 6
Six-Week Writing to Heal Program – Starts March 3
Transcript:
00:04 – Jessica Dueñas (Host)
Hey all, today I want to talk about the idea of trying to save the person you love who is struggling with their addiction, because I’ve got news for you you cannot save them right. Here’s the thing earlier last week I think it was I received a message from a woman whose significant other is struggling with his own addiction and essentially the core of her message and inquiry was how could she get him to stop? We can’t right, and it hurts to just say that back to her, but essentially that is what my message back to her said. Right, they’re like. I get it.
00:40
It is so painful to watch someone struggle with their own battle. I remember in 2020 when I was with Ian and he was struggling with his addiction and he started to relapse on opiates, which were his drug of choice. I remember it was like grasping at straws. I had called his mom, I called his then sponsor, I hid stuff from him, I threatened with leaving him, I threatened with kicking him out of the house. Right, there were all these different things that I thought that I could do to somehow control the outcome, to somehow get the addicted person to drop their addiction. For me, as if I was so powerful and I learned very quickly upon his departure from this earth that there was nothing, nothing that I could have done. It was on him and unfortunately he was not in a place to stop. So I told this woman who reached out to me that that she can’t make her significant other stop drinking, that that choice has to come from within, from him, right? And so what do we do in these situations? How do we support those loved ones? How do we support ourselves? Right? Because here’s the thing.
01:55
The truth that I have learned in my journey is this we cannot love people into sobriety. We cannot love people into doing anything that we want them to do, right? I wish that love could have saved me from addiction. I wish that my sister, who practically raised me, could have loved me sober. Ignore that, sorry, that alarm that popped off. You know, I wish that. The people who had cried over me and begged me to stop drinking, you know, especially in 2020, when I was struggling so much, I wish that they could have protected me from myself. But their love, it wasn’t enough, right? Their calls, their concerns. None of that was going to change anything. It had to come from me, and that’s the truth.
02:44
The only person who can save someone who is struggling with addiction is the person with the addiction. I had to learn that the hard way right. I really thought that I could have saved Ian, and I couldn’t. I simply couldn’t, and even with my own sobriety, like I said, my sister tried so hard, but she couldn’t save me. My friends couldn’t save me. No one in my family, no one outside of me was going to be able to come and stop me from drinking. If love alone was enough to fix addiction, I would not have needed to go into treatment, because I’ve always been loved by others. You know, if willpower was enough to get me sober, I wouldn’t have again gone to treatment, I wouldn’t have spent years drowning in alcohol.
03:35
But recovery doesn’t work like that. It is absolutely an inside job, and so, yes, if you’re the one who is struggling with the addiction, you’re not going to be able to get out of it. You’re not going to be able to get out of it. You are the one who is empowered to change your life. The moment that you decide to take that step towards recovery, what you will find, however, is a community of people who are willing to walk beside you. There’s so many different places that you can go to for support, where someone, without knowing you, will a hundred percent have your back, simply because they understand exactly what it is like to walk in your shoes and struggle with a dependence to a substance. So there is 100% a life waiting for you on the other side. You are absolutely worthy of it.
04:17
But again, you need to understand no one is coming to save you. No one else can save you but yourself. But once you get started on that journey, do you need other people? Absolutely, doing it alone is incredibly hard. However, if you’re listening to this and you happen to be someone who loves someone that is struggling, you have to understand that you cannot save them. Your situation. You can absolutely set boundaries that protect your own peace. You can absolutely love this individual without enabling them no contact with the person who is struggling with their addiction so that they then can spiral even further and feel like they have even fewer things to live for. Right, definitely not saying that.
05:16
Are there cases where you’re going to have to go no contact because the person with the addiction is a risk to you or your family or your loved ones? Absolutely, there are times when that is the case, but if that isn’t the specific situation that you are in, then you don’t need to go to that extreme. But what you can do is set boundaries right, because what a boundary is? A boundary is a limit that teaches other people how they may stay in your life right. So, instead of going no contact, you can let the person know, with the addiction, what is okay or not okay for them to do around you and then, if they’re able to uphold that and stick to that, then that’s how you can show love, that is how you protect your peace, that is how you practice and protect what your limits are. But again, you can go no contact if you need to. If it’s a matter of protecting your peace, protecting your safety, protecting, say, your family, your home, your property, your career, do what you need to do. But you can offer them support as long as you’re not sacrificing yourself.
06:23
And the biggest thing that you always want to remember when you’re dealing with someone who struggles with addiction is that reminder, offering it to them that when they are ready, that help is out there, right. That when they are ready, you are willing to offer certain supports right. At the end of the day, they don’t have to go through the recovery journey by themselves, but you do have to protect yourself and your limits. So, at the end of the day, whether you are the one who loves someone who is struggling or whether you are the one who is struggling with the addiction, you’re not alone. Right? Addiction touches so many families in one way, shape or another, and so please remember that recovery is possible. There absolutely is hope. But while you’re holding out with the hope, right Like while you’re waiting for that miracle, remember that you are number one and remember to protect yourself, because if you aren’t taking care of you, there’s absolutely no way that you can be there for your loved one who is currently struggling.
07:32
So that is all I wanted to share with you all today, Food for thought. If you have any thoughts, any feedback, any tips that have worked for you and you want to reach out and share those, please don’t hesitate to reach out to me by email or on socials. I would love, love, love to engage more on this topic. It is definitely a difficult one. It’s a heartbreaker, for sure, when we wish that we could just love someone into doing the best thing for themselves and, the end of the day, they’ve got to save themselves. Thanks y’all, until next time.
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