Recently I’ve heard from a few “new” clients that they have been following me for several years. They have read my blog articles, my newsletters, and watched my many YouTube recordings and my TEDx talk. They have read my ebooks and my book Loving an Addict, Loving Yourself: The Top 10 Survival Tips for Loving Someone with an Addiction. And yet the situation with the addict in their life has gone on – sometimes for years – without much change. Although they report that they have been helped by all these resources, they have not reached out for counselling from Love With Boundaries – not until now.
It’s true that I don’t know the reasons for why some people waited, and their thinking may be different for each of them. Maybe they felt they were too busy in their lives to make that kind of commitment to counselling, or they felt that things hadn’t gotten “that bad” yet. Perhaps they felt like no one was really going to understand what they were going through, or they felt like they financially couldn’t afford it. But whatever the reasons, my guess is that they thought they had more time with their addicted loved one – even if that time was fraught with a lot of chaos.
I’m wondering if they weren’t facing the fact that addiction is brutal and progressive, and that it can take away the people we love at a moment’s notice.
I remember when I was in active addiction, nearly 40+ years ago now. Having been diagnosed with Crohn’s disease in my early 20s – before most anyone had heard of it or knew what to do about it – the doctors who were trying to look after me prescribed addictive opiates like morphine, codeine and oxycontin as well as a number of benzodiazepines like valium and Ativan that I, over the next 15 years, took like candy. Anybody’s body would have become addicted to these drugs, and mine certainly did. The medications also got rid of some of the blaring pain and shame of a disease like Crohn’s, so I rarely thought twice about taking them. But as time went on, instead of telling the doctors that I needed a different kind of help, I became more distracted and desperate – and high – to the point where I wondered why I was even alive anymore. I didn’t tell anyone that – I suffered alone, which was a trait that came easily to me, as I had learned it in my family of origin. I was good at hiding my pain – until I wasn’t. I was slowly becoming ready to take my own life, and no one knew that. I didn’t even truly know that – until I did, until I became so isolated and depressed that it seemed like the only answer. And it was then, I’m happy to say now, that I reached out for help. Thankfully, it was there for me.
Addiction can destroy relationships, and it can take people away from us. Unfortunately, people are still dying from addiction every day, overdosing from the actual drugs and alcohol or by their own hands through suicide. And we don’t know when that will happen. We think it isn’t too late – until it is.
My hope is that families who need help will reach out for it now, before it’s too late. At Love With Boundaries, we’ve been working with families and other loved ones of addicts for over 30 years, with clients from all over the world. We know how to help you change what you may have been doing, so that the addict you love has a fighting chance at recovery. If you would like to talk to us, we provide a FREE 30-Minute Consultation with one of our counsellors to see if we’re a good fit, and if you decide to work with us, we can start as soon as you’d like. In this way, you can learn what it would be like to experience recovery from addiction – for yourself, for your addicted loved one, and for your whole family.
To have our free consultation call, simply fill out and submit our short Questionnaire here, and someone from Love With Boundaries will get back to you as soon as possible.
Please remember that it isn’t too late – until it is.
