Tough Love and Addiction
What is ‘Tough Love’?
Loving other people usually means showing affection and being nice to them, but this is not always true.
Being Cruel to Be Kind to Addicts
Sometimes loving somebody can mean treating them harshly or sternly is called “tough love”. When dealing with those individuals who have become addicted to alcohol or drugs, it may be necessary to act in a way that might be perceived as a bit cruel – but people may feel the need to do this out of a desire to be kind.
Tough Love Defined
“Tough love” is affection expressed in a stern or unsentimental manner.
The usual motivation for acting in such a way is to promote good behaviour. For example, if a parent speaks angrily to their child, they are likely to encourage this young person to follow the rules. With tough love, the individual treats the other person harshly out of a desire to help that person – they are not acting that way out of malice or knee-jerk anger.
Tough Love and Addiction
Sometimes family members and friends may need to employ “tough love” when dealing with an addict. Watching this person destroy their life can be heartbreaking, but loved ones may feel helpless to stop the deterioration.
They will likely have tried being reasonable, but the addict is often in complete denial about their problem. Helping them may seem to be making the situation worse.
There comes a stage when family members realize that being nice just isn’t working. Being nice can be part of the problem because it could enable the addict. This is because those who have become dependent on alcohol or drugs quickly learn how to manipulate other people to get their way. They can use the willingness of other people to help against them. This is why loved ones conclude that tough love is their only option.
Enabling an Addict
When family and friends protect drug addicts from the consequences of their actions, they enable them. Such protection can be detrimental for several reasons.
Most addicts will become willing to escape their addiction once they hit rock bottom. If loved ones protect the individual from the negative consequences of their actions, this will likely delay their arrival to the point where they are ready to quit.
Enabling an addict means that other people suffer the consequences of the addict’s behaviour while they remain untouched by these consequences.
Some individuals become so involved in sorting out the mess of the addict’s life that they become co-dependent. Their identity becomes lost as they become so focused on the behaviour of this other individual—it is like they become addicted to the chaos.
The addict will often have no scruples about manipulating those individuals who are trying to help them. If you give them an inch, they will take a mile.
Enabling the addiction is almost like giving consent to the behaviour—or at least it will appear that way to the addict. Those who fall into substance abuse get entirely caught up in denial and delusion, and anyone who enables them is just reinforcing this departure from reality.
Dangers of Co-dependency in Addiction
Addicts tend to attract particular types of individuals into their lives—spouses and partners that could be described as co-dependent. Those who develop co-dependency tend to come from dysfunctional families, and they believe that it is their job to fix other people’s problems.
Co-dependent people tend to suffer from low self-esteem and may think they deserve to be mistreated. Such individuals are likelier to fall into a relationship with an addict because they believe they deserve this type of relationship.
The dangers of co-dependency include the following:
- They will devote their lives to cleaning up the mess created by this other individual.
- They will cover up for the addict.
- They are willing to endure a great deal of mental and physical abuse. Theybelieve that they deserve this type of treatment.
- If their partner gives up the addiction, the co-dependent person struggles to cope. This is because their identity depends on looking after this other person.
Using Tough Love When Dealing with Addicts
Employing tough love with an addict involves:
- No longer allowing the addict to manipulate those who love them.
- Giving the substance abuser an ultimatum – for example, either they get help or stay away.
- Making decisions and sticking to them no matter how much the addict pleads or cajoles.
- Sometimes, it can mean breaking off all contact with the addict.
- Refusing to enable the addict in any way. This means ensuring that they are not spared the consequences of their actions.
- It can often mean cutting the purse strings – no longer giving or lending financial assistance.
Sometimes an intervention can be used to attempt to coerce the individual into getting help for their addiction. This usually involves family and friends getting together with help of a therapist, to confront the addict—the power of numbers can make a difference.
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