An open letter to addicts

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I want to preface this article. This is not an open letter to people in recovery. This is not an open letter to people who have been sober for a year, five years, a decade or more. This is not an open letter to people who have decided that sobriety and mental health are important and are choosing to begin the work that will save their lives. This is an open letter to addicts who destroy, on a daily basis, families, relationships and themselves.

You’re in your fifties now. You’ve been drinking and smoking pot since high school. Your kids don’t talk to you, because they are tired of being disappointed. You cannot maintain a relationship; you couldn’t with your spouse and you still can’t. Your last relationship was with an addict, because that is the only kind of person who “understands” you. You’ve been in jail a few times, but always manage, somehow, to beat the charges. No one in your family will let you near their kids, no one will allow you in their home. You owe people tens of thousands of dollars, your credit is shot.

But you have an enabler. Someone who lies for you and makes excuses for you and always takes you back. A parent, a sibling, a friend, someone who refuses to see the person you really are. And you reward the enabler with abuse, manipulation, psychological torment and you force them to choose you over everyone else in their life. They do, of course, because they can “save you.”

The enabler is key. Without that person, you have nothing. You have no home, you have no comfort. You would be living in a tent in the woods, eating out of trash cans. People who love you have tried to convince you to get help, to seek therapy, to go to an inpatient program. You say “I’m in AA.” Big fucking deal. Are you seeing a counselor to help with the addiction and the issues behind the addiction? Nope. Are you alcohol and drug free while you are “in AA?” Nope. You take prescription medications for a decades old injury, you’ve found doctors who just give you the pills, no questions asked, and you combine those with pot and alcohol. But you’re “in AA.”

And you go back, time and time again, to the enabler, who doesn’t care that you reek of pot, that your breath smells like booze and that you slur your words. They don’t care because long ago, you manipulated this person into believing this was all their fault. If the enabler is a parent, they didn’t love you enough, they were always working, they never cared. If it’s a sibling, they were Mom’s favorite or Dad spent more time with them, no one ever cared about you. It’s all about you. You are the classic narcissist. You don’t care about anyone else, unless by pretending to do so helps you.

You are also a sociopath. Sociopaths have no empathy. They see people as pawns, things to be used in order to meet their own needs. Your addiction is the driving force behind every single decision you make, and you cannot see the destruction you leave in your wake. You simply don’t care.

So, what do we do? What do your sisters, brothers, parents and friends do? We love you, and yet we suffer because of your behavior. We get the midnight phone calls, we get the hysterical emails, we are the ones calling the police, we are the ones you leave in your wake. How much are we willing to put up with before we just say “done?” And how much are we willing to placate the enabler? It’s a cycle that will never end unless the addict realizes this life is no life. How do the people that love an addict tell them most people don’t spend nights in jail? Or steal? Or abuse?

We don’t. We stop. You can love someone with all your heart and still say “We’re done.” If the addict and the enabler choose this horrific life, there is nothing we can do to stop them. There comes a point when you, as the family member or friend, have to take care of yourself. Maybe, someday, the addict will get help, and the enabler will, too. Until then, we cannot make them change, we cannot make them better. If we try, we will destroy ourselves.

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About Post Author

Erin Nanasi

Erin Nanasi is an avid underwater basket weaver, with a penchant for satire and the odd wombat reference.
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Bill Formby
11 years ago

Erin, with all due respect perhaps this should have been “an open letter to the enabler.” The addict would likely never read it and if he or she she did would say bulls**t and go like they are. The only time an addict is willing to take a look at themselves for what they are is when they hit rock bottom and there is no one there to prop them up. Even then it may or may not be the right time. I have saw young and middle aged people going through their 7th and 8th rehab swearing they are going to get clean. Two weeks after leaving their DOC is their best friend again.

One of the reasons these people fail is because they initial seek treatment to get clean and sober because of their child, or wife, or mother, or whoever. The addict must realize that they must get clean for themselves. To make them a better person, a better human being, someone other people might want to be around. Putting the burden of being the reason for getting clean on another person is holding someone else responsible for one’s sobriety when it has to do with only the addict him or herself.

Reply to  Bill Formby
11 years ago

The enabler would never read it either. It was more a venting opportunity for myself and my family. It’s been a rough couple of weeks. Our addict never hits rock bottom because the enabler won’t let them. It’s extremely stressful and it’s very depressing for all the sober ones looking on.

Wayne Boese
11 years ago

Every time the enabler props up the addict, it prevents the addict from going low enough to finally hit bottom. The road to recovery starts at the bottom. “Freedom means nothing left to lose,” freedom to start anew.

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