Why Addiction Wins Over Love

It’s no secret that it’s extremely difficult watching a loved one battle addiction. It’s a vicious disease that latches on and disrupts the lives of those struggling with it as well as the people around them. It causes numerous negative and harmful consequences to all parties along the way, and those left in its wake often spend a lot of time and energy wishing their loved one will change. While loving someone struggling with addiction is painful and draining, it can be exceptionally frustrating watching your loved one repeatedly reject any help, love, and support offered by family and friends and instead continuing to sink further and further into their disease.

However, while it may seem as if they’re choosing drugs or alcohol over everything else, in many cases they simply have no choice in the matter. Addiction is a disease that causes a person’s behavior to become reflexive and automatic, stemming from their physical and psychological need for drugs or alcohol. These changes in the brain’s chemistry and functions reach a point where there’s essentially a primal need for the substance and any control a person had is stripped away. Simply put, if your loved one were able to stop abusing drugs or alcohol on their own, they wouldn’t have an addiction.

Over time, life under the influence of drugs or alcohol becomes the new normal and the most important relationship in their life. If the substance abuse is stopped, the user will experience extremely unpleasant, even dangerous side effects or withdrawal symptoms. The more engrained your loved one’s disease becomes, the less able they’ll be to resist its urges.

While you can’t control or cure your loved one’s disease, you can have influence over them. For instance, an intervention, ultimatum or refusal to enable them can often help them take their first steps towards getting help. Additionally, it’s important to remember to take care of yourself and realize that if they do choose drugs or alcohol over you that it isn’t personal. Choice isn’t a factor of addiction, but with the right resources and support system, both those struggling with addiction and their loved ones can recover to live a healthy life.