Love Addiction: What It Really Means and How to Handle It

Unfortunately, learning how to let go of an addict you love is much easier said than done. You can’t take care of your loving an addict partner by neglecting your personal needs. BetterHelp can connect you to an addiction and mental health counselor.

Press Play for Advice On Finding Help for Alcohol Addiction

Substance use disorders affect biological functioning, dominating the brain’s reward system, affecting emotional regulation, motivation, impulse control, and pleasure-seeking behaviors. The brain and body become dependent on an outside substance to create feelings of happiness and well-being—and, at advanced stages of the disease, to simply maintain the ability to function. If you’re asking yourself if a drug addict can love, seeking counseling and learning about addiction can be helpful. It’s important to note that many addicts are attracted to people with codependency issues or who are also addicts. Before thinking about how to help a loved one with drug addiction, it can be helpful to understand what it’s like loving an addict.

Dangers of Codependency

Researchers explain love addiction is related to these other disorders because they have similar cycles of emotional highs and lows, longing, and the extreme behaviors that can come as a result. If you’re close with someone who has alcohol use disorder (AUD), it can be difficult to know what to do to minimize conflict and stress, support your loved one, and tend to your own needs at the same time. When a person enters addiction treatment and the family embarks on the recovery journey, the sense of hope everyone feels can be exciting.

Love Addiction Traits and Symptoms

Years ago, before his recovery from drug addiction, he also saw firsthand how his parents dealt with his substance problem. In a recent interview, Jacob shared these insights for anyone seeking to support their loved one with healthy boundaries and tough love. Even though it can be a challenge, the benefits of overcoming addiction far outweigh any perceived benefits of continuing substance use. Coming face-to-face with reality means accepting that parts of your life may be out of control as a result of loving someone who is engaging in addictive behaviors. When you love a drug addict, you will often find that they seem to choose the substance over you time and time again, and it’s not just your perception. When someone you love is addicted to alcohol or drugs, the substance is going to be their number one priority.

Treatment Options for An Addicted Loved One

Before leaving someone struggling with addiction, you can try to get them to seek the help they need. Sometimes, stating your concerns and asking for them to get help can motivate a loved one to go to treatment. Art Jacob has both personal and professional experience with these questions. In his role as FHE Health’s Director of Patient Experience, he is used to coaching families who have loved ones in early recovery.

Learn as much as possible about addiction.

• There are several ways to tell if a loved one is using drugs, even if that person is dishonest about drug use.
• This includes mental health problems, codependency, or developing an addiction.
• For many who have spent years giving to others, especially when taking care of the active alcoholic or addict in your life, asking for help becomes a foreign idea.
• Even if you disagree with what they are doing or saying, it’s important to withhold judgment.
• They are scared that if the other person gets better, their purpose of being a caretaker may be taken away from them.

You expect your loved one to go to treatment and follow directions from professionals. Families receive the same benefits when they follow that same path. When one side gets better, it allows the other side to follow suit. An enabler can best change their behaviors by detaching and entering their own recovery program to uncover why it is they feel the need to enable and what they are receiving from helping another person. Many would think it is more difficult for the family when they refuse help, and sadly this is not the case.

Before you realize it, you can find yourself in a full-blown abusive relationship. You just happen to love someone who is probably going to need professional treatment to get healthy again. You may tell yourself that surely there is something you can do. But the reality is that not even the person dependent on alcohol can control their drinking, try as they may.

Don’t Take It Personally

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