Have hope, offer love.

Advice for addicts and their families

As someone who managed to recover from full-blown alcoholism and maintain a ten- and half-year sober streak (so far), I am often asked what can be done to help or support other addicts get sober or clean. This is such an incredibly hard question to answer. I wish there was a definitive answer! And if there was a definitive answer, we would probably all know it by now!

I am not saying there is nothing to be done. There are many ways the friends and family of addicts can help and support their loved ones towards sobriety.

I don’t know the answer, but I can offer advice by sharing what helped me when I was completely physically and psychologically addicted to alcohol.

“There is hope, even when your brain tells you there isn’t”.

John Green.

I genuinely believe that giving an addict hope for the future can have a major influence on their decision to get sober. To an addict, the future is bleak. I personally got to the point where I didn’t want to live as an addict anymore, but I also didn’t want to die. I felt like those were my only options. It is so important to encourage an addict with a sense of the endless possibilities that are out there for them in recovery.

A memory came up for me this week while I was thinking about hope and addiction. When I first got sober, I worked at a Recovery Centre. One of the Support Workers said of a heroin addict on her case load, ‘She’s lost her three children to state care, and a leg to amputation, what has she got to live for?’ Looking back, I am stunned that a Recovery Support Worker would voice this opinion. I can’t remember my reaction at the time, but my reaction now is this: If that is your support worker’s opinion, what chance have you got for a positive outlook for yourself? I would argue that this woman who was addicted to heroin had everything to live for. Getting clean and sober is a fresh start, a new life, a second chance. Life would be challenging physically as an amputee, and emotionally as a mum who’d lost her children, but she was still young and could build a new life for herself with the right support. She could get clean and wake up every day with clear head and gratitude for a life free from constantly chasing the next fix. The difference between life in active addiction and life in recovery is phenomenal. Simply being sober is reward enough to enjoy life post-addiction. We have to constantly feed addicts messages of hope, even when their brain tells them there is none.

My biggest fear in active addiction was what life would look without alcohol in it. I did not want to continue living as someone with a physical and psychological dependency on alcohol and yet I was terrified of a future with no alcohol in it all. Alcohol had been my crutch and my coping mechanism since my early teens. I could not fathom life without it. And yet, here I am, over ten years later living a life where alcohol has no place at all.

An addict needs to hear that sobriety is like getting a brand-new life. That sobriety opens up doors that were completely hidden before. That the longer the body and mind exist without alcohol in the system, the happier and healthier the body and mind become. That the sober version of themselves can reinvent themselves. I went from suffering with debilitating anxiety that I masked with alcohol, to being a teetotal Personal Trainer and gym owner. This little introvert got herself an extrovert’s job, cheering groups of complete strangers on to better health and fitness. I would never have believed that for myself before I quit drinking. I asked my husband if he would have believed it for me and knowing the version of myself that I was back then, he shook his head and agreed that he would never have believed it either. I still can’t quite believe it!

With regular glimmers of hope, an addict can perhaps begin to believe that life after addiction will be ok. Never give up feeding them hope. Even when it feels futile. Trust me, it’s not. Your words will sink into their subconscious and make an impression.

“Even before you do anything to help, your wholehearted presence already brings some relief, because when we suffer, we have great need for presence of the person we love. If we suffer and the person we love ignores us, we suffer more. So, what you can do, right away, is to manifest your true presence to your beloved and say the mantra with all your mindfulness: ‘Dear one, I know you are suffering. That is why I am here for you.’ Already your loved one will feel better.”

Buddhist Monk and Author, Thich Nhat Hanh

Thank you,

Stuart Fasoli

for sharing the above quote on X last month.

This passage by Thich Nhat Hanh, about being present and providing love and support for those who are suffering hits the nail on the head. Addicts don’t need to be scolded, shamed or belittled. Addicts already know they have messed up, are already deeply ashamed of themselves, and already feel like sh*t. Reinforcing this self-loathing won’t help anyone claw their way out of addiction. Addicts need someone there to say, I know you are hurting, I love you, I am here for you. I can tell you from personal experience that is more impactful than any other message you could give.

My personal experience of this presence of love came from my husband. I knew he loved me, and I knew he knew that I was in pain. He could see my suffering and went to great lengths to learn as much as he could about alcoholism and addiction. He never judged me. He just wanted me to get better so that we could carry on living our life together. My husband Mike never enabled my drinking, and he wouldn’t have it under his roof, but I was never in any doubt that he loved and supported me.

It’s a difficult balance to achieve. Friends and family of addicts are traumatised by their loved ones’ addiction. Emotional responses can range from anger to sorrow to fear in some, to extreme levels of love and protection in others. Pushing an addict away in anger or fear is natural but it probably won’t help encourage them to sober up. I understand why it may be necessary in some circumstances to protect yourself from physical or emotional abuse and your family’s safety should come first. It is incredibly hard to practise compassion when we are angry and hurting but if you can, please try to understand that addiction addles the brain and that the real person you love is not in control of their behaviour, the substance is. Addiction can be incomprehensible from the outside looking in, but I’ve been there, and I can tell you that it genuinely felt like I had been possessed, that I was literally no longer in control of my actions. It was terrifying. Denying an addict love only increases their pain, their feelings of worthlessness and their propensity for self-destructive behaviour. On the flip side, keeping an addict in your home, and caring for them because you want to keep them safe is unlikely to motivate them to beat their addiction. It’s just too comfortable. This may be the only option in case of severe physical addiction but in other cases I should warn you that this caregiving can veer dangerously into enabling addiction. You naturally want to keep your loved one safe from any harm they might come to if they were not under your care, but you need strong boundaries in place. Your loved one needs to know that you love them and support them and are there for them, but they also need to know that you are caring for them because you want them to recover, because you love who they are without the substance abuse.

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Nearly every recovered addict will tell you that it has to be the addict’s decision to sober up or get clean and I agree with this. The addictive chemicals in alcohol and drugs that literally change the way the brain works are too powerful for a halfhearted attempt at sobriety. The addict has to be convinced that they want to get clean, and that they are done drinking or using. It’s an extremely powerful decision that only the addict can make. However, I strongly believe that being given HOPE and having the constant presence of LOVE will help an addict make that decision. You can’t make the decision for them, but you can encourage them along the way and that is worth more than know.

Thank you for reading this edition of My Secret Sobriety.

Please feel free to add comments or questions below. I would love to engage with you.

Kate xoxo