What loving someone with an addiction or dependence can look like

In her late teens, Edona says she cut her mother out of her life. 

She says she loves her mum, a woman she describes as bright and bubbly. 

"Sometimes I swear people in our neighbourhood can hear us [laughing] a few houses down." 

But Edona says it hurt to see her mother choose something else over her. 

That something was gambling, which left Edona feeling "betrayed" and impacted them both.

Absolutely valid feelings

Caroline Thain — a clinical advice and governance manager with Headspace — says "addiction is a very complex thing and there's no one single cause or one single answer".

She says it can be lonely caring for or supporting someone living with a dependence or addiction and she believes this is partly because of the stigma that still surrounds it.

"Not reaching out and talking about addiction because of that … really strong fear of 'I'm going to be judged in this, even though it's not my personal addiction', [or] 'I'm going to be judged and my family member who I love is going to be judged'."

She says resentment is also a normal emotion to feel if you're watching a family member behave self-destructively.

 "I think it's about recognising that you are absolutely valid in those feelings because it must be incredibly heartbreaking and frustrating … to watch."

She says if you want to support someone in your life these feelings don't disqualify you, it's about recognising and processing them.

"Then you can turn up with those self-care strategies that you have embedded in your life.

"I would also say it's also OK if you decide that you can't or you don't want to."

'Active acceptance'

Ms Thain also says acceptance is not "a passive stance", rather "an active thing that we can do where we look at all the discomfort in front of us and say, 'I am choosing to do this'."

"This" could look like choosing to accept someone "for whatever reason or reasons" is unable or won't take steps to support themselves and "this is what my role is going to be".

"That might be 'I cannot keep supporting you', or 'I can only support you in these ways', or it's actually 'I have to take some time and step away for a period of time'."

Harm reduction and workable boundaries

Ms Thain says, "I also think it's important that as a carer you don't feel like it's your responsibility to terminate the addiction".

"We talk a lot about harm minimisation and there's real power in just thinking about minimising harm and walking alongside someone through a journey of recovery, which can take time."

Chloe Span is the Victoria state manager for Family Drug Support Australia (FDS), an organisation that supports families affected by alcohol or drug dependence. She says shame and stigma "really drives this situation underground".

"Control is probably one of the main sorts of concepts that we work with families on, because most people come to FDS wanting to fix the situation, they want the answers, [and] they want the solution."

But Ms Span says drug and alcohol dependence "can be a chronic relapsing condition and people do change, but it's incrementally over time when they are ready".

"Our philosophy is absolutely harm reduction because it's unrealistic to expect anyone that has a dependency to immediately cease."

Ms Span says, "it might get to the stage where you need to make your own decisions about what you need for your own health and wellbeing".

She says workable boundaries might look like, for example, turning your phone off at midnight and back on at 7am and telling someone you won't be available during that time.

'I make decisions which are good for me'

11 years ago, Victoria — whose name has been changed for privacy — says she went to Al-Anon, a support group for the families and friends of someone with an alcohol dependence, for the first time.

Victoria says she had spent years feeling shame, anger and resentment about her husband's alcohol use.

"I would go to bed at night, and I'd be listening for what was going on — because a lot of the drinking would go on overnight — then I'd get up earlier in the morning to just do a bit of a surveillance and check what was going on and either get him up or clear up bottles and drinks and things and just try and hide it from the kids."

Over the years, Victoria says she tried changing her husband's drinking several ways; tracking his consumption, bargaining, badgering and leaving notes.

"I used to actually say to my mum, 'why do you stay with Dad when he is like this?', and she'd say, 'oh but I love him' and I felt I was feeling the same as my Mum."

When she finally went to Al-Anon, terrified someone would recognise her, Victoria says "there were people who knew my story … and I heard them say things that I could relate to."

Things such as "the three C's, I didn't cause it, I can't control it, and I can't cure it".

Victoria says her life has "changed for the better since", because she's not trying to "control" her husband or "solve his drinking".

Six years ago, in 2019, she also stopped living with her husband.

"I make decisions which are good for me, and it might sound a bit selfish, but once I backed off trying to control him, my life's a lot better and my mental health is a lot better."

Through the group, she's learnt the term "lovingly detached", which is "still caring about the person but allowing them to get on with their own [life]."

'Change how I am around her'

Edona says after cutting contact with her mum, she had "friends and family saying, 'if you were to not speak to your mother again, nobody would blame you'."

But more recently she says she was "sitting on the couch" thinking about what she was going to do.

"I thought to myself, well, obviously I'm feeling like she's not going to change, but I can kind of change how I am around her and choose to be a bit more calm about my ways of dealing with it, rather than trying to expect her to do what I want her to do."

Edona says whenever she and her mother share a positive moment, it can feel like "it cancels out everything that's bad".