Loving With Addiction
Anonymous
“In addiction, there’s no room for love – not even for yourself.” This was expressed in an interview by a person who had experienced addiction. As the child of a person who actively struggles with addiction, my parental relationship has been troubled and strenuous. Endless curiosities surrounding his prioritisation of substances over me and what that meant in relation to the deep love he loudly and commonly claimed to feel for me plagued my perception of him and myself. I recently endeavoured to explore the impact of addiction on relationships, specifically the presence and the practice of love.
To aid with my quest in navigating loving with addiction, I interviewed two people. The first person (Matthew) had struggled with addiction for many decades and the second person (Megan) had a daughter who had experienced addiction. Neither of these names are real.
During my interview with Megan, a common theme became apparent. “Love and a determination to make it better” is how she responded to her daughter’s addiction. She also mentioned how unconditional love is not always the best thing, as it may be difficult to live with people with addiction. Rather, she stressed the significance of love and support through recovery but stressed the importance of the unconditional love and support she gave to her daughter through her battle with addiction.
With this in mind, I wanted to discuss the possibility of love whilst experiencing addiction. I began my interview with Matthew with a discussion about love and the way it had changed for the first person throughout his recovery process. He mentioned the self loathing involved in his experience of addiction and about how there is no room for love in addiction. He felt no will to live and tortured himself by using. In this isolated and bleak environment, it’s difficult to imagine that love is possible in any capacity. However, he also explained that despite the stigma he faced from many, he encountered people who saw him as he was. Whilst he may have been unable to feel love through addiction, maybe these connections helped him move towards love in some way. He described how this changed through his recovery process as he formed new relationships and felt accepted by his loved ones. His definition of love even changed throughout the interview, beginning with the answer, “love is about caring, kindness and respect” and ending with the addition of “love is forgiveness.” In this way, love seems like something built through the process of recovery rather than something that can be practiced through active addiction.
Experiencing addiction is incredibly difficult and making it through recovery is one of the greatest accomplishments there is. Addiction is an illness that can rot you and everything around you including your relationships. It may not be the fault of the person experiencing addiction, but it can be difficult for a loved one to cope with such devastating possibilities and such taxing responsibilities. Megan mentioned how she had to confront the real possibility of her daughter dying. The gravity of this realisation is immense. Her response of unconditional love and support makes sense.
In the particular dynamic of having a parent experience addiction, the inverted caring dynamic expected of me was very frustrating. Each pill was a rejection and every unresponsive moment was a demand. In this way, if loving existed it was wrong and it was skewed.
Sometimes, loving someone with addiction can feel like you’re pouring yourself into a cup with holes at the bottom. At that point, is it even love? We give until we have nothing left and muddle our way through desperate decisions. Sometimes we even resign ourselves to a seemingly inevitable outcome yet always yearn for the possibility of some relief to the familiar worry and disappointment in the back of our minds.