Do you...

• Feel like your life is centered around what your loved one does?
  
• Feel like you don’t have fun anymore?
  
• Provide excuses for or cover up for your loved one?
  
• Shield your loved one from the consequences of their addiction?
  
• Allow your boundaries to be trampled on by your loved one?
  
• Feel manipulated by your loved one?
  
• Find your finances are affected by your loved one?
  
• Feel hopeless
  
• Fear that your loved one may die?
  
• Find life to be exhausting?
  

If you answered “yes” to three or more of these questions or feel you could add more to the list, you are in need of time to recover for your own health and welfare.

Family and friends labor under the heavy emotional burden of the addiction of a loved one. It happens slowly until one day, you wake up and realize that your life is changing for the worse in direct proportion to the your loved one’s addiction. You realize you feel fear, resentment, and hopelessness. You wonder why you feel a constant anxious feeling. You can’t relax, you are always on edge…waiting for the other shoe to drop. You fear the phone call. You know the call, the one that will tell you that your world is crashing because of the choices of your addicted loved one. The news that will cause your heart to break even more.

There is help and there is hope. There is peace available to you if you just reach out for it. The sooner you start to get better, the sooner you will realize that the more you try to rescue your loved one, the fewer reasons they have to get sober. Your behavior does affect your loved one’s addiction.

Addiction destroys families as much as it destroys the addicted one. Living with an addict is heartbreaking and takes an exhausting toll on your personal well being. It causes conflict between family members and ruins relationships. Family members are torn between helping their loved one and enabling them. They know it is a disease, but it’s not as easy as taking insulin or getting chemo therapy. Families are at a loss as to how to deal with this illness called addiction and the shame and guilt that seems to interfere with seeking help.

This is a place to reach out to. Help to educate yourself about addiction and recovery. Help for your own healing. Help to know how to respond, what to say, what to do for yourself and for your loved one. Help to feel better and to give you hope. A place to start mending your broken heart.