Having an addiction is a hugely challenging and complex condition that affects not only the person with the addiction, but all the family members and friends who care for them too. Family members and friends can often struggle with knowing how best to support the person they care for. It is natural to want to offer unconditional help and assistance, but often the balance can tip, and they can find themselves drawn into unhealthy and damaging situations.
If you are supporting someone with a dependency or addiction, being able to maintain healthy boundaries will ensure your own wellbeing is protected, and it will also be the very best way you can promote the recovery of the person you care for. Here we offer some support and practical advice on how to set boundaries and create healthy distance when it is needed, while still providing support in a way that is positive for everyone.
Understanding the impact someone’s addiction can have on others
The exact nature of the impact that someone's addiction can have on others will depend on the type and extent of the dependency, but people’s lives can be affected in all areas. As well as the very real physical, emotional and mental effects, addiction and dependency can have social, financial and legal implications for everyone involved too. Our article on ways you might be impacted by someone’s addiction goes into more depth.
Boundaries
Boundaries are like invisible lines that define the limits of acceptable behaviour within our relationships, acting as guidelines for how we interact with one another and establishing what is acceptable and what is not. When dealing with addiction, setting and enforcing the boundaries you draw up is essential for everyone involved, so any negative impact on your life is reduced.
If you are supporting someone with an addiction, it can be helpful to think about your boundaries as a carer. To ensure that you are caring in a way that works for you, our article on carer boundaries offers more advice here, and below we explore more about boundaries if you are supporting someone with an addiction, and why it’s so important.
This is an area that lots of people who care for someone with an addiction can find tricky, wondering ‘How do I support someone without supporting their behaviour?’ If the person you are caring for is looking for emotional support, you can simply listen to what they have to say, validating their feelings and showing them you care even if you make it clear you disagree with certain choices they may still be making.
Sometimes, people who support someone with an addiction realise that whilst they have been acting from a place of wanting to help or reduce someone’s suffering, they may have been actually enabling them to sustain their problematic behaviour by making things easier for them in certain ways.
Drawing up clear boundaries around what you will and will not do, as well as around what types of behaviour are acceptable, can help you avoid enabling and collusion. This is something we also cover in our article on understanding the different ways of responding.
Setting boundaries can often mean things become less comfortable or less ‘easy’ for a person who has an addiction, and so putting some strong boundaries in place can become a positive part of encouraging the person you care for to access support or treatment.
Being able to see that certain behaviours are unacceptable, and putting measures in place to support yourself and other family members who might be involved, will be part of your journey as someone affected by addiction. It might not be easy, but when faced with certain behaviours, you will come to recognise where your responses might be enabling the person you are caring for, or how challenging them can sometimes be unproductive and stressful because of the stage of the cycle of change they might be in.
Distancing yourself from problematic behaviours could involve choosing a different approach that feels more appropriate to the stage they are in, like an empathetic response where you simply provide a listening ear, or acting in a supportive role to offer suggestions if they are ready to seek help. At times, the most helpful response for everyone involved can be to firmly distance yourself and say a clear ‘no’ to what might be happening.
The more you prioritise your own self-care, the more you will realise that you don’t have to deal with these difficult situations alone, and that you deserve help to stay strong in the face of the challenges you might be facing. Looking after your own wellbeing will also help you to stay calmer and feel more able to know what is right for you. It will support you to hold firm on your boundaries and avoid the stress and anxiety of getting drawn into confrontation.
Creating boundaries and helpful distance between you and the person with an addiction doesn’t mean that you don’t care for them, although sometimes you might worry that you’re abandoning them, or being ‘mean’. Sometimes the person you are supporting might say these things to you to make you feel guilty and change your mind. It can be helpful in these moments when you have to be strong and maintain a boundary to remember that it’s not the person with the addiction you object to, it’s the way they are behaving. When they are ready, there is always support available for them to make changes, and then things might be different.
Sometimes, it might be that you reach a point where the relationship between you and the person you care for might have to end because you want a life that feels different, and they are unwilling to make the changes that would require. Sometimes, it will be very clear that creating physical distance between you and the person with an addiction is the only way you or other family members can stay safe and well.
If you feel this way, there are organisations and processes there to help you. If you are at risk of harm from someone who has a dependency, you should call 999 or you can find the relevant domestic violence helplines at https://www.nhs.uk/live-well/getting-help-for-domestic-violence/. If you need to leave your home in order to protect yourself, you can apply for emergency housing from your local council.