No. A drug addict cannot truly love you.
If you’ve found this article, you might be searching for ways to repair a “broken relationship”. But the truth is, you’ve got to fix…you! Here, we’ll take a brief look at root causes for loving an addict. What gets you to this desperate place to begin with?
Then, we’ll challenge you to take action. If you have any questions, please leave them in the comments section at the end. In fact, we try to respond to all real life questions personally and promptly.
Getting to the Root of Co-Addiction
If you find yourself in the situation where you love an addict and you cannot let them go, then you need to get down to the root of your issues, not theirs. If you have found that you meet the criteria of a co-addict; it is time to look at how this situation developed.
Codependent and Co-addictive behaviors may have roots that date back to childhood. The behavior may be so severely suppressed that the co-addict does not even relate to or remember when they lost their sense of self. For example, if a young child faces:
- sexual abuse
- emotional abuse
- verbal abuse
- psychological abuse
- neglect or abandonment by a parent
…they may have tried to resist. In this resistance they find that the abuser only becomes more irate. Their response to fight for their well-being gets them nowhere. Over time, the child may learn that their feelings are less important and become submissive to that person, parent and/or abuser.
Are You Becoming More Submissive?
The abuse or act of submissive behavior may even be mild; a controlling parent, a self-absorbed parent or a caregiver who abandons a child. Even if these roles are not as pronounced as what we think of as outright abuse, the child is still learning that their voice only angers this person and they develop a passive, submissive disposition.
More specifically, with a co-addict, the development of submissive behavior might be a result of a childhood relationship with an addict. For example, if a child’s parent/s or caregivers are addicts then the child may learn early on that they must put their parent and their addiction first. They are naturally going to come second to a parent’s addiction so they lose their voice, their sense of self and learn to grow up taking care of an addict parent or family member. This behavior can become something that is ingrained and will be carried out into all other areas and relationships in their life.
Do You Value the Addict More Than Yourself?
It is also possible that the adult co-addict or codependent is aware of the abusive relationship they endured which imprinted their lack of sense of self. In either case, the adult codependent is a person who puts more value on the person they love then on their own welfare. A co-addict or codependent may lose their identity. The only identity they create is through the person they are codependent on.
Addict and Co-addict: A Perfect Match
Don’t you find it strange that most addicts marry codependents or co-addicts who end up putting their addiction and problems above their own?
This relationship is actually a pretty natural one. Co-addicts need to hide behind others and be submissive and addicts need someone to take care of them and put up with their behaviors. An addict is naturally attracted to a codependent or co-addict. In fact, being in any type of relationship with one is how most addicts survive and continue their addiction as long as they do.
The Challenge: Are You Ready to Look at Yourself?
If you can look at your past trauma, childhood relationships and experiences, you may start to uncover why you chose an addict as a partner. Being with an addict or a person whose needs are put above yours may be comfortable for you, familiar, and feel like second nature. If you can understand why you are in this type of relationship and unravel the life events which helped you get here; then you can start to work on your part which contributes to this troubling relationship dynamic.
How can you fix the relationship and the dynamics of it if you do not understand why it happened in the first place? You cannot and that is why a co-addict must get down to the root of their problems and stop deflecting them with the addict’s problems. That is the only way for a co-addict to sort out and then make changes in their life.
