The Top 10 Things to Do if Your Life is being Negatively affected by Someone Else's Addiction(s)

The Top 10 Things to Do if Your Life is being Negatively affected by Someone Else's Addiction(s)

Category: Emotional Healing, Recovery, Coping, 12-Step (BE62)

Originally Submitted on 8/7/97.

If you have realized that someone else's addiction is reducing the quality of your life, your overall goal needs to be to take back control of your own life while accepting that you cannot and should not, even with the best of motives, control the others person's life. This is not easy, but things that may help include:

1. Do not try to save the person from experiencing the consequences of his/her behavior. How else can someone learn and grow but from their own behavior and their own consequences?

2. Establish your boundaries and REQUIRE respect for them. There are somethings you will no longer do, things you will not accept. This is not trying to control the other person, it is letting them know what is not acceptable to you.

3. Focus on yourself. What did your goals, joys, dreams used to be? Why have you given them up? Make a wish-list that does not including anything to do with the other person's behavior. Start working on it.

4. Make a get-and-give list. Take a realistic look at how much you give and what you actually get in your relationship. Consider what you would say to your best friend if s/he described being in such a relationship.

5. Understand that there is no contract. You may have been living with the idea that if you are nice enough for long enough the other person will see that they owe you, and will start giving in return. If this has not been clearly agreed upon by both of you then it is just an expectation, and it won't happen. If it has been agreed upon, it probably won't happen anyway.

6. Find a support group of people who have been there. Maybe a 12-Step group, maybe not, but be sure its focus is on the re-claiming of your life, and that it is not any form of cult.

7. Recognize that the only life you can control is your own. Attempts to control others are a waste of energy.

8. Re-examine your standards. Would you be ashamed to tell family and old friends about how you live, what you tolerate? Decide what you need to do so as to be able to walk proudly again.

9. Ask some trusted friends, who knew you way back when, what they see as having happened to your life, what they would like to see you do to make yourself happy. Give their answers serious consideration. They may have better perspective than you do right now.

10. Understand that heroism and self-sacrifice may be effective in times of war. They can do nothing against addiction. When the battle is with addiction the only person you can save is yourself.

About the Submitter

This piece was originally submitted by Diana Robinson, PhD., CASAC, Professional Life Coach, Writer, Editor, Counselor, who can be reached at Diana@choicecoach.com, or visited on the web. Diana Robinson wants you to know: As a Professional Life Coach I welcome the chance to work with people seeking to reconnect with their own strengths and their own authenticity, people who are seeking balance in their lives, and to whom inner, as well as outer, success is important. I offer a half-hour complimentary coaching call and a free twice-monthly e-mail newsletter. For more information see my web site. The original source is: Personal and professional observations.

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