For the next few weeks on my blog, I am going to be sharing the 12 principles of what it means to Love Well. I hope that you will join me on this journey and that some of this information will be insightful to you.
Loving well means gaining a new perspective on the disease of addiction.
Addiction: The word alone evokes a thousand emotions and images. Images that often circulate on social media. The man shooting up, being held by Jesus. The photos of the overdose victims passed out in their car with a child in the back seat. The junkie laying on the street as people walk by him. The scantily clad woman on the corner with a cigarette hanging out of her mouth. The picture of the tombstone with the 20 year olds name on it.
All of these images strike fear in the hearts of the family, when addiction hits their world.
The truth is that there is no other disease out there that flaunts the images of those sick and dying like society does regarding the disease of addiction. And those pictures give us all permission to look at the “addict” as bad, as a loser, as a weakling who is making horrible choices.
But what if those suffering aren’t bad. What if they are very very sick? Would we treat them differently?
When we begin to understand the power that the brain has to change neuropathways and how those pathways adapt when someone is in active addiction, we can begin to understand that no one in addiction WANTS to do the things they do. The need to satisfy the compulsion to use, takes precedence over every other matter in their lives. They will lie. They will steal. They will leave their child crying at the door. They will shoot up with their kids in the back seat.
And these are the SYMPTOMS of the disease of addiction.
I was at a funeral recently. A man who passed from an alcohol related auto accident. Person after person got up and spoke regarding how wonderful this man was. How he had helped his daughter get sober. How he had worked with vets to take them outdoors and fishing. How he was an amazing father, husband, brother. His wife had been coming to our group for a few months and had I not heard these stories I would have never recognized that they were talking about the same man. This man, in his addiction had become mean, controlling, belligerent, manipulative. He had been lying and taking money out of their accounts. He would literally go outside barefoot and walk miles to the liquor store to get more alcohol. The disease had changed him. These were the symptoms of the disease.
When we can begin to understand how the disease changes the brain, we can begin to stop taking addiction personally. This man did not yell and scream and control his wife because he was mean. This man did those things simply so he could get his alcohol. The disease was not WHO he was. The disease was the sickness he had.
As we worked with the wife and she began to understand this, things started to change for her. She began to see her husband through the eyes empathy. Her responses to him moved from being combative to being kind. She learned to set loving boundaries that allowed her to be free from anger, frustration and bitterness. She moved from a place of having to fix him, to loving him where he was at. The morning her husband passed, she exchanged text messages with him. He looked at her and said “I do not want to be this way. Today is a new day. Today I will work towards becoming the man you love.” And the wife replied “I believe that you will. I will do what it takes to help you get well.” They said “I love you” to each other and shortly after those texts her husband was gone.
Loving Well means, if your loved one dies from the disease of addiction today, what would the last exchange you had with your loved one look like? It means looking back and knowing that you were compassionate, understanding, connected and had no regrets. It is possible even in the most difficult situations. We will continue to explore this more in principal 2. Loving well means understanding intrinsic value and identity.