I am not addicted to a substance.
But try loving someone who is—and then tell me you didn’t get addicted to trying to save them.
If you’re lucky, they recover. If you’re really lucky, you recover, too.
Loving someone with Substance Use Disorder consumes your every thought. Watching them deteriorate—physically, emotionally, spiritually—can make you feel like the most exhausted insomniac alive. You find yourself pacing the halls, standing in doorways, pleading, “I just want you back.” You watch the person you love slip away right in front of your eyes, and slowly, piece by piece, you begin to dissolve too.
Those who haven’t lived it may never understand why your focus is entirely on your loved one’s well-being. After all, during active addiction, your family member often seems unconcerned with themselves. Don’t resent those who don’t get it—they are lucky not to understand. And sometimes, deep down, you wish you didn’t understand either.
“What if you had to wake up every day and wonder if today was the day your family member would die?” This is no rhetorical question. It’s the grim reality of watching addiction at work.
Drug addiction has a ripple effect unlike anything else. It causes parents to outlive their children, sends loved ones to jail or homelessness, forces sisters to grieve siblings, and denies nieces and nephews the chance to know their aunts or uncles. You may see your loved one walking and talking—but the truth is, you begin to lose them long before their body gives out. If they don’t find recovery, that loss becomes inevitable.
Drug addiction teaches fear. You learn to dread a ringing phone, a knock at the door, a sudden text. It turns obituaries into a code: “died suddenly” has quietly become shorthand for another young life stolen by overdose. Bedrooms and social media feeds turn into memorials. Yesterday outweighs tomorrow. Trust, homes, and even the law break under the weight of addiction. Knees bend in prayer because sometimes it’s all that remains.
People label those who struggle. “Junkie,” “criminal,” “trash.” Rarely is that true. Addiction is an illness, and addicts are people with families, dreams, and aspirations. It doesn’t care about your home, your faith, your grades, your race, or your past. One decision, one lapse in judgment, and the course of an entire life can shift forever. Addiction doesn’t care. But you do.
You learn to hate the drug but love the human. You realize you must separate who someone once was from who they have become. It is not the person who steals, lies, or lashes out—it is the addiction. Yet, heartbreakingly, it is not the addiction that dies—it is the person.
