"Loving an Addicted Child Without Losing Yourself"

Walking the Fine Line Between Love and Survival

Loving a child with addiction is like being caught in a rip current—you want to pull them to safety, but the harder you try, the more you risk drowning alongside them.

I spent years believing that if I just loved my son enough, I could save him. I thought if I gave him one more chance, one more loan, one more rescue from a bad situation, he’d finally turn things around. But love isn’t enough to fix addiction. And I was losing myself in the process.

Setting boundaries felt impossible. How do you say no when your child is suffering? But I learned the hard way that loving someone doesn’t mean losing yourself. I had to redefine what love looked like. It wasn’t bailing him out of every crisis. It wasn’t pretending everything was fine. It was telling him I loved him but refusing to enable him. It was getting therapy for myself, finding support groups, and realizing that I was allowed to have a life outside of his addiction.

If you’re struggling with this, know that you don’t have to prove your love by sacrificing yourself. Real love is sometimes saying, “I can’t do this for you, but I’ll be here when you’re ready to do it for yourself.”