There is a particular kind of loneliness that comes from loving someone who is hurting themselves.

It doesn’t always look dramatic. Sometimes it looks like an extra drink at dinner. A promise to cut back that never quite sticks. A partner who feels present one minute and gone the next. A subtle shift in trust that you can’t quite name - but you feel it in your body and you can tell there is a distance in your relationship.

If you’re here, chances are you’re trying to love someone through something that is bigger than both of you.

You Didn’t Cause This - and You Can’t Fix It

One of the most painful truths about addiction or unhealthy substance use is this: love does not cure it. Support helps. Care matters. But you didn’t create this problem, and you can’t solve it with the right words, rules, or sacrifices.

The internet loves quick advice:
“Just leave.”
“Just set boundaries.”
“Just get them help.”

Real life is not that clean.

You love them. You see who they are when they’re sober. You hold hope alongside heartbreak. You want to protect them - and yourself - at the same time.

What Support Actually Looks Like

Supporting someone with an unhealthy relationship to substances doesn’t mean rescuing them. It means staying connected to your own values while staying honest about what you’re experiencing.

It looks like:

Naming what you see without attacking
“I’ve noticed when you drink, you pull away and we fight more. I miss you.”
Talking about how it affects you
Not just what they’re doing - but how it lands in your nervous system and impacts your life.
Encouraging help, not forcing it
Therapy, groups, medical care - these aren’t punishments. They’re lifelines!
Refusing to lie, cover, or clean up
Protecting someone from consequences often protects the addiction, not the person.

That’s not cruelty. That’s clarity.

Boundaries Are Not Abandonment

One of the hottest conversations online right now is about boundaries. And when addiction is in the picture, boundaries are often misunderstood as ultimatums or emotional withdrawal.

But boundaries are simply the line between what you can live with and what you can’t.

A boundary might sound like:

“I won’t stay in the room when you’re drinking.”
“I need us to talk when you’re sober.”
“I love you, and I won’t lie to your boss for you.”

These aren’t punishments. They are how you stay whole.

You Are Allowed to Have Needs

It’s easy to disappear when someone you love is struggling. To shrink. To become the manager, the monitor, the fixer. But you are still a person in this relationship.

You get to want:

safety
honesty
intimacy
reliability
peace

Loving someone who is struggling does not require you to suffer in silence.

Hope Is Honest - but So Is Reality

People do recover. People do change. People do find their way back! We see this every day as clinicians doing therapy in Seattle and Kirkland - the hope we hold is not fluffy, but is rooted in actual experiences we’ve seen where someone confronts their powerlessness in their relationship to a substance and takes the brave step to start to change.

But the path is rarely linear. And hope works best when it’s grounded in truth, not denial.

You can love deeply and still ask hard questions.
You can stay connected and still protect yourself.
You can believe in them and still take yourself seriously.

That balance - that’s where real love lives.

Loving Someone Who’s Struggling With Addiction

You Didn’t Cause This - and You Can’t Fix It

What Support Actually Looks Like

Boundaries Are Not Abandonment

You Are Allowed to Have Needs

Hope Is Honest - but So Is Reality