Loving someone skillfully through a relapse is not easy, especially when it’s a close friend or family member. For those of us in recovery ourselves, it’s worth acknowledging our own limits in being “helpful” when someone we love is struggling. Depriving someone of their own experience of relapse can actually work against their future recovery.

Helpfulness can quietly turn into a need to control another person’s actions and choices. It’s possible to become enmeshed in, or overly invested in, someone else’s sobriety in a way that puts our own recovery at risk. None of this means we shouldn’t offer help to someone who reaches out to us. It means we can’t do their recovery for them. No one has the power to make another person use, or get sober.

Unskillful ways of loving someone through a relapse

  • Answering calls or texts when you know the person is currently using
  • Making yourself available at any hour to go pick them up or rescue them
  • Tracking their location on your phone
  • Abandoning your own meetings or recovery under the guise of helping them
  • Meeting up to keep someone company while they use alone
  • Not setting boundaries to protect yourself
  • Covering for a relapse or making excuses for them

How to detach with love

Detaching with love means caring enough about someone to let them learn from their own mistakes. It also means taking responsibility for your own wellbeing and making decisions without an ulterior motive of controlling someone else. Understood that way, it’s actually one of the most helpful things a loved one can do: it allows the person struggling to face the natural consequences of their own behavior, and in many cases, stepping back is the kindest available act.

The heart of it is responding by choice rather than reacting out of anxiety, anger, or fear, all of which cloud judgment. Loving detachment doesn’t mean walking away or shutting your heart off. It means continuing to love and care while stepping out of the role of problem-solver.

Finding support of your own, groups like Al-Anon and Nar-Anon, or individual therapy, makes it much easier to stay in that place of loving detachment. Al-Anon’s own literature puts it this way:

“Detachment is neither kind nor unkind. It does not imply judgment or condemnation of the person or situation from which we are detaching. It is simply a means that allows us to separate ourselves from the adverse effects that another person’s alcoholism can have upon our lives.”

Skillful ways to love someone who has relapsed

  • Let them know you’re not willing to talk unless they’re sober on the call, and set a time limit for the conversation. Rather than becoming a constant outlet for their pain, gently redirect them to their sponsor or therapist.
  • If you do meet with them, bring a sober support system. Twelfth-step calls are never done alone.
  • Ask if they’re willing to meet you at a meeting rather than one-on-one, and introduce them to others who can help if you’re not the right person to.
  • Set boundaries to protect your own recovery, even something as concrete as sending a message that says you’re detaching with love, then stepping back from contact for a while.
  • Be kind and non-judgmental about their story. Relapse is a painful experience, and the most helpful thing you can offer is encouragement toward their own resilience and self-efficacy, supporting them in taking action for themselves.

Support groups that can help you love skillfully

Al-Anon

One of the longest-running family support groups in the country, founded in 1951 for the relatives and spouses of people in Alcoholics Anonymous. It’s now one of the largest support groups anywhere, offering help and strength to the friends and family of people struggling with alcohol.

NAMI

The National Alliance on Mental Illness supports people living with, or affected by, mental illness. Its Family Support Group is a peer-led program similar to Al-Anon or Nar-Anon, focused specifically on mental illness.

Nar-Anon

Similar to Al-Anon but focused on drug addiction rather than alcohol. It’s a twelve-step family support group with sponsors and meetings, offering support from people who’ve recovered from their own codependent or unhealthy relationships with someone else’s addiction.

CoDA

Co-Dependents Anonymous supports people who are in, or have been in, codependent relationships, a pattern that’s extremely common in relationships strained by addiction.

If someone you know may be suicidal

  • Encourage them to seek professional help, and offer to help identify and contact those resources with them.
  • Talk through a safety plan: who they’ll contact if suicidal thoughts or depressive symptoms escalate. That list usually includes close friends or family, a professional, and a crisis line, like the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline, available 24/7 by call or text.
  • Ask the direct questions. Do you have a plan? Have you attempted before? Do you feel like you could hurt yourself today? Are you scared to be alone right now?
  • Don’t leave them alone. Make sure a trusted person can get them to the nearest emergency department or mental health crisis center.
  • Make sure means of harm are removed from their access, including firearms, knives, medications, alcohol, and other poisons. If you’re not close enough to do this yourself, alert someone who can.

If you believe someone is at immediate risk

If someone has expressed intent to harm themselves or someone else, you can contact local authorities to request a wellness check. A wellness check is something you can ask the police to perform whenever you’re concerned about a loved one’s safety: officers go to the person’s home or location and check on their welfare. You’ll need their current address or location to request one. Start with your local law enforcement’s non-emergency line, and call 911 if the situation feels urgent enough to need an immediate response.