People from all walks of life come for help because they love a ‘holic. It doesn’t really matter if the love object is an alcoholic, sexaholic, foodaholic, spendaholic, workaholic, drugaholic...etc.
So often the spouse comes to therapy trying to figure out how best to help the person with the problem. The first order of business in therapy is to acknowledge that two people have a very big problem.
Addiction is insidious, cunning and deadly. Any addiction can kill or lead to dire circumstances. For example, a shopping addiction can lead to out of control debt. Suddenly, the spending addict ends up on the streets, unable to pay the mortgage or can’t get to work since the car was repossessed. Addicts will lie, hide, bully, manipulate, steal and turn whatever issue you have about their behavior back on you. Addicts will undermine your sense of reality, twist and turn stories to make you think that you might just be completely crazy, do virtually anything to make sure they can keep THEIR love object, which, by the way is not their spouse. The first love of any addict is always their addiction. Most partners of addicts still don’t flinch at any of this. They empathize, make excuses and try to understand how to best help the addict so the two of them can live happily ever after. Addicts cause such destruction—so why do their partners seem so intensely focused on helping?
Often addicts have an amazing capacity to connect. They can be experts at tuning in and making people feel special or connected in a way they never have before. They are the greatest charmers around—often looking so good on the outside, perfect mirrors, positive, encouraging, funny, helpful. Usually though, they are only able to maintain these connections for brief periods of time and then resort back to being emotionally unavailable. Much of their time and obsessive thinking is around their addiction.
Their partners, knowing what is possible, keep trying to access the good parts of their loved ones, and avoid the mean addicts who appear more and more as the addiction escalates. The partners hope the addiction will get better over time, but more often it gets worse with awful consequences.
In therapy the partners learn that they are powerless over other people. They can’t make the addict seek treatment and work a 12-step program. Partners have already tried to beg, reason, threaten, and bargain until they realize that they and their children are left in the wake of the addicts' destructive behaviors. They learn that they have to “let go or be dragged” as they say in Al-Anon, a 12-step group for family members of addicts. They hear everyone else in the room talk about their beloved addict, “having so much potential.” They wonder how many times the words, “if only” were spoken in the group. They realize that in an effort to help, certain enabling behaviors actually feed the disease and make it stronger. Al-Anon helps to put the focus back on family members of 'holics, emphasiziing that the only person that can be controlled is oneself. Sometimes people realize that the “love of their lives” was really the “lesson of their lives.” Some people would rather live for the crumbs that they receive from their ‘holic, hoping that one day something will change.
Only if an addict acknowledges a problem and works a recovery program is there hope for change. In any case, life is short, so make sure that you have a life and can be fulfilled no matter what someone else is doing. Often therapy can help with setting boundaries and learning about what keeps you stuck in the patterns and behaviors that you repeat.