If someone you care about suffers from addiction, you’re likely familiar with the emotional rollercoaster it can cause. You try to help, only to be rebuffed. You try to find solutions, only to be told that you are the problem. Nothing you do, nothing you try, seems to work.
“It’s not your fault,” Philip Kolski, a licensed clinical social worker at Mills-Peninsula Behavioral Health Center, says. “A person with addiction is not in control of their life.” Their sole focus is to relieve the emotional pain inside, and to avoid going through withdrawal.
“A person with addiction is not worried about other people or their feelings,” Kolski adds. “In fact, they often blame their loved ones for everything. This, of course, only pushes people away, and the addict often ends up with no support system whatsoever. Addiction can be a very lonely disease.”