Words from Kristina Wandzliak

Enabling, feeling guilty, or taking care of their addict actually helps them die. That’s the truth. When you have an addicted individual in your family you are either part of the problem or part of the solution. You will either be at that person’s funeral or you will be with that person recovering..that is your choice. We addicts have a choice. We either die sober or we die loaded. But we will always die addicted. Once addicted, always addicted. So families have to make a decision about how they want their lives to interface with addiction. There is profound shame for example, for a parent to have an addicted child. There is profound shame in having a child who is out of control. People think parents should be able to control their children and their young people and that’s not always the case, particularly with addiction. Help parents understand by helping take care of your person you are actually only killing them which is the counterintuitive piece. It’s counterintuitive for parents or loved ones to turn their back to seemingly turn their back on their addicts when they seemingly need them the most. The great secret of addiction, the great challenge of addiction, the very thing addicts need in order to wake up to their own situation is the opportunity to run into themselves. And while families are in the middle trying to protect the addict from the natural consequences of their addiction the addict never gets to run into themselves. People change when it makes sense to them to change.