Addiction and the Family: Loving Someone You Cannot Save

A personal reflection on addiction, abandonment, grief, family systems, and the difficult healing of releasing someone’s outcome

I am very familiar with addiction. I know the hurt, the pain, the confusion, the abandonment, and the heartbreak addiction causes loved ones.

My sister and I grew up with addiction in our family system, and we experienced firsthand the ways addiction can fracture a family—especially the innocent hearts of children. If I were to name the deepest imprint addiction left on me, it would be abandonment. That is the truest wound I know in the depths of my core from loving someone affected by addiction.

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