You're listening to the Love Over Addiction Podcast.

Hey, how are you? Today is a very, very hot day in Florida. Quite miserable, actually, for this Canadian girl.

Today we're going to be talking about one of the things, one of the very negative effects that we have and endure when we love someone struggling with addiction.

We talk about it a lot. This is a symptom of really being lied to, of being constantly manipulated, and it is the result of a lot of deception.

And it's the feeling of going crazy. And I know, I know, for those of you who have been listening for a couple of years now, you're like, Michelle, really crazy again. Yup, I'm here because I park here a lot with you because I think this job when I often, you know, grab my phone, go out my backyard and record one of these podcasts where I'm writing for you.

I often think it's me against addiction and we're fighting for you. Like, I want to take on addiction for you so that I can do this battle because I remember loving someone, and I'm going to mention a really personal story today, who was a great guy, incredibly talented.

Like way more talented than I am. And he struggled with addiction, and I felt so alone. And I wanted someone to fight for me. And my parents, neither one of them struggled with addiction. They didn't know what they were dealing with. And plus I kept it a secret for a really long time from so many people for over nine years because I wanted protect him.

I didn't want them to tell me that I needed to leave him or convince, think of me as weak for staying, right? I wanted them to like him because the more people that loved him and liked him, maybe the better chances he would have of getting sober because he'd finally realize how loved he was, right? I thought that if I smothered him with enough enough love and I found the troops and I rallied the community.

And we all loved him too, that that would heal his addiction. And, trustfully, a lot of self-help books and gurus and whatever make you believe that love heals everything.

And I think sometimes from being honest, I just have a little bit of beef with that, particularly when you love someone struggling with addiction because you're like, wait a second, I am loving.

In fact, my love is not only healing them, it's killing me. Love is doing the exact opposite of healing in this situation.

So whenever someone says that, I just always, I oof, I see it on mugs or t-shirts or whatever, I kind of cringe a little because I don't think it's applicable to everyone and everything in all situations.

So we do feel very, very crazy because we addiction, and you guys remember, we think of addiction as a third party, right?

We are individuals, we love another individual, and then there's the mistress of our relationship, and that's the addiction.

So we do this, we separate the person from the addiction because we love the person not their addiction.

It's just a very healthy way of recognizing and realizing that we are in love with good people, most of us.

There are some of us in this community who unfortunately addiction has taken over their lives so much that they are a shell of the human being that they once were, and you begin to recognize their natural state less and less, right?

And their decisions and choices become criminal, painful, super unhealthy, really damaging, and then you sit there and you go, you know what, this isn't a good person I'm dealing with anymore.

They once were really good, but they've done such cool, horrible things that I can't safely consider this person a good person anymore, right?

Because this disease is progressive, it takes over the person you love, and unless they get sober and stay sober and continue to choose a life of sobriety every day, it progresses and progresses, and then the person that we once love slowly morphs into a completely different human being.

Until one day you wake up and you go, I don't actually recognize any part of you. I get these very small glimpses of who you are, but I don't recognize you at all.

And I would say that's true in my situation, you know, it's been my gosh, I don't even well over 10 years.

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