Loving Someone in Addiction

Addiction is never just one person's problem — it reshapes everyone around it. This section is for the partners, parents, and family members trying to help without losing themselves: what enabling actually is (and isn't), whether tough love works, how to set boundaries that hold, and what the research says about recovering as a family. Much of the popular advice here is confident and wrong; this cluster corrects it with evidence and without judgment.

Start here

  • How do I love someone with an addiction without losing myself? — boundaries and the CRAFT evidence

  • What is enabling — and what isn't? — myth-busting a badly overused word

  • How to talk to a loved one about their drinking — a conversation guide (with a downloadable one-pager)

Every question in this section

  • How do I love someone with an addiction without losing myself?

  • What is enabling — and what isn't?

  • Does tough love work?

  • How do I set boundaries with an addicted family member?

  • Should I stay with a partner struggling with addiction?

  • How does addiction affect marriages and what predicts recovery together?

  • What is codependency (and is it even a real thing)?

  • How to talk to a loved one about their drinking

  • Recovery is a family process: what the research says

Link up:The Behavior Change Atlas

Curated by Dr. Adi Jaffe, PhD (UCLA), author of The Abstinence Myth and Unhooked.