OK first off, if someone is seriously mentally ill and has been diagnosed as such, there are still programs and places available to help them. If they are sane enough to legally have the right to choose whether or not they take advantage of those things, then, as far as I can tell, when it comes to taking care of myself insofar as they are concerned, there is not really any practical difference between how I am going to relate to them and how I am going to relate to anyone else who chooses to engage in self-destructive, dangerous behavior.
So, as far as the "tough love" question goes:
You know I think it depends an awful lot on what you mean by "really work" and/or "a good approach." If you mean, is it somehow guaranteed to "make someone engaged in dangerous behavior see the light," then "No -- it's not a good approach and it doesn't really work."
If you mean, "Does it constitute my best chance for getting them to see the light," then, really, you're still focused on them and what you think they should be doing and on how you might get some control over them and be their savior, and it's probably not the best approach because you're not in a place where you can really practice it and it probably won't "really work" because you are going to be judging it's effectivenss by how it impacts the other person's life rather than by how it impacts yours.
In my mind, tough love is "tough" because it's tough on me, not because it's tough on the other. (Addiction/mental illness is what's tough on the A...."tough love" has got to be friggin' joy-ride in comparison!)...Tough love is tough on me because it means letting go and letting the other receive the consequences that s/he has rightly earned through her/his own actions and choices. It means recognizing that s/he is an adult with the right to make her/his own choices and with the right to have me respect that and not interfere or try to change or control. It means me valuing myself enough to do the work I need to do to know who I am and what I need and me becoming strong enough to take the steps I need to take to make sure that all of that is not compromised by any other person's sick choices. In short, it means my learning to do and be all of the things that -- especially as a woman in a patriarchal, highly Christian society -- I have been taught (mostly for the benefit of power addicts) I am not supposed to do.
Obviously, you are very right about jail being a dangerous and violent place -- but, seriously, addiction is a dangerous and violent place and, if left untreated, it is going to lead to dangerous and violent ends -- maybe not in jail, but dangerous and violent nonetheless. Even if an addict dies totally wasted in his/her own bed, is that not a dangerous and violent death caused by his/her own addiction???? I guess maybe I'm not really seeing what exactly it is you think you might be protecting them from with enabling "love" as opposed to tough love.....(and, yes, I put the scare quotes around enabling "love" because I really do have some doubts as to how true -- "true" as in other-directed as opposed to self-centered -- of a love it actually is).
...and actually, now that I've written that, I think I need to ask if maybe the person you're really thinking about protecting is yourself.....protecting yourself from fully realizing and accepting the harsh and very ugly realities of any increasingly self-destructive behavior and where it takes people who do not take care of themselves. You don't want to see your A in jail -- you don't want to have your A suffer whatever might await him/her there....so you think maybe it's a better idea to protect both of you from that happening -- him/her from experiencing the direct pain of the consequences and yourself from experiencing the pain of having to share/feel/live his/her pain....again...and again.....and again.....and again....But, for me, the biggest problem with that kind of protection was that it only deepened and prolonged the misery of everyone involved. And I did have the power, at any time, to disengage from my part of that misery and have a better life....and tough love (or, if it makes it sound better, you can say "detachment") let me do that.
Now, I do need to be very clear here, obviously there is a lot of sadness and grief involved with knowing that a loved one is suffering, maybe even especially when you know that that suffering could be prevented by some very clear and simple (that is not to say "easy") different choices......but for those of us who love A's, we are the ones who choose to turn that sadness and grief into a never-ending tortuous misery by remaining actively engaged and emeshed.
Basically, tough love is one of the tools that saved me from the consequences of addiction -- because, make no mistake about it, if you choose to stay emeshed with and enabling of an A you are not only not going to succeed in saving them from the consequences of their own behavior, but you are pretty much going to guarantee that you share those consequences in perhaps different but equally unpleasant ways.
So, in terms of freeing yourself and fulfilling yourself and your having a much better, more peaceful and serene life, in my personal experience, "tough love" works just great!
freya
BTW, The term "tough love" can mean different things to different people and there are people who tend to use it as a justification for being unnecessarily hurtful and mean....for me what it basically means is the practical/theory-into-practice result of successful detachment. So, detachment is the emotional state; tough love is the behavior that results from one being in that state.