There can't be anything more heartbreaking than to watch a loved one slowly kill themselves. I do believe that there is PART of this they have no control over - and that's why counseling, therapy, rehab is so important. It's a disease that they need professional help recovering from, but it's one they also have to WANT to recover from.
The bottom seems to never come or arrive so slowly it's too late, at times.
I keep thinking THIS time has to be the bottom. No? Okay...THIS. Not yet? Damn...how much worse can it get?
Every time something horrible happens and we are certain it can not get any worse...it does.
It's in our nature to comfort, counsel, care for and cure those we love. It's almost impossible not to. That is why it takes us so long to stop enabling and to stop taking their troubles into our hearts and life.
I am by NO means an expert in this, still learning...but am very slowly becoming aware of the fact that in order to save MY life, so I can be emotionally healthy enough to help her when she does come for help, I have to let go.
To me, right now, it seems uncaring, unfeeling, uncharitable, unsupportive, unChrist-like, and definitely un-mommy-ish. And I don't know how to get there. That seems to be where you are at, too....without the mommy part!
My daughter is sitting in jail. We won't bail her out again - have been burned twice by her failing to appear. Hearing her say "I'm your child, mom...please help your CHILD." breaks my heart in a thousand pieces. But I've also come to the awful realization that she's playing me as sure as I'm sittin' here. She doesn't mean the words - well, she might mean them NOW, but once out she's disappeared again and we start the cycle of sleepless nights full of tears, worry, and fear because she doesn't contact us and lives on the streets in her car.
Didn't mean to make this all about me - just want you to know these feelings are very normal and it takes time to work through them. It takes many times of being used and manipulated to "catch on". It's takes a LOT of evidence that our addict is not concerned for OUR feelings before we are willing to trust that evidence.
There is nothing wrong with tears - as long as they are used to cleanse your soul and not to drown in.