Very few people come here who have not been beside the addict in their life for many years. I know I showed love, showed acceptance, showed many things. He had a nice home, extra income, a nice job, nice kids, nice car, so his "cage" was a nice one. However, he is still an addict.
In my opinion, we are already "decriminalizing" drug use. In big cities with rampant H use for example, they are not even arresting users who are right on the street. They are only arresting the dealers. This is because the system does not have the funds put in place to have housing, treatment, etc for the current users. It's an evil cycle. Arrest, back on the street, arrest....it goes on and on. I do think there is something to say to invest those funds into rehabbing the users instead of trying to police them, which is not working.
I also don't think this accounts for people who simply have an addictive personality. My X is like this. He goes through spurts that he is addicted to doing certain art, to collecting certain things, the list goes on. Anything he can really grab ahold of. He has had extensive counseling in his life. It has never changed, it's just his addictive personality.
Thing is, you lose yourself in the addict. For myself, I almost had a nervous breakdown. At what point is the focus put on me and how unhealthy that is for me and my children.
We cannot love them into sobriety or we would have done it a million times over. They have to be able to participate in their own recovery or they just don't recover.
Just my .02