Hi INGal--there is one more aspect that I can share from my own ES&H--back when I was not as deep into recovery as I am today...I had a daughter who was addicted...to drugs and alcohol...and she left home to life with her boyfriend and his mother. I did feel (at the time she had just turned 18) that the woman 'needed' a brief warning...it probably prolonged the relationship...and made the woman be kinder to my daughter for longer than she would have been otherwise...as I didn't know her then...but now--12 years and a set of twins later (no on-going relationship between the two except as family to the twins--which is knarly enough)--the daughter also blames me.
cookiesncream--didn't perceive you as venting--had a similar experience with my mom about my fiance--who drank...since my dad drank and I wasn't aware then of what alcoholism was or even that drinking was bad (although I have never chosen to be a drinker--it wasn't because of them...it was because I didn't like what it did to me)--and as the years have unfolded...have learned so much more that is just heartbreaking and life destructing...for me as well as them. Hard path.
The only difference is...being in recovery...I know it...them...being in continued and life-long denial (Mother is 84; husband is 63; daughter is 28)--they don't and can be very abusive as well...more so as the years continue.