So how can we best protect ourselves from the chaos, stress, and anxiety of active addiction? Some of us have spent years being affected by the addiction of our loved ones--staying involved because we don't think they could possibly be manipulative if they truly love us.
How can the addict attempting to recover protect themselves from the controlling and manipulative people that *we* can allow ourselves to become? People we don't even recognize anymore...
How can we stop this dance before it becomes this "death spiral" in which both parties (regardless of the relationship) crash and whole lifetimes are lost to this struggle?