Originally Posted by
Troubledone 
I have gained so much from this forum and the input from so many people, I wondered if any of you would like to say a word or two about what keeps (kept) you strong when you finally started setting boundaries.
I just set a big one with my addict and I am resolved to stay strong, so I'm thinking a little advice might help me if/when the going gets tough.
I am starting with - Treat her like you would any other adult.
Well...in my situation, the addict in my life left me AFTER I started enforcing some boundaries. She didn't care for that at all, so she hooked up with someone who would indulge her.
The thing is before I started enforcing those boundaries, I was driving myself nuts trying to keep us and our relationship on some kind of even keel. What I figured out was that's impossible, because the addict is operating by their own set of rules which is often orthogonal to what the rest of us operate by. Once I accepted there was literally nothing I could do to modulate her behavior, I felt liberated. I was especially liberated after she took off.
So many people come here and believe they don't have options when it comes to dealing with someone else's addiction. That's simply untrue. There
are options. It's just a question of what price you're willing to pay to regain and keep your sanity. And I can tell you that that price is better than the price you're already paying trying to deal with an addict's stuff.