Promises
 

I was reading the 10 things to do with an addict in your family sticky again, and this one caught my eye.

6) Don’t extract promises. A person with an addiction cannot keep promises. This is not because they don’t intend to, but rather because they are powerless to consistently act upon their commitments . Extracting a promise is a waste of time and only serves to increase the anger toward the loved one.

Looking for your $0.02. Should it read instead "a non-recovering person with an addiction cannot keep promises?" I truthfully don't know because at our house, we are too early in recovery for that. I am not talking about extracted promises either. I know now, as an example, RAH will come up to me and promise to take care of something without my asking and it often goes by the wayside (so for now I ignore those promises). Does that change further along in recovery?

Just a thought for the day.

If they continue in recovery, yes, it should change. Either not to make promises they are unlikely to keep, or to make every effort to keep those they do make.

Right now (assuming he really is working on his recovery) he probably is trying to show good intentions. I'd not put a lot of stock in those promises for right now. It takes time to learn how to be responsible to other people.

Addicts and alcoholics can't and don't keep promises. After engaging in long term recovery and working the steps (if they can get past step four, and the majority don't), they separate into two groups of people relative to keeping promises and truth telling.

The first group is people who become very honest, sometimes painfully honest and direct. I love these people.

The second group are people who it turns out are in fact liars and unreliable. These people are just as unpleasant sober as they are under the influence.

Your dude is in one of these groups, but until he is engaged in a long-term recovery program and truly starts sober living, you'll never know which.

Cyranoak