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Last Updated on October 6, 2024 by Randy Withers, LCMHC
When a loved one battles addiction, you feel a roller coaster of emotions. From helplessness to hope, empathy to despair, the illness takes its toll. You want to do whatever it takes to help, but sometimes, the best way to do that is by setting boundaries. Caring for a loved one shouldn’t come at the expense of your mental health.
Creating boundaries can be scary. You may worry about what your loved one will do if you say no. However, enabling their damaging behaviors can cause more harm than good. Here’s how to set healthy boundaries while still supporting someone with addiction.
How To Set Healthy Boundaries: 5 Points To Consider
1. Know Your Limits
Boundaries define how you want others to treat you. They draw a line between acceptable and unacceptable behavior. Before you can set one, you must understand your non-negotiables.
Ask yourself the following questions:
- What am I willing to tolerate?
- What are my values?
- Does this behavior negatively impact me?
- How can I protect my mental well-being?
2. Use Clear Communication
Communicating your boundaries sets expectations and consequences for you and your loved one. Avoid blame or accusations. Instead, use “I” statements to focus on how their actions make you feel. For example, you might say, “I feel scared when you use [x].”
Choose the right time and place for boundary-setting conversations. Speak to your loved one when they are sober and in a calm environment.
3. Stay Consistent
With consistency, boundaries retain their meaning. If your loved one feels their behavior has no consequences, they will repeat it. Consistent boundaries are essential for the following reasons:
- Avoids confusion: If you stick by your boundaries, your loved one knows what to expect.
- Encourages trust: Standing by what you say shows your loved one they can rely on you. Consistency provides much-needed stability for someone with addiction.
- Establishes accountability: Enforcing your boundaries empowers your loved one to take responsibility. Instead of excusing their behavior, it holds them accountable.
- Motivates change: Your loved one might emulate your positive boundary-setting for their recovery. Realizing their actions have consequences could encourage change.
4. Focus on Self-Care
Supporting someone with addiction affects your physical, mental and emotional health. Take time to replenish your energy.
Self-care might mean walking, spending time with friends, or reading a book. You can’t support others when drained and burnt out.
5. Encourage Professional Support
Substance abuse recovery takes more than support from family and friends. Professional treatment gives your loved one a better chance of overcoming their addiction, so encourage them to seek help.
Treatment methods for addiction recovery include:
- Therapy or counseling: Cognitive behavioral therapy focuses on changing addiction-related patterns. Motivational interviewing promotes commitment and motivation to a goal like addiction recovery.
- Inpatient rehabilitation: Patients stay at a facility for a set time. Treatments include group sessions, individual psychotherapy and medication.
- Outpatient rehabilitation: Individuals live at home but attend therapy or group sessions.
- Peer support groups: People who want to overcome substance abuse have regular meetings. These groups provide emotional support and reduce feelings of isolation. Examples include Narcotics Anonymous, Alcoholics Anonymous and SMART Recovery.
- Withdrawal management services: This treatment uses medication to help people stop substances safely.
What Boundaries Should You Set?
Understanding how to set healthy boundaries is the first step. Here are five examples of healthy boundaries that you can actually use to support your loved one.
1. Emotional Boundaries
These boundaries protect your emotional health and limit damaging forms of support:
- Limiting emotional energy: Supporting someone with an addiction can drain you. When you feel overwhelmed, take a step back. You control how much emotional energy you give your loved one.
- Avoid enabling: It’s natural to want to shield a loved one from the harmful effects of their substance abuse. When you do so, you allow them to continue with self-destructive patterns. By giving your loved one money, lying for them or justifying their behavior, you may be enabling them.
2. Financial Boundaries
Someone struggling with substance abuse may use their money to support their habit. It often falls on family and friends to give them money for rent or other living expenses. Financial boundaries include:
- Refrain from paying expenses: Paying bills or debts is an enabling behavior. Encourage your loved one to take responsibility for their finances. You can help them create a budget.
- Stop lending money: Communicate to your loved one that you will not lend them money for any reason.
3. Physical Boundaries
You deserve to feel safe in your physical environment. Examples of physical boundaries are:
- Protect your personal space: Make it clear that your loved one should not be around you under the influence. Identify personal areas and items that are off-limits to them.
- Set rules for home: Communicate that you don’t want drugs or alcohol in your home.
- Restrict time together: It can be easy to become consumed by your loved one’s addiction. Allow yourself a life outside of supporting them by limiting your time with them.
4. Support Boundaries
Supporting someone with addiction can lead to a codependent relationship, where both people rely on each other in an unhealthy way. The supporter may sacrifice their own needs for the sake of the person with addiction.
Consider setting boundaries such as:
- Encourage treatment: Stress that you can’t support your loved one if they refuse recovery. You could say, “I want to support you, but I feel a professional would be better equipped.”
- Learn to say “no”: Support is not limitless. If your loved one asks you to do something that makes you feel uncomfortable, say no. Saying no doesn’t mean you love them less — it means you respect yourself and want them to respect you.
5. Communication Boundaries
When you support someone with addiction, you may feel you must be available to them 24/7, but this is not the case. You can set boundaries for when and how you communicate:
- Restrict calls or texts: Limit calls during work hours or personal time. Discuss what constitutes a reason for an emergency call. You might want to set certain times when you respond to messages.
- Establish conversation ground rules: State what is acceptable or unacceptable communication. Explain that aggressive or abusive language is off-limits. You will only engage in respectful, calm discussion.
Final Thoughts
Setting healthy boundaries can feel scary at first. You might even feel guilty, like you’re letting your loved one down. On the contrary, boundaries allow you to support them while protecting your well-being.
These limits lay the foundation for a healthier relationship. Your loved one may have a greater chance at recovery if they have a consistent example to follow.
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