Fixing Someone Else's Disease
We were trying to fix a disease – and someone else's disease at that!
Watching someone I loved slowly killing herself with drinking and drugs felt like my own slow death. Every phone call, every emergency, every broken promise—I jumped in, dissecting every detail, offering strategies, trying to fix it. My heart pounded with urgency. If I could just show her what the drugs was doing to her, she would want to get better. I was convinced I could save her if I could just get through to her.
In Al-Anon I learned that she has a disease, and I was trying to cure it. Even though I was heartbroken, I was still powerless. What looked like love was actually an ingrained belief that I could somehow manipulate her circumstances and ensure her sobriety. I had made her addiction my own urgent crisis to solve.
Al-Anon teaches the Three C's: I didn't Cause it, I can't Cure it, and I can't Control it. This awareness arrived as a powerful, humbling gift. I finally saw how much time and emotional energy I'd spent trying to make someone well—time and energy that could never have worked, no matter how hard I tried.
Now I'm learning to step back and offer loving support without trying to direct the outcome. Her journey, with its own solutions and its own lessons, is exactly where she needs to be. And so is mine.
Today I can notice when I'm trying to fix someone else's problems and gently redirect that energy toward my own growth and healing.
