Colleen Orchanian

In the movie 28 Days, Sandra Bullock plays a woman who goes into rehab for alcohol addiction. She asks her counselor when she can start dating again. He said in the first year, get a plant. If that survives, you can get a pet in the second year. If the pet survives, then you can consider dating.

The counselor is describing early recovery. The addict cannot be in a healthy relationship during this time because they are not yet healed. If you have lived with someone during early recovery, you know this to be true.

When my dad stopped drinking, we were happy about that. But we foolishly thought that if he wasn't drinking, he would be easier to be around. He was actually more difficult. His troubles, fears, mood swings, hurts, regrets, shame, and insecurities were still there, but he didn't have the alcohol to numb those emotions. All of his friends were drinkers, so he couldn't spend time with them. One of my sisters asked my mom during this time, "Can we just slip him a drink? It would be so much easier." In early recovery, the addict is still broken and needs healing. And healing hurts. And hurt people hurt people. It's just that now we can't blame it on the drugs or alcohol.

What can we do? We need to process our own emotions during this time. Our feelings are valid. If we've been ignoring them for a while, it may be time for a change. Time to learn how to identify and speak about what's going on in our hearts and minds.

Here are some common emotions we might have during the early recovery of our addicted loved one:

• Skepticism. We don't believe this will last. After all, they have quit so many times, it's reasonable to doubt that this will be any different. And it's okay to feel this way, and even to speak it in a loving way. There is no guilt here. Their sobriety is not dependent on our faith in them.

• Disillusionment. I thought this would solve the problem, but it's not any better. I should give up. The trials during early recovery can tempt us to end the relationship. That's always the desired end of the devil. He wants to destroy families, marriages, and friendships. Do you want to salvage this relationship? If so, it's likely going to differ from what it had been before the addiction. You might grieve the loss of that dream and open your heart and mind to something different. You will need patience, because rebuilding a relationship takes time. You have to take out the garbage of the past and create something new.

• Pent-up emotions. We have a lot of feelings about the past because of the addict's behavior. Feelings we have been keeping inside: resentment, anger, bitterness, and more. We haven't talked about them, often pushing down those feelings to get through the day without conflict. In the past, the addict may not have cared about what we felt, so we didn't bother. But now, these pent-up feelings can be like a volcano about to blow. It is good to learn how to talk about our feelings in a healthy way so that we, like them, can find healing. Our healing can come with or without their healing; it's not dependent on them. But we do need healing.

• Fear of triggers. We walk on eggshells, afraid of upsetting them. We don't set good boundaries because we want to keep the peace. We don't have expectations for them to contribute to the relationship or the household chores because we don't want to stress them. We let them speak disrespectfully, with no consequences because we don't want conflict. If your home has become filled with tension, and you are holding back your own frustrations out of fear, this is not healthy. We must learn how to speak about our needs and feelings without fear of upsetting them.

• Hypervigilance. We watch them like a hawk, looking for signs that they have fallen off the wagon. We search for their drug of choice in their old hiding places. We watch who they are talking to or going out with. We remind them of their appointments and ask if they are going to a meeting. We want to control their every move in the mistaken belief that we can control their sobriety. But we can't. They have to do this on their own. We can watch for warning signs, but don't want to be like a helicopter parent who owns the addiction.

• Pride. I am better than him/her. I never did any of that stuff. Look what I've done for them. I am a great wife/mom/ father/husband. You can hear the self-righteousness in those statements, and that is contrary to the Gospel. A better attitude might be, There but for the grace of God go I.

• Ignoring our needs. We need healing and recovery, but may focus on their healing instead. We can wait, or so we think. But why wait? We are hurting. And we can't help them mature if we aren't willing to work through the process ourselves. We need to do the twelve steps, not because we are addicted, but because the steps take us through the healing process.

• Pushing recovery. We want to fast-track them (and us) through recovery. Someone has said we have a crock-pot God in a microwave world. We can't make recovery go any faster for them. We can't push them to be further along than they are. Healing takes time—for them and for us.

• Holding on to the past. Sometimes our pain comes out in unhealthy ways. For example, they are clean and sober for six months, but we remind them of where they were and how much they owe us for the pain they caused. We hold their past over them as a way of punishment, even if that's not conscious on our part. This is evidence that we have unforgiveness in our hearts. They may have done (probably did do) some unforgivable things, but Jesus clearly tells us to forgive. This is not easy, but it is possible with God.

Both the addict and you will change—and must change. Both need personal recovery, emotional maturity, and spiritual peace. Not together, but separately. You work on your own personal recovery. Not because you have or had an addiction (although you may), but recovery from the wounds of the past. So you go through the twelve steps of AA for yourself, not because you are an addict, but because they help you heal. You work on your own emotional maturity because your emotions can be pretty raw after years of dealing with an addict. You seek your own spiritual peace by spending more time with God, in prayer, reading the Bible, allowing God to speak His love to you.

What do we pray for? We pray for them (and us) to make it through this time of early recovery and into a time of sustained recovery. We pray for ourselves to have patience in God's timing, especially when the hard times are lasting so long. We pray for their emotional healing so that they can have healthy relationships. We pray that we can trust God enough to take down the walls we built to protect ourselves. We pray for God's mercy on us as we confess our sins—those sins that we committed in this broken relationship.

Virtue of Mercy

During this season of early recovery, we need to cultivate the virtue of mercy. Ponder the words of Jesus when giving the apostles the perfect prayer, the Lord's Prayer. We ask God to "forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us." Jesus added, "For if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father also will forgive you; but if you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses." This is one of those hard teachings.

I shared in my book on spiritual warfare a quote from Fr. Carlos Martins on The Exorcist Files podcast. He shared a story of a woman who struggled to forgive her abuser. He said this, "Forgiveness is acknowledging that your abuser took from you what he had no right to take. He thereby has incurred a debt because of it. Even if he wanted to, he could not possibly repay that debt to you. Forgiveness means that you release him from that debt, turning it over to Jesus, and asking Jesus to make good on it on your abuser's behalf."

It is likely that the addict you love has taken from you things he or she had no right to take. They have incurred a debt because of it. They cannot repay that debt. You can hold it over them for the rest of their lives, reminding them of their sins over and over again. But if you do, you are not obeying Jesus. He doesn't want you to remind them of who they were. He is making them new, transforming them. They may have been Saul, who persecuted the early Christians, but now they are Paul, who will suffer and die for the love of Jesus. Have mercy on them.

We also need to be merciful to ourselves. If we think we bear some responsibility for their addiction, can we forgive ourselves? Addiction runs in families. My dad was an alcoholic. His dad was an alcoholic. His grandfather was an alcoholic. Did your child inherit the addiction gene from you? Are you feeling guilty about that? Are your past bad decisions haunting you? Are there places you need to forgive yourself?

It is helpful and important to name what and who you are forgiving. I forgive them for stealing my savings. I forgive them for embarrassing my child. I forgive myself for not setting boundaries. I forgive myself for not standing up to them earlier. Name everything. What you forgive them for and what you forgive yourself for.

Psalm 103:12 tells us, "As far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us." How about you? Have you confessed your sins? Have you brought them to the Lord in prayer or in the Sacrament of Reconciliation? Have you received absolution? Do you accept it? Ask God to help you forgive yourself, to put these sins behind you.

St. Faustina

A saint for this time of early recovery is St. Faustina. She was a Polish nun in the early 1900s, a mystic chosen by Jesus to spread the message of forgiveness and Divine Mercy. The Divine Mercy image is based on her visions of Jesus. It shows Him with a white and a red ray coming from His heart, and the inscription, "Jesus, I trust in You." The white ray signifies water (which cleanses souls), and the red ray signifies blood (which saves us). His right hand is raised in blessing, while his left hand opens his robe to reveal the flowing rays. Jesus wants us to know His Divine Mercy. Pray for the intercession of St. Faustina that we may know the mercy of God and can show mercy to those whose addiction has caused so much pain.

Questions for prayer:

1. If you are in early recovery with an addict, what are your challenges? What might the Holy Spirit be doing during this season to help you grow spiritually? What support do you need?

2. Who and what do you need to forgive? What is holding you back? How can you grow closer to God so that He can help you find freedom in forgiveness?