Colleen Orchanian

When you love an addict, you sometimes have to make hard decisions. These happen throughout the life of the addiction. Some decisions are minor; others can be life-changing. We want to make decisions that honor God, protect those who need it, and acknowledge the reality of the situation for us and the addict.

When making decisions, we are setting boundaries. We are saying, this far and no more. By the time you get to this point, chances are the boundaries have been non-existent. Or maybe you have set boundaries but not maintained them. You may have tried a gentle approach, and it failed. You are at the "tough love" stage.

What are some decisions we have to make in our relationship with an addict?

Decisions about living arrangements: If it's a child, do I kick them out of the house? If it's my spouse, do I leave or do I ask him/her to leave?

Decisions about money: Do I bail them out of jail? Do I pay for a stay at rehab? Do I pay their rent, phone bill, credit card, or car insurance? Are there strings attached to the bills I pay? (e.g., I'll pay for rehab if you go to this facility.)

Decisions about contact: Will we stop taking their calls? Will we tell them not to visit? Will we block their number?

Legal decisions: Do I seek custody of their children? Do I call the police when they are out of control or when they have stolen or damaged something? Do I pay for a lawyer instead of insisting they use the public defender? Do I have them committed to a psychiatric hospital when they threaten suicide?

Decisions about the addiction itself: Do I stage an intervention to confront them with the evidence of their problem? Do I cover for them when the addiction is affecting their work life?

It is hard to make these decisions. We love them, but they are driving us crazy. We want to help them, but they don't seem to want to help themselves or may not even admit to the problem. We want to do the Christian thing, but what exactly is that? We may be in a pattern in our relationship where we become the bad guy when we set a new boundary. Can we be strong and enforce the boundary? And what if we make the wrong decision and something terrible happens to them? Can we live with that without blaming ourselves?

Those are all questions that we might struggle with when we have hard decisions to make.

What is it that brings us to the point of making a hard decision? Chances are that there is collateral damage. Addicts are focused on the substance they are abusing or the bad habit they can't stop. They rarely notice who they are hurting, or if they do, it's not enough to stop them. So what's the collateral damage in your life so far? If your spouse is addicted, how has it affected the stability of your family? If the addict has children, how have they been affected? If it's a sibling, how is their behavior affecting your parents or other siblings? What is the financial, emotional, and spiritual cost to you and others so far? This is the collateral damage. And it will continue at least until they are in recovery. This is why you have come to a place of hard decisions.

Before addressing how to make the decision, consider these three actions that are not helpful.

1. Asking others what they think you should do. Nobody can tell you what to do because nobody is living with the addiction in the same way as you. They might say, "I'd throw the bum out," but if it were their husband or wife, maybe they wouldn't. What I would do in your situation is irrelevant because I am not in your situation.

2. Asking others what they did when they had an addict to deal with. Again, this is irrelevant. My situation is not yours. Sometimes we ask this because we want the strength to make a hard decision, but it can cause me to make a bad decision. If you cut off your child financially and that led them to recovery, that doesn't mean I'll have the same outcome. Every situation is unique.

3. Making a decision without the support of another key player. If the addict is your child, you and your spouse have to be on the same page. I decide not to bail out our child, but my husband doesn't agree. Or we agree that we will no longer pay their bills, but secretly I give them money. You have to be honest with each other, because if you are not, the strain on your marriage will only grow deeper, and the devil will use this deception and disunity to attack your marriage.

Marriages get attacked when someone is addicted. Of course, it happens when the addict is your spouse, but there is as much potential damage if the addict is a child, sibling, or parent. The devil desires a breakdown of the family unit. We must spend time in prayer discerning how the devil is attacking—beyond the addiction itself. How is he changing the way you think about the people around you—not just the addict? Pray about this. Ask God to open your eyes to see what's in your heart. Self-awareness is essential to fight this spiritual attack.

Here are questions to ponder and pray about when making a decision:

What is happening? Name the good, the bad, and the ugly. What are the effects of their addiction? What is the collateral damage? Don't sugarcoat anything. We must deal in reality. There are many things I never thought would happen with my addict, and many times I have been proven wrong. I was hoping things weren't as bad as they were, but all the evidence was there. I just didn't want to see it.

What are the considerations? Safety is one—mine, theirs, others in the home. Legal risks are another consideration. For example, if they are using drugs and there are children in the home, there is a legal risk to you. If they drive your car while drinking, there is a legal risk. My peace of soul. If my decision enables them to continue to sin, that is a stain on my soul. Do I have what it takes to let them suffer so that they will get help?

What is my goal? Ultimately, I want an end to the addiction, but I cannot control that. So I need another goal that drives the decision. Maybe it's protection for me or others in the family—a safety issue. Maybe it's an end to the chaos caused by the addiction. Maybe it's financial. There's a bottomless pit filled with my money, and I can't throw any more into it. This is another thing that takes time and prayer. We have to cut through all the emotions that cloud our vision so we can make a decision we can live with.

What are the risks? I think we often spend a lot of time here, but if we haven't gone through the other questions, we may not be able to make a good decision. The risks might include harm to my reputation (how could she do that to her child?), desperation of the addict leading to worse behavior, and family members who disagree and work against your decision. Can I live with the risks? Can you reduce any of them? How likely am I to stick to my decision, no matter what? If I don't, what might happen then?

When considering these four questions, we must be in prayer. We need to ask the Holy Spirit to guide us. It's not just, "What would Jesus do?" That's too simple a question, and too often it leads us astray. Sometimes we presume what God would do, as if we can know what he wants without praying. After all, surely God wants this for me. But we cannot know the mind of God. We don't have all the information. We don't have the wisdom of God. We have to seek it. Ask for it. We need to speak to God and listen to Him. How do we do that?

First, we need to recognize His voice so we aren't led astray by the lies of the enemy. We learn God's voice by reading and meditating on Scripture. Every day. I'm not talking about Bible roulette, where you randomly open the Bible and read whatever passage it opens to. That can work. But I'm talking about living in the Word. Read a story from a Gospel. Read a parable from Jesus. Read one of Paul's letters. But don't just read. Ponder it. Ask God to speak to you through it. Pray with it. Take your time. Don't rush through prayer. And be persistent in asking and waiting.

The virtue for this place of addiction is prudence. That is defined as doing the right thing at the right time, in the right way, and with the right intention.

• Right thing: we must be in union with God so we know what the right thing is.

• Right time: I want things fixed now, but maybe that is not God's timing. Rushing it only makes things worse.

• Right way: This means a balance of truth and love. When I communicate the decision to the addict, I must speak truth with love.

• Right intention: living with addiction means we have wounds. We have been hurt. And hurt people hurt people. My intention cannot be revenge, punishment, or getting payment for an injustice. That intention is understandable, but not always helpful in the long run. The right intention is love. (See 1 Corinthians 13)

When we make a decision with prayer and discernment, we have confidence in that decision, even if it's hard. We will have the courage to live with the decision, to keep that decision, to maintain the boundaries we set. But only if we discern in prayer. Pray for the virtue of prudence.

Our patron saint for hard decisions is Pope John Paul II because he had to make many hard decisions in his life—as a young man, a seminarian, a priest, bishop, and pope. He lived in Poland through the Nazi and Communist regimes. He had great strength of character, even at the risk of his life and the lives of those around him, yet did not sacrifice truth for comfort. When he planned to visit Poland as Pope, he was cautioned by his advisors about what he should and should not say. In that first visit, his message was "Be not afraid." And he spoke it over and over. The crowd chanted, "We want God. We want God." He never did the safe thing, but he wasn't reckless. He listened to God and acted boldly. We need that kind of strength and courage to make hard decisions.

Pray for prudence, pray for insight, pray for wisdom, pray for courage. And you will make those hard decisions and have the courage to live with them.

Questions for prayer

1. How have you made hard decisions in the past? What worked and what didn't?

2. Who can help you think through the hard decision you face today?

3. How can you better listen to the voice of God when making hard decisions?