How can I support a loved one who is struggling with addiction?
By Rabbi Shalom Landau.
Rabbi Landau teaches that your love matters, but it has limits. “Her love can make him stronger. It can remind him he's not alone, but it cannot take away the battle.” The action has to be “his action, not hers.”
So the role, his tafkid for the one who loves, is not to save. As his caption puts it, her role isn't to save him; it is to love from strength, not self-erasure. “Love is support, not salvation.”
This also protects the one giving the love. If she believes her love will cure him, “she sets herself up for a heartbreak. Because when it fails, she's going to blame herself.”
Related concepts: Family · Relationships
In A Soul at Peace: Each Person and His Own Battle: What Love Can and Cannot Do
Going deeper: Rabbi Landau's teaching, level by level
Surface claim
Love can strengthen and accompany, but the battle belongs to the one fighting it.
Fear, vulnerability, or tension
Believing love will cure him leads to heartbreak and self-blame.
Deepest human truth
Each person must face his own struggle.
More questions from this teaching
More answers: Boundaries, Healing, and Emotional Resilience · All questions · Questions about Rabbi Landau and Rivnitz