Not all affairs are the same, and they can’t all be handled in the same way. When drugs or alcohol addictions are involved, everything changes.
Dealing with Affairs and Substance Addiction <<– listen to the audio here
Hi, this is Jeff Murrah with Affair Recovery Radio. I’m glad that you’re here with me today. I want to thank you for tuning in for today’s program, which should be quite thought-provoking. Today we’re going to be dealing with the issue of affairs and substance addiction.
Lately I have been receiving some requests on my blog, some questions about how do you handle affairs and substance abuse. We’re going to be dealing with that today.
To start off with, not all affairs are the same, and since they’re not the same they can’t be handled in the same way. If you take any affair situation and have drugs or alcohol involved, especially when it is at the level of being an addiction, it changes everything.
Drugs and alcohol and affairs mix too well. Left unchecked one condition often feeds the other in a very dynamic fashion.
When I talk about it being dynamic fashion it’s almost like one feeds the other and keeps it going to where you have this . . . almost like a boulder rolling downhill that keeps getting bigger and bigger and bigger. The problem when you stick affairs with addiction together it just rolls and creates a bigger and bigger mess as time goes on.
When you’re faced with this double-whammy of both the addiction and the affair, what do you do? This is a valid problem.
You care about your spouse, and if they’ve got both the issue with the addiction and the affair, which one should you deal with?
You’re also dealing with a situation where one not only feeds into the other but they can use one to hide the other one. They can use the addiction to hide the affair, or vice versa where they use the game wooden leg.
Which boils down to what do you expect of a person who has an addiction, what do you expect of a person who’s in an affair, and they’ll use these as excuses. And you’re going to need to buy that.
In terms of dealing with it, the solution is going to be deal with first things first. What I mean by the saying deal with first things first, you’re going to have to take the situation a little at a time.
Massive tasks can be accomplished a little at a time, and this is one that you’re going to have to do that.
You’re going to have to realize that confrontation is your friend. Now, with some affairs you’ve got to deal with confrontation and you can do it in a more subtle way.
When you’ve got addiction there’s no subtlety to it. You’ve got to be frank, you’ve got to be up front, almost like in your face type of confrontation just to be able to make your way through it.
In dealing with first things first.
- The number one item is “address the addiction first“. The reason why you need to address the addiction first is that when you have an addiction it makes all the other problems worse.
When a person’s mind is clouded by drugs and alcohol, dealing with the affair, dealing with anything else, be it a stealing problem or a lying problem, etc., is going to be much worse. You’re going to need to take care of that. Since the drugs cloud their mind, get that out of the way.
Once you get the drugs and the alcohol out of the way then you know what you’re dealing with. Prior to that time you’re unsure, because you’re left with the question what’s due to the addiction, what’s due to the person. And you’re not going to find clear answers until you get the addiction out of the way.
2. You’re going to need to focus on small, sequential victories. When you’re dealing with substance addiction and affairs small victories are going to win the war. It’s going to be a series of wearing them down, literally, and making headway a little at a time. That means you are going to need to set tangible markers, or tangible goals, however you want to think about it, along the way.
You’ve got to have a clear idea what it is that you’re wanting to accomplish and set those tangible goals, realizing that it may be two steps forward, one step back type of situation. But continue in the direction of recovery. First the recovery from the addiction, and then the recovery from the affair.
3. You’re going to need to deal with issues one day at a time. One of the ploys that they will often do is try to get you to focus on their promises and what they’re going to do next week, next month, next year.
You’re going to need to avoid that, and avoid getting caught up with what’s going to happen a day or two down the road. Focus on what’s going on right now.
These are three steps that you can start putting into place now. Three steps that are going to be essential if you’re going to make headway and turn your marriage around. Because you’ve got a lot working against you when you’ve got substance addiction combined with affairs.
My heart goes out to you in that situation. I know it’s a tough one. Either one would be enough to make you want to pull your hair out, but when you’ve got them together it is very overwhelming.
With combined substance abuse and affair issues, having a relapse plan is a MUST. You need such a plan with each. With them together the need is even greater.
In my video “Overcoming Affair Relapse“, you’ll find what you need for a good relapse prevention plan. You’ll also know what the high risk situations are and ways of handling them.
Best Regards,
Jeff
