Enabling Addiction Is Not Love
Drug addiction is one of the few things people can get involved in that is still considered a problem — something that needs to be repented of. Still, there are efforts to normalize even this behavior despite the fact that it’s obviously self-destructive and destructive of others. The consequences can be rather overt. Drug addicts rarely claim to be happy people. The high doesn’t last. The withdrawal is crushing, and it almost always requires debasing yourself to finance it.
And yet, there are always people who equate unconditional love with unconditional support of the addiction. And it’s true that the addict believes the codependent enabler is the person who loves them the most while they are in the throes of the addiction. But in actuality, it is the person willing to risk losing the relationship if the person doesn’t repent who truly loves the addict. And if the addict repents, they almost always see that.
The same is true for other addictions as well, including the addiction to sin in general. Love is wanting to see a person freed from the addiction from the high — free to reconcile themselves with God.
Using a person’s addiction to gain control and influence over them, so you can artificially become their “special person” isn’t love. In other words, encouraging or enabling them to sin, so they’ll need you and, therefore, make you feel special isn’t love.
jenniferalicechandler 