When you grow up with addiction in your home, it becomes the background noise of your life — a storm that never really passes, only quiets between the thunder.
As a child of an addict, I learned early how to read moods like weather reports. I could tell by a look, a tone, or the way the front door closed whether tonight would be chaos or calm. It’s not something anyone teaches you — it’s something survival teaches you.
No one tells you how love can become both your anchor and your cage.
You love them so deeply that you’ll do anything to keep them safe — lie for them, cover for them, pray for them, hope for them when they’ve stopped hoping for themselves. You start thinking love can fix it. That if you just love hard enough, strong enough, faithfully enough… maybe they’ll choose life.
But addiction is an illness that doesn’t respond to love the way you wish it would.
It twists it.
It tests it.
And sometimes, it breaks it.
My Grandma’s Hands
When I was young, my grandma took on the role of caretaker — not just for me, but for my parent who was lost in addiction. She held space for both of us in a way I didn’t understand until years later.
She never gave up.
She never stopped believing that love could outlast addiction.
She didn’t try to “fix” them. She simply held space — that quiet, sacred kind of love that doesn’t demand change but prays for it anyway. I think that’s what loving an addict really means: holding space between hope and heartbreak, between anger and forgiveness, between wanting to let go and not knowing how.
The Mirror Moment
Years later, I became the addict.
The child who had once begged for their parent to choose recovery became the one others were begging for.
The cycle I swore I’d never repeat became my reflection.
It wasn’t until I went to rehab — broken, sick, and ready to die — that I understood what my family must have felt. I walked in with a suicide note in my pocket, believing there was no reason to keep fighting. But someone there — a stranger — believed in me. And that belief cracked open something in me that love alone hadn’t been able to reach.
That belief is why I’m here, 6 years clean, fighting to give others what I was given: hope.
Understanding Both Sides
Loving an addict and being one are two sides of the same heartbreak.
Both are full of sleepless nights, guilt, shame, and the desperate wish to make things right.
Both come from love — and both are healed by it.
Now, I understand that my grandma’s quiet prayers and my family’s pain weren’t wasted. They were seeds of love that eventually took root when I was ready.
The Hope That Remains
Today, through Sonny Side Up and the Angel Bed Scholarship, I try to carry that same love forward — for the ones still lost in addiction, and for the families waiting for a miracle.
The Angel Bed isn’t just a donation. It’s a message.
It says: “You are not alone. Even if the world has turned its back, someone still believes in you.”
If you’re loving someone through addiction — hold on to that hope.
Set boundaries, yes. Take care of your heart, absolutely.
But never forget that your love might be the one thing that keeps them tethered to life until they’re ready to choose it.
Love doesn’t always look like saving someone.
Sometimes, love looks like believing they can be saved.
❤️ A Final Word
To anyone out there loving an addict — I see you.
To anyone fighting addiction — I love you.
And to anyone who feels like they’ve lost hope — please, don’t quit before the miracle.
I’m living proof that belief can save a life.
I’m here because someone didn’t stop loving me when I didn’t deserve it.
And now, I get to spend my life passing that love forward.
Because love doesn’t fix addiction.
But love — real, patient, unconditional love — heals everything that addiction tries to destroy.