Thank you so much for your response and sharing your personal insight and experience, that in itself makes me feel so much better!
I am probably like you in that I go back and forth, but it’s almost as if I need someone to tell me which one it is so I can stick to reacting one way or another or I can make a decision based on what is the right way. I know really that it isn’t that easy, the more I’ve thought about it, the more it’s fascinated me to learn more about other peoples views on it.
I work in mental health and it makes me wonder if it’s a bit of a similar dilemma…we encourage people to make a choice to get treatment and improve their mental health, but then different conditions are seen in different ways. In a similar way to what you said about people who are terminally ill, or any physical illness, we would only ever expect a specialist or professional to be able to treat those kind of illnesses, so why is addiction or mental health any different? We wouldn’t expect someone with cancer or a broken leg to try and cure or fix it themselves, so is it fair/right to expect that of an addict or someone with depression or bi-polar?
It’s something I haven’t thought about in this much depth really until I’ve found myself in this situation with my partner, I’ve always been aware of addiction of course, and felt the ‘right’ way to look at it is to consider it as an illness, but it’s more difficult and complex when it’s a part of your life.
Thanks again, it’s just really helpful to be able to express and hear others views, very much appreciated 🙂