Tough Love
Parents Should Reject Tough Love Approaches
Tough love is sold to parents as an antidote to “enabling.” But tough love increases the risk of harm, delays recovery and perpetuates addiction.
Parents should reject tough love approaches and instead adopt moderate behaviors based on both reasonable personal boundaries and common sense recovery supports for their addicted loved one.
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Thank you very much for speaking the truth about tough love. During my brother’s addiction, most of the professionals we worked with recommended the use of tough love. We were told this is what he needed to help him seek treatment to get sober. This approach to substance abuse treatment is heart breaking for family members to implement, but since we did not know what else to do we did it. My brother ended up dying from his addiction. Yes, that really makes our love for him tough now.
If I had to do over I would NOT engage in any tough love methods or thought processes. Addiction is a deadly disease and needs to be treated as such. I would not treat anyone who was suffering from any other disease with the standards of tough love. I would encourage parents and other family members to not use the tough love approach in dealing with substance abuse. Instead seek reputable substance abuse resources that support a responsible approach to addiction treatment.
Thank you for your comment Lisa, and for your work at Families of Addiction. I’m very sorry to hear about the loss of your brother.