Family, friends, and partners of addicts sometimes have only one reasonable decision in front of them: either to choose to be with the addict as she is or to choose not to be with her. No one is obliged to put up with unreliability, dishonesty, and emotional withdrawal—the ways of the addict. Unconditional acceptance of another person doesn’t mean staying with them under all circumstances, no matter what the cost to oneself; that duty belongs only to the parents of a young child.
