Addiction, Love, & The Choice to Stay

September 20, 2025

A few days ago, I stumbled into something unexpected. My sister and ex-husband were watching the Charlie Sheen documentary when I got home, and though I hadn’t planned to watch, I sat down. At first, I wasn’t interested. I only knew the headlines from a decade ago. But as the story unfolded, his slide back into addiction, excess, media frenzy, failed marriages, and devastating parenting choices, I was riveted.

What struck me most wasn’t just Charlie’s self-destruction. It was how the people who loved him never stopped loving him, despite the horrors they experienced because of him. They carried both heartbreak and love. And it reminded me of my own story.

I’ve spent my life forgiving, staying loyal, hoping, loving people who were trapped in their own self-destruction. I didn’t know what boundaries were. I didn’t know what healthy love was. I didn’t know because I wasn’t raised with it, and love has not been kind to me.

When I discovered the depth of lies, manipulation, and abuse in the man I loved, I had no choice but to cut all contact. I had to protect myself. I had to stand for my worth, my future, my love, my safety, because I’ve learned no one else will. Processing what happened consumed me. And during that time, I couldn’t allow myself to see his humanity. If I had, I would have slipped right back into my old patterns: self-sacrifice, longing, fantasy, and him, if he had let me.

But I’ve done the work. Therapy. Writing. Sitting with grief, rage, heartbreak, loneliness, and shame instead of running from it. Naming the truth out loud. Learning to listen to my body and my boundaries. Slowly, I changed the story inside me. And now, especially after watching this documentary, I find myself asking: where do I go from here?

So how do I forgive while keeping my boundaries? How do I honor his humanity without losing mine? How do I refuse to vilify him, while also refusing to fall back into the cycle of self-sacrifice?

And maybe the work now is learning how to hold both truths at once: my love for him and also my hurt. To stay rooted in myself while leaving the possibility of compassion and forgiveness open. The truth is, I don’t know what to do right now. And that is okay. Many of us feel lost at this point in the healing, caught between hurt and love, clarity and uncertainty.

I’m letting myself stay in this uncertainty, rooted in heart, humanity, and a new sense of safety. That is enough for now. And it is okay.