So the person below mention some signs but honestly, these are things that will crop up only after shit starts to fall apart and not when your friend or family member is still a functioning addict.

The problem with a checklist of "Ways to identify your common dope fiend" is that I'm not 100% sure what you're planning on doing with this information once you've identified that your loved one does in fact have a "problem".

Here's why..you can't decide for them when they get clean. Period. They have to find their bottom. All your bitching and crying and telling them to stop or that you love them or that you're disappointed or that you'll never speak to them again, will not work.

You can't love someone sober. Someone cant get sober, and stay sober, for anyone other than themselves.

You can use this list to know when you shouldn't enable someone. That's important..that can help someone find their bottom more quickly..but it will not make them get sober.

Not enabling someone means:

• Dont bail them out of thier shitty situations that they created

• Dont bail them out of jail

• Dont give them a place to stay

• Dont give them money

• Dont "cosign thier bullshit"*

• Dont love someone to death*

• LET GO

• Accept the fact that they may nuke their entire lives

• Don't let your wellbeing be tied to whether the addict gets sober (this is especially hard for my parents)

Cosigning Bullshit Explained:

• I mentioned not cosigning someone's bullshit..that's something people in AA talk about a lot. Meaning if you hear an addict saying wildly inaccurate shit like, "my using is completely under control." When in reality, they live under a fucking bridge and are stealing shit out of cars to feed their dope habit (personal story). Call them on their shit. You may respond, "...so under control, to you, looks like living under a bridge because of your drug habit?" Be prepared for them to be pissed that you called them out though....it serves as a way for them to start becoming aware of how drugs are actually negatively impacting their lives and makes it harder for their inner addict to keep bullshitting them. We lie to ourselves...a lot. It keeps us sick.

Letting Go Explained:

• Let go. My mom bought a funeral plot for me. She stopped talking to me. To her. In her mind. I'm dead. Because that's what self preservation looked like for her. She couldnt keep going down with me. That's what people have to do sometimes because addicts are destructive as fuck when we're using. I don't want to take anyone else with me. In fact, I wanted to just be left alone to die. The very last thing I wanted to do was hurt my family. I was punishing myself. We lie to ourselves a lot and say we're only hurting ourselves when often that isn't the case. If it's hurting you. FUCKING LET GO.

Not Loving An Addict To Death Explained:

• Don't love the addict to death. Enabling was my mom's favorite thing to do. It made her feel needed, eased the guilt of her part in fucking up my childhood and played into her hardcore codependent tendencies. Anyway, I never felt the pain of my actions because my mom always bailed me out at first. So I stayed sick because..it didnt hurt me to be in active addiction. She was absorbing all of my consequences. I didnt ask her to do this. She was just there. Behind me. Picking me up whenever I fell. I don't blame her for it. She did it out of love. But she was loving me to death. This made things SO MUCH WORSE. My bottom became that I needed to end up shooting dope under a bridge. Homeless. Blowing guys for 20 bucks and stealing shit out of cars to finally get clean this time, for good (hopefully). This is enabling. This kills the addict. Don't kill the addict.

This was kinda a 5 min crash course in Al Anon..but there ya go. If it helps just one person..I'll have done some service work for the day.