Hi Brian,

First of all, I view love as a verb as well as a feeling. For your friend, because she’s an alcoholic, and because you have your own “stuff”, I would love her from afar.

Now, when you have a child, you will (should!) feel pure love for that child. The parent/child relationship is the purest form of love. Of course, there are lousy parents out there, but you get the idea. When you’re holding that baby in your arms, you’re not thinking, “Well, my shrink says I don’t love myself enough so how can I love another person correctly, especially a family member?” You’re not even thinking. You’re feeling, “I love you, I love you, I love you!”

I also (morbidly) think of people who would be at my funeral. Some of them would be people I haven’t seen in years. That is love. The people who have shared and witnessed your history with you, even though you may not think of them at all day by day. (i.e. your siblings’ best friends).

And when you’re in love with someone, you don’t even have to ask. It sounds cliché, but when you meet who is to be your spouse, you just “Know”. And by the way, it may not feel like fireworks. It’s just a certain Deep Knowing.

You are not in love with the alcoholic friend. You are drawn to her. And you may even love her. But please don’t get sucked into the co-dependent mess waiting for you if you get involved.

Best,

Inky

I find that the old saying, “You can not love another if you do not love your self,” should maybe be reversed, to “you can not love yourself until you love everyone else, selflessly.” It is easy to love oneself, turn on one of those reality television shows about the rich and famous and they all love themselves, but whether they selflessly love others it is doubtful. When you love others selflessly, without wanting anything in return, eventually you will allow yourself to love yourself because you will learn that just like those you love have flaws, you have flaws and as you become more accepting of others mistakes you will be more accepting of your own. For a normal non-narcissistic their self is the hardest person to love. We are all just humans so accept human things from everyone, it is so easy to berate ourselves or others when something goes wrong even if it is internally it is still there a negative emotion that isn’t love. That is hurtful, because we tend to wear our emotions on our faces, we feel them and others see them, but when a mistake is made if we accept it with assurance and love then it will grow. There are plenty of quotes out there about giving others the benefit of the doubt and they can help. Going out of your way to help others also helps. Romantic love is different than “Love” because it is more involved, but you must know how to love everyone in a non romantic way before even considering romantic love to be true love. How often is romantic love simply used as a means to an ends? A person says I love you in order to fulfill their human desires and once they get what they want, “Audios.” That is simply using another as a means to an end and so it is when a person uses a person to simply fill a void of lonliness, which I think is partly where that sang arises. If you are lonely with yourself and are simply looking for another to fill that void, then you are using that person as a means to an end which isn’t true anything. You have to be true in your actions, because your thoughts will see right through fakeness as you are already having trouble loving yourself, it will double when your weak self ego says, “See look, you are a fake. You aren’t authentic in your “love” for others.”

Another reason we often don’t love ourselves is that we have an ego that is hurt and punishing ourselves. The ego that part of us that does things just to look good always wants to be the best and perfect. Well somewhere your ego was hurt and now it is in self sabotage mode. Alcohol is the drug of choice for the hurt ego, just look at the number of people that go out and go an alcohol binge after a rough break up that hurts their ego and end up sleeping with who ever. Or maybe they lost their job and where do they go? The bar, the one place where even the “losers” can score with a “10.” The ego causes us to argue when we know we are wrong and when we are proven wrong to make us fume in anger. We can let the ego go, it is hard but just recognize at as the toddler in our head that is mad cause it isn’t getting its way. Just like that toddler if you give into its every demand if you listen to its every rant and rave, well get ready for a roller coaster of love and hate. You’ll love it when it is cute and cuddly and high on spirits when it can take credit for a job well done. You’ll hate it when it is berating you for not being good enough. Hope I could help you somehow in some way.