"I don't know who I am if I'm not helping him."

Jennifer sat in my office, fidgeting with her wedding ring. Her husband had finally gotten into recovery after years of her interventions, ultimatums, research, and relentless management of his addiction.

She should have been relieved. Celebrating. Finally breathing.

Instead, she was panicking.

"It sounds crazy," she said, "but I almost miss the crisis. At least then I knew what my job was. Now that he's doing well... I feel lost. Unnecessary. Like I don't know what I'm supposed to do anymore."

That's when I said something that shocked her: "Jennifer, I think you might be addicted to fixing him."

She looked offended. "Addicted? I was trying to save our marriage! I was doing what any good wife would do!"

"I know," I said gently. "But I want you to consider something: What if your need to fix him wasn't actually about him at all? What if it was about you?"

The Hidden Addiction No One Talks About

We talk a lot about substance addictions—alcohol, drugs, pornography. We're getting better at recognizing process addictions—gambling, shopping, social media.

But there's another addiction that flies completely under the radar: the addiction to fixing people.

And just like any other addiction, it follows the same neurological patterns:

The Setup: You see someone struggling. Your brain registers an opportunity to help, to be needed, to prove your worth.

The Hit: You intervene. You solve their problem. You rescue them from consequences. Your brain releases dopamine—the same chemical released during drug use, gambling wins, or sexual encounters.

The Reward: They need you. They depend on you. You feel important, valuable, indispensable. Your identity is confirmed: "I am the helper. I am the fixer. I am the one people can't live without."

The Tolerance: Over time, simple helping isn't enough. You need bigger problems to solve, more dramatic rescues, more evidence that you're needed. The stakes have to keep increasing to get the same dopamine hit.

The Withdrawal: When you try to stop fixing, you experience actual withdrawal symptoms—anxiety, restlessness, guilt, panic. Your nervous system literally goes into distress when you're not actively managing someone else's life.

Sound familiar?

The Hidden Payoffs That Keep You Hooked

Here's what makes fixing addiction so insidious: it looks like love.

Society celebrates fixers. Churches praise them. Families depend on them. "She's so selfless. He's so devoted. They're always there for everyone."

But underneath the noble exterior, there are hidden payoffs driving the behavior:

Payoff #1: Identity and Worth When you're the fixer, you always know who you are. Your value is never in question because someone always needs you. You derive your entire sense of self from being indispensable.

Payoff #2: Control and Predictability When you're managing someone else's life, you feel like you have control. Their chaos becomes your project. If you can just fix them, everything will finally be okay. It's the illusion of control in an uncontrollable world.

Payoff #3: Avoiding Your Own Issues When you're focused on someone else's problems, you don't have to face your own. Their addiction, their anger, their dysfunction becomes a convenient distraction from your own unresolved trauma, fears, and pain.

Payoff #4: Moral Superiority When you're the helper and they're the helpless, you get to be the good one. The strong one. The together one. You never have to acknowledge your own brokenness because you're too busy fixing theirs.

Payoff #5: Guaranteed Connection When someone needs you to survive, they can't leave you. Your fixing creates dependency, which feels like love but is actually fear-based attachment. As long as they need you, you're safe from abandonment.

Jennifer's eyes filled with tears as I walked through these payoffs.

"That's me," she whispered. "All of it. I thought I was being a good wife. But really... I was terrified of who I'd be if he didn't need me anymore."

Your Need to Fix Is About YOUR Fear

Here's the truth that's hard to swallow: Your compulsive need to fix other people isn't about their need for help. It's about your fear.

Fear of being unnecessary. Fear of facing your own problems. Fear of losing your identity. Fear of being abandoned. Fear of sitting still long enough to feel your own pain.

When you're frantically trying to fix your spouse, ask yourself:

"Am I actually helping them... or am I medicating my own anxiety?"

"Am I responding to their actual need... or to my need to feel needed?"

"Am I loving them... or am I using their problems to avoid my own?"

These are brutal questions. But they're necessary.

Because until you recognize that your fixing is an addiction—complete with chemical rewards, hidden payoffs, and withdrawal symptoms—you'll keep exhausting yourself while calling it love.

The Cost of Your Addiction

Just like any addiction, fixing people comes at a devastating cost:

To Them: You rob them of the opportunity to grow. Every time you rescue them from consequences, you prevent the very lessons that could transform them. You're not helping—you're handicapping.

To You: You live in constant exhaustion, resentment, and anxiety. You've poured yourself out so completely that there's nothing left. You've lost yourself while trying to save someone else.

To Your Relationship: You've created a parent-child dynamic instead of an adult partnership. There's no intimacy because there's no equality. They resent your control, and you resent their dependence—but you're both addicted to the dance.

To Your Own Healing: You've spent years, maybe decades, focused on someone else's recovery while your own trauma sits unaddressed. Your fixing has become a sophisticated form of avoidance.

How to Break Free From Fixing Addiction

Breaking free from any addiction is hard. Breaking free from one that looks like love? Even harder.

But it's possible. Here's how:

Step 1: Recognize the Hidden Payoffs (And Let Them Go)

Get brutally honest about what you're getting from fixing.

Write it down: "When I fix my spouse, I get to feel..." (needed, important, superior, distracted, safe from abandonment, in control, etc.)

Then ask yourself: "Am I willing to let go of these payoffs to truly love this person well?"

This is terrifying because it means releasing the very things that have made you feel valuable, safe, and purposeful.

But these payoffs are keeping both of you stuck.

Step 2: Find Healthier Ways to Meet Those Needs

Your needs for identity, worth, connection, and purpose are legitimate. The problem isn't the needs—it's that you've been meeting them through fixing.

Ask yourself:

• "How can I develop identity apart from being needed?"
• "Where can I find worth that isn't dependent on someone else's dependence?"
• "What would connection look like without the rescuer-victim dynamic?"
• "What gives my life purpose beyond managing someone else's?"

For Jennifer, this meant:

• Starting individual therapy to address her own childhood trauma
• Reconnecting with hobbies and friendships she'd abandoned
• Joining a codependency support group (yes, fixing is a form of codependency)
• Learning to tolerate the discomfort of not being indispensable

Step 3: Learn to Tolerate the Discomfort of NOT Fixing

This is where the withdrawal symptoms hit hardest.

When you stop fixing, you'll experience:

• Intense anxiety ("What if they fail without me?")
• Overwhelming guilt ("I'm being selfish and abandoning them!")
• Identity crisis ("Who am I if I'm not the helper?")
• Physical restlessness (your body is addicted to the adrenaline of crisis management)
• Fear of abandonment ("If I'm not needed, will they leave?")

These feelings are withdrawal. They're your nervous system protesting the loss of its familiar drug.

You have to learn to sit with this discomfort without medicating it through fixing.

Practice saying:

• "I notice I want to rescue right now. I'm going to sit with this urge without acting on it."
• "Their struggle is not my emergency."
• "I can love them without fixing them."
• "My discomfort with their discomfort is not a reason to intervene."

This is excruciating at first. But it gets easier.

Step 4: Replace Fixing With Actual Love

Real love doesn't rescue people from growth opportunities.

Real love:

• Sets boundaries while staying emotionally connected
• Allows natural consequences to teach what words cannot
• Offers support without taking over
• Validates feelings without solving problems
• Trusts the other person's capacity to figure things out

Instead of asking "How can I fix this for them?" ask:

• "What does loving them well actually require right now?"
• "Am I responding to their need or my anxiety?"
• "Will this intervention help them grow or keep them dependent?"

For Jennifer, this looked like:

Instead of researching recovery programs for her husband (fixing), she attended Al-Anon for herself (actual self-care).

Instead of monitoring his sobriety (control), she focused on her own healing journey (healthy boundaries).

Instead of solving every problem he faced in recovery (rescuing), she said "That sounds really hard. I believe you can figure this out." (actual support)

At first, he was angry. Her fixing had been enabling his dependence, and he didn't like her suddenly expecting him to adult.

But over time, something beautiful happened: he started actually growing. And she started discovering who she was beyond being his manager.

The Question That Changes Everything

Here's the question I want you to sit with this week:

"What am I actually afraid will happen if I stop fixing this person?"

Be specific. Get to the core fear.

Are you afraid they'll fail? (Maybe they need to.) Are you afraid they'll leave? (If fixing is the only thing keeping them, that's not love.) Are you afraid you'll be unnecessary? (Your worth doesn't depend on being needed.) Are you afraid you'll have to face your own pain? (That pain is waiting for you either way.)

Because until you face the fear driving your fixing, you'll keep exhausting yourself in relationships while calling it love.

Your fixing isn't helping them. It's medicating you.

And you both deserve better.

Take the Next Step

Ready to break free from the exhausting cycle of fixing? My $17 "Letting Go In Love" course teaches you how to love people well without making their problems your project. Learn the difference between healthy support and addictive fixing.

Remember: The most loving thing you can do is stop trying to be someone's savior. That position is already filled—and it's not you. When you learn to let go of fixing, you create space for both of you to actually heal.

Have you recognized your own fixing addiction in this article? Share in the comments—your honesty might help someone else finally admit what they've been afraid to face.