If you have a loved one who’s trying to overcome a drug or alcohol addiction, you want them to get better, right? You may even desire to figure out how to help someone with an addiction, yourself. That’s why undermining your loved one’s recovery or encouraging their addiction may be the last thing you’d want to do. However, enabling does just that, and you may be doing it yourself. So what is enabling exactly, and how can you tell if you’re enabling your loved one right now? How do you help someone with an addiction in healthy, productive ways instead?
What is Enabling?
When a loved one struggles with substance abuse, addiction and family often intertwine. When this happens, enabling and addiction can do so as well. Enabling occurs when you think that you’re helping someone, but you’re really supporting or justifying their problematic behavior (such as drug or alcohol abuse) instead. It’s really a complicated situation, one that’s often associated with addicted family members or friends.
You may be enabling out of a place of love (and even not know that you’re enabling in the moment) to help your loved one avoid the consequences of their actions. After all, they’re your spouse, child, sibling, or close friend. You don’t like to see them struggling or getting into trouble, so you want to help them, explains the Cleveland Clinic. You’d prefer to keep further discomfort or pain from happening to them. Or you don’t want to experience the conflict that may arise between you and your loved one when addressing the issue head on, so you do what you can to avoid it altogether.
Enabling may provide short-term relief in the moment, as well as a temporary feeling of stability, shares the Association of Intervention Specialists (AIS). Because of this, enabling can trick you into thinking you’re helping your loved one. In the end, however, enabling only hurts your loved one — as well as yourself — in the long run. Consequently, it keeps your loved one from taking real steps to heal and prolongs their issues instead.
But what is enabling behavior in practice? Enabling addiction, for example, may involve:
- Giving your loved one money (which they then use to buy substances)
- Bailing your loved one out of jail
- Paying your loved one’s legal fines
- Making excuses for your loved one’s addiction and behavior
- Hiding your loved one’s addiction to prevent embarrassment
- Denying the problem to avoid conflict
- Taking on the responsibilities of your loved one, such as chores, buying groceries, or paying their bills
SOURCE: AIS
Enabling Addiction: Why Does It Happen?
No one necessarily plans to enable, especially when it comes to enabling addiction in a loved one. So why do people enable others? For some, it’s simply hard to say no to someone you love. Addiction can make your loved one change in ways that are different from what you expect. It may be tempting to enable your loved one as a way to try to bring them back to normal, protect them, or put your mind at ease, shares WebMD. Or perhaps you think that your loved one will eventually turn things around on their own without your intervention. Sadly, these approaches often backfire, allowing addiction to get further entrenched in their lives.
Among dysfunctional families, enabling can occur sometimes just to avoid conflict. Instead of confronting the problem, enabling may feel like an easier alternative to keep the peace in the family. Enablers may also struggle with low self-esteem or unhealthy emotional attachments. This may cause them to seek validation and approval from the addicted loved one by enabling them; or they may fear that their loved one will leave them if they are not appeased. The resulting situation can lead to a tangled family dynamic of codependency and addiction, making the situation worse for everyone.
How to Help Someone With an Addiction vs. Enabling Them
So if you’re trying to do something about your loved one’s addiction, how can you know if you’re enabling them or actually helping them? What’s the difference between learning how to help someone with an addiction vs. intentionally or unintentionally enabling them? For starters, it’s important to recognize that enabling behaviors will remove your loved one’s desire to seek treatment for their addiction, according to the Addiction Policy Forum. If the actions you’re taking to “help” your loved one are keeping them from taking responsibility to achieve sobriety, then you’re not helping them. You’re enabling them.
Sure, helping an addicted loved one in a pinch every now and then with some basic need is understandable. But routinely covering for your loved one’s alcohol relapse, solving their problems for them, shifting blame elsewhere, or providing some kind of protective buffer allows them to continue their addiction without facing any accountability or consequences, shares AIS.
Alternatively, helping an addicted loved one fosters their personal growth, development, and ability to achieve sobriety goals. Helping involves providing your loved one with support so they can feel empowered to pursue recovery themselves. It encourages self-reliance, perseverance, and self-control over their actions and choices. Some examples of helping behaviors, according to AIS, include:
- Encouraging your loved one to take on responsibilities
- Supporting your loved one’s desires to pursue healthy passions and personal growth
- Providing opportunities for your loved one to take ownership of their actions and make decisions
- Giving your loved one a ride to outpatient treatment or accompanying them on a support group meeting
You Might Be an Enabler If…
Enabling can create an ongoing vicious cycle both for the enabler and the addicted loved one. If it continues to persist, enabling can create further relationship strain, manipulation, self-sabotaging behavior, and a worsening addiction. If you’re concerned that you might be enabling a loved one with an addiction, consider this enabler checklist to see if any of these circumstances sound familiar:
In the past few months, have you:
- Said yes to your loved one’s requests just to avoid any conflict or confrontation?
- Neglected your own needs and well-being in favor of your loved one? (This may look like getting into financial trouble, letting your work suffer, feeling burnout or stress, or seeing other relationships fall by the wayside)
- Had other friends or loved ones tell you that you’re enabling?
- Made excuses for your loved one to shield their problems or save them (or you) the embarrassment?
- Agreed with your loved one’s justification to continue using?
- Used with your loved one?
- Minimized your loved one’s addiction?
- Treated your loved one like a child as you felt superior to them?
- Tried to control your loved one’s actions or behaviors?
- Patiently endured in hopes that your loved one would get better on their own?
SOURCES: Cleveland Clinic and University of Pennsylvania
Changing Enabling Behavior
Can you relate to any of the enabling addiction behaviors above? If so, it’s important to realize that you need to make some changes in how you’re trying to support your loved one. Continuing to enable won’t help them in the long run. Here are some steps you can take to stop enabling and actually help your loved one along their recovery journey:
- Express your concerns: Clearly communicate with your loved one (once they’re sober) your concerns about their substance abuse. They need to know you’re no longer willing to enable their addiction.
- Learn to say no: Tough love may be necessary with your loved one. That means being OK with saying “no” to their requests, even if it causes conflict in your relationship.
- Set healthy boundaries: Setting healthy boundaries is key to preventing future enabling. Share with your loved one the limitations of your help and what actions you will no longer tolerate. Follow through on consequences when boundaries are crossed.
- Help your loved one get professional treatment: Encourage your loved one to get professional addiction help. This may mean helping them find a treatment facility and giving them rides to therapy.
- Get help from a support group: Support groups for families of addicted loved ones can be vital for learning how to best care for your loved one in this season.
Navigating Enablers in Recovery
If you’re reading this and you’re in addiction recovery, you may know some enablers who do more harm than good, despite their best intentions. As these are often loved ones, it’s best to educate them on their enabling behaviors and how they don’t actually help you. You may need to give them specific examples of the enabling they’ve caused in the past. Once they know the ramifications of their actions, many loved ones will make the changes necessary to support you.
In some cases, people who enable will continue to do so, despite your requests to stop. If enabling persists, setting healthy boundaries of your own is the best next step. These boundaries may limit when and how often you spend time with an enabler. After all, you need to protect your recovery, which means you may have to sacrifice certain relationships to do so.
Empowering Families at Defining Wellness Centers
Addiction is a family disease, but that also means family plays a significant role in helping their loved ones heal. We understand this at Defining Wellness Centers, which is why our family program empowers family members like you to bring about hope, healing, and change to their loved ones in recovery. To learn more about our addiction treatment programs, call us today.