It’s difficult to see a loved one suffering from an addiction. As a close friend or family member, you would do anything to help them. But what if your perceived helping is actually making things worse? What if you’re enabling addiction further in their life? There’s a fine line between helping and enabling. Here’s how you can tell if you’re enabling an addict, and what you can do to learn how to stop (and actually help, instead).
Enabling, Explained
What is enabling, exactly? According to the National Center for PTSD, enabling happens when you help, rescue, support, or protect your loved one from facing the negative consequences associated with their choices or actions. The Cleveland Clinic describes enabling as justifying or supporting problematic behavior in someone you love under the guise that you’re helping them. You may even enable without realizing it, assuming you’re helping.
Enabling a loved one often happens with substance abuse. A family member may step in to help their loved one avoid hitting rock bottom, for example, but their efforts only lead to enabling addiction even more.
Enabling is often motivated by love. As mentioned earlier, you don’t want to see your loved one suffer. So you do what you can to make them happier. Or perhaps, because it’s a loved one, you enable just to keep the peace and prevent conflict or family strife. Enabling may lead to momentary relief, but it worsens the situation in the long run.
What Enabling Addiction Looks Like
Are you enabling an addict in your life? There are a few trademark behaviors associated with enabling addiction in a loved one. Some are subtle while others are obvious. Signs of enabling behavior include:
Alleviating a Loved One’s Burdens
It’s understandable to help out a struggling loved one from time to time. Maybe you give them a ride somewhere, let them live with you temporarily, or loan them money. But these actions could easily be enabling addiction.
What does supporting your loved one’s needs have to do with encouraging their addiction, you ask? Alleviating a loved one’s everyday burdens allows them to continue their addictive lifestyle and not face the ramifications of their substance use disorder. If they don’t have to worry about groceries or paying their bills, they can use their money on drugs or alcohol. A free place to stay means they don’t need to uphold personal responsibilities and can focus on their addiction. They never experience the collateral damage their addiction causes as a result.
Downplaying or Making Excuses
An enabler will refuse to recognize an addiction for what it truly is. Like someone struggling with denial in addiction themselves, your downplaying of your loved one’s addiction keeps you from living in reality. This often looks like viewing your loved one’s substance abuse as not all that bad, or saying to yourself “it could be worse.” And your loved one won’t ask for your help if you don’t think it’s that much of an issue.
Just the same, you may be making excuses for your loved one’s addiction and behaviors. Perhaps you’re justifying their substance use in some way, thinking it helps them relax, unwind, or find relief from their troubles. Or maybe other people are bringing up your loved one’s addiction, and you’re finding ways to explain it away.
Not Talking About It
Difficult conversations are necessary on the road to recovery. This often means addressing your loved one’s addiction with them directly, expressing your concerns, and steering them toward treatment. Yet avoiding the conversation altogether with your loved one only ends up enabling addiction. It may feel easier not to talk about it, but not “going there” encourages your loved one to continue using.
Providing Zero Consequences
Maybe you actually talk about your loved one’s addiction and even put some boundaries in place with them. But you ultimately don’t hold your loved one accountable or enforce said boundaries. You end up sacrificing your time and energy to appease your loved one, and they don’t learn the consequences of their actions.
How to Stop Enabling an Addict
Perhaps you can relate to the enabling behaviors above. If so, what can you do to learn how to help an addict without enabling? It’s not necessarily an easy fix, but you can take steps to reverse course, provide empathy, and help your loved one achieve recovery. Some of these steps include:
- Discussing the addiction: It’s time to bring the issue to light. Talking about your loved one’s addiction with them helps them to finally see that it’s not a good thing. Express your concerns compassionately and honestly.
- Make and enforce boundaries: To stop enabling addiction, you need to lay some ground rules. Set boundaries with your loved one and uphold any consequences when they don’t honor them.
- Help your loved one get treatment: Encourage your loved one to seek professional help for their addiction and support their efforts to get into rehab. Be a champion of their recovery along the journey.
Holistic Addiction Treatment in Vermont
Instead of enabling an addict, one of the best ways you can help them is to direct them to the right addiction treatment center. At Sana at Stowe in Stowe, Vermont, we provide compassionate, holistic drug and alcohol addiction treatment programs for loved ones looking to heal. To learn how we help your loved one achieve lasting recovery, call us today.
