Enabling is often part of the behavior pattern in a codependent relationship. If you love someone who’s experiencing substance use disorder (SUD) or living with achallenging condition, you know that it can be difficult to watch them go through it. If your loved one still doesn’t respect your boundaries, Dr. Daramus recommends making clear to them what the outcome will be if they don’t choose a different behavior.
If you think that anxiety and worry fuel your enabling, getting help to manage your anxiety may be necessary in order to change your behavior. Professional treatment through psychotherapy and/or medication is very effective for many. You may also find some relief through meditation, using apps such as Self-Help for Anxiety Management or Insight Timer, grounding techniques, or journaling. The website Anxiety BC is a resource for managing anxiety that I often recommend to my own patients. The enabled person lives in the same world, with the same rules, as everybody else. Managing their world for them means that they don’t learn to manage themselves within the world.
Question About Treatment
Even if you personally disagree with a loved one’s behavior, you might ignore it for any number of reasons. This help is ultimately not helpful, as it usually doesn’t make a problem entirely go away. It often makes it worse since an enabled person has less motivation to make changes if they keep getting help that reduces their need to make change. Enabling behaviors include making excuses for someone else, giving them money, covering for them, or even ignoring the problem entirely to avoid conflict. It can be difficult to maverick house sober living say no when someone we care about asks for our help, even if that “help” could cause more harm than good.
- We realistically cannot stop people from drinking alcohol or using drugs.
- Addiction Resource does not offer medical diagnosis, treatment, or advice.
- A core principle of Al-Anon is that alcoholics cannot learn from their mistakes if they are overprotected.
- To the contrary, enablers are often the ones most affected by, and most disturbed by, the negative behaviors of the enabled person.
- Enabling is dangerous, not only for the addict but also for those close to them and who care about them.
Understanding Enabler Behavior: Motivations, Signs, and Strategies for Change
This allows him/her to under-function or be irresponsible because youre picking up the slack. When you enable, you take responsibility for someone elses behavior. One of the most significant effects of enabling is the strain it puts on family dynamics.
In these moments, it can be hard not to feel compelled to do something. We sometimes reflexively feel like we have to give money or some other non-specific form of “bail.” But after a time or two, you simply become the ATM (or the dog house, or life raft). The root of their problem doesn’t change; they simply gain a false sense of security that there’s always more bail if they screw up again. You can enable someone’s bad behavior in many ways, but it all boils down to the things you do to keep them in the status quo. When I was younger, a story about my favorite cousin, a beautiful young woman who had married a man with an alcohol and gambling problem, worked its way through the family grapevine. My cousin sacrificed her own future for him–she paid off his debts, nursed his health issues, and tried every which way to help him overcome his addictions.
Signs That You Enable Addiction
Enabling behavior might be preventing them from facing the consequences of their actions. Without that experience, it may be more difficult for them to realize they might need help. It’s not that you need to cut the person out of your life necessarily, but they need to know that they are no longer welcome to come to you for support.
They may not agree to enter treatment right away, so you might have to mention it several times. Working with your own therapist can help you explore positive ways to bring up treatments that are right for your situation. Say your sister continues to leave her kids with you when she goes out. You agree to babysit because you want the kids to be safe, but your babysitting enables her to keep going out. If you state a consequence, it’s important to follow through. Not following through lets your loved one know nothing will happen when they keep doing the same thing.
Your loved one may show signs of denial, where they refuse they have a problem with alcohol or other drugs. Or they may have decided that their drinking or drug use “is what it is” and are unwilling to change. In a codependent relationship, you can enable a loved one by explaining away all of their choices and behaviors. To stop codependency and enabling, you have to allow them to confront and manage the consequences of their addiction, even though it may feel unnatural, unloving or mean. When we transition away from codependency and enabling, we can help our loved one realize the severity of their addiction, and guide them toward treatment and hopefully into recovery. Your resentment may be directed more toward your loved one, toward the situation, both, or even yourself.
Therapists often work with people who find themselves enabling loved ones to help them address these patterns and offer support in more helpful and positive ways. If your loved one starts shouting during a discussion and you continue the discussion instead of walking away, they may get the message that the problematic behavior isn’t that big of a deal to you. They may also feel that you’ll easily give in on other boundaries, too. Most people who enable loved ones don’t intend to cause harm. In fact, enabling generally begins with the desire to help. You may try to help with the best of intentions and enable someone without realizing it.