To understand what enabling is, it’s important to distinguish it from helping. Helping is when you do something for someone that they are unable to do for themselves. Whereas, enabling is doing something for someone that they are not only capable of doing, but should be doing. Enabling is often a behavior that a loved one has learned to do for emotional survival.
The problem that enabling creates for someone who struggles with drug or alcohol abuse, is that it creates an environment in which unacceptable behavior can be continued. Often times, the “help” that family and friends think they are offering to an addict, is actually making it easier for the disease of addiction to progress. An addict can continue to use, knowing that somebody will be there to rescue him or her from mistakes. This also makes denial easier for an addict, because his or her problems are being fixed by those around. It is when an addict is forced to face the consequences of his or her actions that the realization of a problem is possible. Enabling is a learned behavior and can be replaced with a healthier response to a loved one’s illness. (Psychology Today)
Are you at-risk of enabling? Ask yourself these questions:
1. Have you ever ‘called in sick’ for the addict because he/she was too hungover to go to work or school?
2. Have you finished a job or project that he/he failed to complete?
3. Do you ever make excuses for his/her consumption of addictive substance or
behavior?
4. Have you ever lied to anyone to cover up for him/ her?
5. Have you bailed him/her out of jail or paid legal fees?
6. Have you accepted part of the blame for his/her consumption or behavior?
7. Do you avoid talking about his/her use out of fear of the response?
8. Have you paid bills that he/she was supposed to pay?
9. Have you ‘loaned’ him/her money?
10. Have you given him or her any kind of financial support?
11. Have you tried using as well in hopes of strengthening the relationship?
12. Have you given him/her ‘one more chance’ repeatedly?
13. Have you threatened to leave if he or she didn’t stop using and then did not leave?
