Supporting a loved one with addiction is hard and emotionally draining. It’s natural to want to help, but there is a fine line between helping and enabling. While helping involves supporting a person in their recovery and encouraging positive changes, enabling involves behaviors that allow the addiction to continue. Enabling can hinder the journey to recovery. Learn more about helping and enabling and how to support a loved one without enabling their addiction.
Understanding the Difference Between Helping and Enabling
Helping is offering support that empowers someone to take responsibility for their actions and encourages their recovery. Setting healthy boundaries while providing emotional support and practical assistance to promote recovery are examples of helping.
Enabling involves actions that unintentionally support the continuation of the addiction. Enabling behaviors may include providing money, covering up for the person’s mistakes, or neglecting to set appropriate boundaries. The individual may feel like they’re helping, but they are ultimately preventing the person from experiencing the fallout of their behavior. When the loved one doesn’t experience consequences, it’s easier for them to avoid taking responsibility.
Signs of Enabling Behavior
It’s important to recognize some common signs of enabling behavior. Understanding and learning to identify enabling behaviors allows you to change your reaction.
Covering Up or Making Excuses
Protecting your loved one from the impacts or consequences of their actions, such as calling their employer to say they are sick when they are actually hungover or using substances.
Providing Financial Support
Giving money that may be used to buy drugs or alcohol or pay for expenses that the person should be responsible for, such as rent, bills, or legal fees.
Ignoring or Minimizing the Problem
Downplaying the seriousness of the addiction or avoiding discussing it altogether to keep the peace.
Taking Over Responsibilities
Handling tasks or responsibilities that your loved one should manage themselves, such as taking care of their children, doing their chores, or fulfilling their work obligations.
Accepting Unacceptable Behavior
Tolerating disrespect, manipulation, or abusive behavior because you fear the person’s reaction or are worried about pushing them away.
Tips for Helping Without Enabling
Enabling can look and feel like helping, but the goal of helping is to set your loved one up for success in a real and meaningful way.
Educate Yourself About Addiction
Understanding addiction is crucial to supporting your loved one. Addiction is complicated, and it impacts the brain and alters behavior. Educating yourself about the nature of addiction, the recovery process, and the challenges involved enables you to approach the situation with empathy and understanding.
Learning more about addiction enables you to make informed decisions about how best to support your loved one without enabling their behavior.
Set Healthy Boundaries
Learning how to set rules or boundaries is essential for maintaining one’s well-being and ending enabling behavior. Boundaries are limits that define what one will and will not accept in a relationship.
For example, you might set a boundary that you will not provide money, bail them out of legal trouble, or allow them to use substances in your home. Communicate your boundaries to your loved one and be consistent in enforcing them. Boundaries are not about punishment but about creating a safe and supportive environment for both you and your loved one.
Encourage Professional Help
Talking to your loved one about professional help and encouraging them to work with a trained professional is one of the most effective ways to support their recovery. This could involve attending therapy, joining a support group, or enrolling in a rehabilitation program. Assist your loved one in finding resources or accompany them to appointments if they are open to it. Treatment gives your loved one the tools and support needed to manage and treat their condition.
Provide Emotional Support
Offering emotional support while your loved one is in recovery is vital. Listen to your loved one without judgment, express your concerns with empathy, and let them know you care about them. Focus on offering encouragement and assistance while being clear about your boundaries and expectations. Do not lecture, blame, or shame; this can lead to defensiveness and resistance.
Allow Natural Consequences
Allowing your loved one to experience the ramifications of their actions is often a powerful motivator for change. This might mean not bailing them out of legal trouble, not covering for them at work, or not providing financial assistance. Watching your loved one face these challenges is hard, but they need to understand the consequences of their behavior and the need for change.
Take Care of Yourself
Supporting someone through addiction can be emotionally exhausting, and it’s important to prioritize your well-being. Engage in activities that you enjoy, to support yourself. Think about joining a support group for families of individuals with addiction so you can connect with people who understand what you’re going through. Caring for yourself is not selfish; you must be rested and strong to help others.
Avoid Enabling Behaviors
Be mindful of actions that may unintentionally enable your loved one’s addiction. Avoid providing money, covering up for their mistakes, or taking over their responsibilities. Instead, focus on encouraging positive behaviors and supporting their efforts to seek help. If you find yourself unsure about whether an action is helping or enabling, ask yourself if it is supporting their recovery or allowing the addiction to continue.
Practice Compassionate Detachment
Compassionate detachment means caring for your loved one without taking responsibility for their actions or emotions. It involves recognizing that you cannot control their behavior or make choices for them. You can offer support and encouragement by practicing compassionate detachment without becoming emotionally entangled in their struggles. You need to find a healthy balance between caring for your loved one and protecting your own well-being.
Focus on the Positive
Encourage and acknowledge your loved one’s positive steps toward recovery, no matter how small. Celebrate their successes and express pride in their efforts to change. Positive support can boost their confidence and motivation to continue on the path to recovery. Recovery is a process that takes time, and progress may come in small steps.
Know When to Seek Professional Guidance
If you are unsure how to best support your loved one or if their behavior puts themselves or others in danger, it may be time to seek professional guidance. A therapist or addiction counselor can provide advice and support on navigating these challenging situations and developing an effective plan for helping your loved one.
Focus on Healing
Helping a loved one with addiction requires a delicate balance between offering support and avoiding enabling behaviors. By educating yourself about addiction, setting healthy boundaries, encouraging professional help, and allowing natural consequences, you can provide the support your loved one needs while also protecting your own well-being. By supporting your loved one in a healthy way, you can help them take the steps necessary to achieve and maintain sobriety.
