“With regard to addiction, enabling means to accommodate the addicted individual in order to protect them from facing the full consequences of their drug use.” (Lander, Howsare, & Byrne, 2013)
Loving someone struggling with addiction presents many challenges but none as great as differentiating between what is supporting and what is enabling. It is heartbreaking to watch someone you love destroying themselves and not know if what you are doing is helping them or helping their addiction. If I could provide you with the answer to this riddle, I would. Many people try, they fail, because it is different for everyone and every circumstance.
I have also been told not to use the term “enable” because it is too stigmatizing. I agree, it implies that you are intentionally harming this person that you love and are trying desperately to help. I don’t think that’s on you, even if you are making mistakes along the way. Even if you are failing to do the things that your loved-one needs you to do to help them get into recovery because you are not emotionally strong enough. You didn’t start their addiction. You need to see the error in what you are doing, and you need change your behavior to help them.
I think that I will use the term “accommodating” to replace enabling.
Take Care of You First
The idea that you have to take care of yourself seems selfish and counterintuitive. You are fine. You love them and would do anything for them. They need the help, not you. YOU ARE NOT FINE! Whether you see it or not, you are suffering along with them and the more things that you tolerate, the more you tear yourself down. You are limited in your ability to help by your own pain. This may mean doing something that you think is cruel, like turning them out on the streets but it may be the only way to save you and them. Keep them at arm’s length as you love and support them if that is what you need. You want to avoid reaching the point where they have caused you such harm that you hate the person that they have become.
How Do I Know What to Do?
Most definitions of enabling/accommodating regarding addiction revolve around protecting the person in active addiction from the consequences of their own actions. By that definition, I think that we parented our boys by avoiding enabling, because we felt that to become a responsible adult, they needed to experience the consequences of their actions.
When our son didn’t prepare for a test, we didn’t let him stay home from school. He went to school and struggled for his own poor planning. When our son lost parking privileges at school for his behavior and he had “a solution”, we didn’t let him use it. He was being punished for his behavior, so we made him take the punishment. Unfortunately, we found out later that some of our son’s friend’s parents did not do the same. We were considered the tough parents because we made our sons suffer the consequences. No snowflakes at our house. Oddly enough, we ended up having a son who died of an overdose, while those who coddled their children mostly did not. Not really that odd when you consider that heredity is the single, strongest determinant for addiction, even more so than upbringing.
But I digress, when you accommodate addiction, you let your loved-one do as they please without suffering the consequences. Some examples include:
- Calling their boss to make excuses for their absence from work when they are hungover or going through withdrawal. (You can’t have them lose their job.)
- Cleaning up whatever mess they made. (“They won’t do it”..not if you will do it for them.)
- Helping them out financially. We know it is a bad idea to give someone with substance use disorder cash but if you cover other expenses, you are freeing up cash that they have used or will use to buy drugs or alcohol. (It is very difficult to find where you should be with respect to monetary help.)
- Blaming others for your loved-one’s problems or behavior. They don’t run with a bad crowd, they are the bad crowd. Usually, they weren’t tricked into using, they went there willingly. They need to own that.
- You put off the things that you need to do to take care of yourself in order to protect or take care of them. As a parent, we are wired to protect and care for our children.
- You accept unacceptable behavior such as, physical or verbal abuse, stealing from you, ignoring reasonable house rules, etc.
Believe it or not, those were the easy examples.
I was contacted by Nicole at Reflections Rehab regarding an enabling quiz that they have. I took the quiz and while I think that we must look at things in the light of our own situations, it is consistent with my understandings. The quiz may be helpful for you to assess what you are doing and to start some discussion of changes you may wish to make. The quiz can be found at https://reflectionsrehab.com/program/family/#enabling
This Sucks
Our son had a great job with people that loved him, appreciated his work ethic, and demonstrated that. What more could you want? When he overdosed and had to go to rehab, we made him suffer the consequences of his actions, he had to call his boss and explain. He did, his boss said, “Get better and your job will be waiting for you”. Nate got better, his boss was true to his word and all was well until he overdosed and died six months after he went to rehab. What did we do wrong? That question will haunt me the rest of my life.
Here are some things that I have been told that I don’t think are as universal as they were presented but then what do I know, I failed to keep my son alive.
- Take away their car and their phone, so that they have to spend their money on those things rather than drugs. My view; a good idea under some circumstances but if you doom them to complete failure that is what you will get.
- Don’t let them move back home because it is too easy, you are too easily manipulated, and very likely it is where they used (a trigger). My view; a good idea but not always practical. If they must move home, make it short and push them to be independent and in a supportive environment like: halfway house, recovery house, sober house, etc. Side note: when Nate died, we had just pushed him to move out of temporary arrangements at our house and into a sober house.
Tough Love
I think that the term tough love gets used way too much because it sounds good, but it is interpreted so broadly that it has no real meaning. No one is asking you to be mean or spitefully. If you are allowing them to suffer, it is so that they can get better. I don’t like the term tough love because some people think that it means tough like a drill sergeant. A drill sergeant tears you down to build you back the way the military wants you. Your job is to sit back and watch as your loved-one tears them self down in the hopes that they will survive long enough to find the great person within and become that person.
In order to do what is necessary to help your loved-one you may have to do things that are very difficult, that seem like you don’t love them. Just because you are being tough does not mean that you don’t love them, on the contrary you love them so much that you can make very, very difficult decisions in order to help them. The toughest thing about so called “tough love” is how hard it is on you, not them. Tough love is really: massive love, thoughtful love, unconditional love, a love so great that you suffer tremendously watching them but yet allow them to fail in the hope that they can see what they need to do.
Rock Bottom
Those people or groups that advocate for the hardest line
with your loved-one also tend to be those that push the idea that they have to
hit rock bottom. Once I was at a parent
meeting for the latest rehab that our son was in and I was kind of a jerk but I
was making a point. When the staff
member said that addicts need to hit rock bottom, I asked “what am I doing
here, why don’t I just throw my son out in the street and speed his trip to
rock bottom, so that he can then get better”.
I was kind of an A-hole but he got my point and had no answer.
Rock bottom can be the most horrendous place imaginable. If that was what would have saved our son, I would have driven him there myself. I think that rock bottom is the place where you realize that you cannot sustain the lifestyle, the destructive, addictive, lifestyle that you are living. I have listened to a guy who lived under an overpass in the Kensington section of Philadelphia for years before he came to that realization. I have included a story in this blog of a man that came to that realization in his bedroom, when he met God. I have read people’s stories of virtual death and resurrection with Narcan that brought them to recovery and those that were revived many times and did not find recovery until something else changed them.
Bottomline: Take care of yourself first. You cannot save your addicted loved-one no matter how hard you try. That is work that only they can do. You can prolong the process and ultimately make it more difficult for them by protecting them from the natural consequences of their actions. BUT you are not responsible for their problems and you are not capable of fixing them.
My Best Answer to the Riddle: Think about what you are doing and whether you are helping your loved-one or accommodating their addiction by letting them live consequence-free. Make the best decisions that you can, re-evaluate your decisions, and accept that you did the best you could. Forgive yourself for the errors that you make and forge ahead. You are in an impossible situation, but you are not defeated. THERE IS HOPE. THERE IS A LIGHT IN THE ADDICT.
Do you have thoughts or experiences to share? Do you think I am full of s**t? Please comment, let’s work together and help each other.