If your loved one is dealing with alcohol misuse, removing alcohol from your home can help keep it out of easy reach. You may not have trouble limiting your drinks, but consider having them with a friend instead. If you or your loved one crosses a boundary you’ve expressed and there are no consequences, what does it mean to be an enabler they might keep crossing that boundary. 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. This can make it more likely they’ll continue to behave in the same way and keep taking advantage of your help.
Enablers May Not Always Know they Are Enabling
Financially enabling a loved one can have particularly damaging consequences if they struggle with addiction or alcohol misuse. Even if you personally disagree with a loved one’s behavior, you might ignore it for any number of reasons. The term “enabler” generally describes someone whose behavior allows a loved one to continue self-destructive patterns of behavior. Enablers will unknowingly entice or encourage a person’s bad behavior, which sets back any progress with recovery. But these behaviors often encourage the other person to continue the same behavioral patterns and not seek professional help. The term “enabler” refers to someone who persistently behaves in enabling ways, justifying or indirectly supporting someone else’s potentially harmful behavior.
How to stop enabling behavior
An enabler is a person who allows someone close to them to continue unhealthy or self-destructive patterns of behavior. Your resentment may be directed more toward your loved one, toward the situation, both, or even yourself. You might feel hurt and angry about spending so much time trying to help someone who doesn’t seem to appreciate you.
Enabling happens when you justify or support problematic behaviors in a loved one under the guise that you’re helping them. That can be things like giving money to an adult child who hasn’t spent theirs wisely. Enabling usually refers to patterns that appear in the context of drug or alcohol misuse and addiction.
With codependency, a person relies on the other person for support in essentially all aspects of their life, especially emotionally. Emotional and psychological dependencies might be seen in a romantic relationship or a relationship between a parent and child. Over time, this type of helicopter parenting can prevent the child from building confidence in their abilities. Not all experts agree on the amount of stages when it comes to enabling, but some include denial, compliance, control, and crisis.
It is not uncommon for enablers to be unaware that what they are doing is actually unhelpful and allow the other person to continue their harmful behaviors. Spouses and parents sometimes lie and make excuses to other people about their family member having a problem with drugs or alcohol. Covering up the problem does not make it go away and further enables substance use.
How Do I Know If I Am Enabling Someone?
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. Over time you become angrier and more frustrated with her and with yourself for not being able to say no. This resentment slowly creeps into your interactions with her kids.
Paying a loved one’s bills or giving them cash—knowing it may fund an addiction or other irresponsible activities—is a classic enabling behavior. By removing the financial consequences, you inadvertently allow them to continue harmful patterns. And it’s counterproductive to the person you’re trying to help. An enabler is someone who helps a person suffering from substance abuse issues continue to use drugs and alcohol.
How to Stop Enabling Someone
You might feel depleted and blame the other person for taking all your energy and time. At the same time, it may be difficult for you to stop enabling them, which in turn might increase your irritation. Sometimes, when all your time and energy is focused on your loved one, you might feel like your efforts aren’t appreciated or reciprocated. For example, enabling behavior may include providing the school with an excuse so someone can skip class, even if they did because they spent the night drinking.
If you find yourself instinctually siding with the addicted person at all times, you may be an enabler. It’s not easy for someone with substance abuse problems to avoid drugs or alcohol. Keeping alcohol or other drugs accessible can make it difficult for someone with an addiction. Establishing boundaries can help prevent you from enabling your loved one’s problematic behaviors. They may work with you in exploring why you’ve engaged in enabling behaviors and what coping skills you can develop to stop those. They can also help you learn ways to empower, rather than enable, your loved one.
This term can be stigmatizing since there’s often negative judgment attached to it. However, many people who enable others don’t do so intentionally. Enablers also tend to carry false guilt, suffer from anxiety, and avoid conflict. There’s nothing wrong with extending financial help to a loved one from time to time.
- If you don’t want to bother or confront an addicted person, you may be enabling them.
- KCC has a combination of employees and business partners that we contract with to provide services.
- In the denial stage of enabling, the enabler tries to downplay or deny that there is a problem or that their actions are potentially harmful and unhealthy.
- You might even be afraid of what your loved one will say or do if you challenge the behavior.
It can be very difficult to see a loved one face challenges with substance abuse. A person may want to help but at the same time not know when they need to set a boundary. The young adult spends their money on drugs or alcohol, and when they can’t pay their rent, the parent steps in to cover it.
- But if making excuses for destructive or harmful behavior becomes a habit and gives room to more toxic behavior, you might be inadvertently reinforcing said behaviors.
- You or your loved one may not have accepted there’s a problem.
- There are many support groups like Al-Anon that are intended specifically for family and friends of people addicted to drugs and alcohol.
There are no particular personality traits that make someone an enabler. Instead, it’s determined by your emotional connection to a person. Taking on someone else’s responsibilities is another form of enabling behavior. In other words, enabling is directly or indirectly supporting someone else’s unhealthy tendencies. Enablers step in and handle tasks a loved one should do themselves, such as job-hunting, paying rent, or cleaning up legal messes.
Avoid using substances around them
While Ukraine is fighting Russian troops, Mr. Putin’s enabler and guarantor is China, whether via oil purchases or chips for military equipment. The more you spend time, energy and financial resources on others, the more effect it can have on your own well-being. So, when you start taking on tasks to help others, it’s only natural that eventually something has to give. Trying to manage your own life along with others’ starts to wear down your reserves. Encourage independence and encourage them to get professional help for their condition. For example, this might look like constantly paying off the other person’s debts or irresponsible spending habits.
By not setting boundaries or requiring a person to be accountable for their actions and the support provided by the enabler, an addict will continue their bad behavior. When an enabler stops enabling, the person with an alcohol or drug addiction may have an easier time seeking help. Fortunately, treatment programs are available when they’re ready to change. It’s easier to understand what an enabler is than to recognize the signs of enabling bad behavior. But identifying the latter is necessary to stop doing it and to help a person overcome their problem.
