Some specialists and professionals can help you or your loved one to recover from SUD. Handling a person with SUD is stressful and challenging. You may also consider talking with your friends and family, so you don’t have to do it alone.
Disconnecting from a loved one is a self-protective measure — and it’s usually a last resort Pointing out how their behavior makes you feel and giving them projects to own can help you both Support groups like Al-Anon may be useful for people whose loved ones are living with addiction. 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. First is recognizing that you’re contributing to a cycle of enabling.
- With enabling, the person might not always rely on the other person, but they might be emotionally attached, which causes them to do things they think will keep them happy, even if their actions are harming them.
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- While the parent’s intentions come from a place of love and protection, their actions unintentionally enable the child to avoid responsibility for their choices.
- In doing so, they encourage problematic behavior.
- Or that it’s necessarily problematic to help an adult child pay an overdue bill here or there.
You have to make them understand the gravity of their actions and behavior. Set a fine line for what you’re willing to put up with and what’s allowed for them. In doing so, they encourage problematic behavior.
Understanding Enabling Behavior
For example, giving money to a loved one who uses it for drugs or alcohol, or covering for someone’s bad behavior, are forms of enabling. Not to be confused, enabling doesn’t mean that a person thinks the behaviors of the other person are okay, but they might tolerate them because they don’t know how to better handle the situation. Many people who are enablers may not be trying to be or be aware that they are enabling their loved ones. However, most people who engage in enabling behaviors do so unknowingly.
How to Stop Enabling a Mentally Ill Person?
Many enablers grow up in situations where they feel responsible for keeping the peace, solving problems, or making others happy. The psychology behind enablers often comes from a mix of past experiences, traumas, family dynamics, and personality types. 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. This is why it is so important to encourage loved ones to seek things like addiction treatment, support groups, or detox opportunities so that they can get the help they need from health professionals. It can quickly turn into a draining and unhealthy relationship when loved ones try to provide support they aren’t qualified for.
Enabling Substance Abuse and Addiction
Sometimes, enablers don’t realize that they aren’t helping the other person and are allowing destructive or unhealthy behaviors to continue. I started out by listing unhelpful enabling behaviors, such as repeatedly lending money without accountability, with the caveat that sometimes a concrete piece of support could be appropriate. 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. Negative enabling happens when someone unintentionally supports harmful behavior by shielding a person from the consequences of their actions.
Here’s how to take note of enabling and correct it with empathy and boundaries.
Over time, this type of helicopter parenting can prevent the child from building confidence in their abilities. While the intention is to support the child, this behavior keeps them from learning responsibility, problem-solving skills, and the ability to manage their own challenges. For example, a parent might repeatedly do their teenage child’s homework for them, thinking, “If I don’t help, they’ll fail their class and fall behind.” This can mean that they might keep the person from facing the consequences of their actions or resolve the other person’s problems themselves.
What Is the Difference Between a Helper and an Enabler?
- Accidental enablers can use boundaries to stop the cycle.
- Not sticking to your word about boundaries and limits
- An overprotective parent may become an enabler when they allow their child, even an adult child, to neglect responsibilities or continue doing things that are harmful to them.
- While the intention is to support the child, this behavior keeps them from learning responsibility, problem-solving skills, and the ability to manage their own challenges.
Enablers are often empathetic and compassionate people. If you allow this, you may be enabling them without knowing it. When they ask, you give them money without asking how they’ll use it. While you may not think it’s a big deal, it complicates recovery.
What Are Some Common Signs That Someone Might Be an Enabler?
For example, a helper might assist a loved one in finding a therapist or attending support meetings if they’re struggling with mental health or substance use issues. An enabler is a person who allows someone close to them to continue unhealthy or self-destructive patterns of behavior. Instead of focusing on what you feel you did wrong, identifying concrete behaviors that might have excused your loved one’s actions could help. They may work with you in enabling behavior definition exploring why you’ve engaged in enabling behaviors and what coping skills you can develop to stop those. However, if you find yourself constantly covering their deficit, you might be engaging in enabling behaviors. A sign of enabling behavior is to put someone else’s needs before yours, particularly if the other person isn’t actively contributing to the relationship.
It keeps both people stuck—one avoiding responsibility and the other carrying more than they should. For example, an adult sibling who grew up with a parent struggling with addiction might have learned to avoid conflict and “fix” problems to hold the family together. Parenting styles, like being overly protective or neglectful, and experiences of abuse can also lead someone to prioritize others’ needs over their own to avoid conflict or feel valued. Breaking this pattern requires setting firm boundaries and encouraging the child to take responsibility for their own recovery.
They might think, “It’s my job to protect him because we’re family,” but in reality, they’re shielding him from the consequences he needs to face to grow. Generational trauma is one example—patterns like “family always takes care of each other” can be passed down in ways that discourage healthy boundaries or accountability. Unfortunately, most people don’t have the skillset to navigate things like addiction appropriately.
Rather than helping them understand the consequences of their actions, you’re letting them get away with it. Before you start to help someone, it’s important to acknowledge that you can’t control another person’s behavior, and it’s not your job to do so. Accidental enablers can use boundaries to stop the cycle. 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). Cleaning up includes any form of shielding the person from the natural negative consequences of their own behavior. Sandstone Care is here to help you learn how to set the right boundaries with your loved ones to help them recover from substance use and mental health issues.
What Motivates Enablers?
Being an enabler doesn’t mean you’re a bad person. If your help makes it easy for a loved one to continue with their problematic behavior, you may be enabling them. If you find yourself instinctually siding with the addicted person at all times, you may be an enabler. Enablers will often blame other people for the person’s bad behavior. If you don’t want to bother or confront an addicted person, you may be enabling them.
While the parent’s intentions come from a place of love and protection, their actions unintentionally enable the child to avoid responsibility for their choices. For example, imagine a parent whose adult child is struggling with substance use. For the enabler, this can be emotionally draining and damaging to their self-esteem.
Your support may make all the difference between them spiraling further and starting to climb out. In fact, sometimes it could even be crucial. Provide reasonable logistical support and attention If you help a loved one set realistic, incremental milestones right from the start, there will hopefully be many opportunities to celebrate.
What Is an Enabler?
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. In this case, an enabler is a person who often takes responsibility for their loved one’s actions and emotions. In other words, enabling is directly or indirectly supporting someone else’s unhealthy tendencies.