Enablers are the worst enemies of the very people they love the most. Enablers are those of us who take the responsibility to protect other people from pain. If someone near us feels down or unhappy, we believe it is out job to make them feel better.
Despite our good intentions, our enabling has a negative side. In protecting others from pain, we also shield them from a marvelous teacher and motivator – experience. We prevent them from taking responsibility and from living with the consequences of their decisions.
When enablers, even motivated by love, gallop onto the scene, they deprive their loved ones of the motivation they might need to make some changes.
Recovery requires change, and change often begins with a conversion experience. Conversion experiences can be rooted in pain. If we enablers are always there to cushion the fall, how are our loved ones going to meet the concrete? Our own growth might be due to those who loved us enough to let us experience the sometimes painful consequences of our choices or mistakes. We can pass the loving detachment on to others.
Enabling, co-dependency and denial are key systemic behaviors that inadvertently support addiction. Following is a description of each.
Enabling Behaviors protect the chemically dependent person by:
1. Removing all harmful consequences of the chemically dependent person’s behavior.
2. Assisting the chemically dependent person in denying the significance of their problem behavior by rationalizing or minimizing their addiction.
Examples of enabling behaviors range from overt support for the addiction to more subtle supportive influences. They include:
Spouse/Partner:
- Borrowing money from parents or relatives to pay the bills.
- Calling work and saying he/she has the flu.
- Asking lawyer to get him/her off the charges.
- Lying to friends – cannot attend, the babysitter cancelled or child is ill.
- Making excuses to people for the chemically dependent’s inability to follow through on responsibilities.
- Cleaning up after the chemically dependent person. Example: Putting them to bed after he/she passes out.
- Denying there is a problem.
- Enduring – this too shall pass.
- Waiting – God will take care of it.
- Keeping feelings inside.
- Avoiding the problems, keeping the peace, believing lack of conflict makes a good marriage.
- Blaming, criticizing, lecturing
Donna Markus PhD, Executive Director Malibu Programs, Promises Treatment Center