Are you an Enabler?

As wonderful as it would be to prevent addiction from starting, the lure of the high or social acceptance may be too powerful to resist for someone who is looking to escape a painful reality or to make friends. If someone has missed the opportunity to "say no" to drugs, the next step is for family and friends to stop making the addict's life easier and to "say no" to them.

In most cases, family and friends are terrified of losing their loved one and the relationship they have with him or her. This misplaced fear can create a co-dependent relationship because the family members have lost sight of the fact that the substance is changing that person into someone who responds and behaves in a different, dangerous, harmful, and often hurtful way. Ask yourself the questions that follow and assess yourself and your behavior honestly. In order for a positive change to occur, you might need to take the first step.

1. How often do you give the addict money? People who have substance abuse problems often have difficulty funding their addiction because they usually cannot maintain a job. An addict will often ask for money for “rent” or “groceries”; this money, more than likely, goes directly to the addiction. In some cases, they actually use the money on these things, but spend all of their own money on the substance. Either way, you are making the addiction possible, and certainly less difficult, by openly supporting the addict financially.

2. How often do you make money accessible to the addict? As an addict's priorities shift to make acquiring more of the substance their ultimate goal, they become less concerned with the ethical problems of stealing money from anyone, including their friends and family. If the addict has stolen money from you once – and you continue to passively allow them to “find and take” your money, you are equally guilty of enabling them as someone who hands them cash. Many people justify this behavior by saying that they aren't doing anything wrong, but as the saying goes “Fool me once, shame on you! Fool me twice, shame on me!”

3. How often do you provide for them with other needs? Watching a family member or friend struggle with an addiction is extremely difficult, especially for parents whose role has always been to provide for the needs of their children, including food, clothing, shelter. It is difficult to separate the needs of the addict – a sick person whom you love more than anything – from the needs of the addiction – a disease that is costing them everything. But fulfilling any need – even transportation or company – enables the addict to continue living a life that is still, for them, tolerable with your help. It is important to remember that, in choosing to use alcohol or drugs, the person has made an independent, adult decision, and, if you, your wallet, car, refrigerator, or house didn’t exist, would have to accept the consequences of that decision. You should help them in a positive direction if they are ready for it; but enabling them to continue an addiction will not help.

4. How often do you justify their behavior to yourself and others? Did the addict have a particularly traumatic event in his or her past and the addiction has helped them forget? Is substance abuse a good way for them to "fit in" at college? Is it "just a phase" that they’ll grow out of? Are they using a substance that "isn’t really that dangerous"? Do they deviate from the doctor's orders when taking pain medicine because the doctor "just doesn’t understand" what they’re going through? Is this something your neighbor's kids might do, but certainly not your own? Being in denial about someone else's substance abuse problem helps an addict not only continue their behavior, but also increase it in intensity and frequency until you can't keep ignoring it and are forced to recognize it – sometimes too late.

5. How often do you cover for their behavior to help them avoid negative consequences? When the addict wakes up with a hangover, do you call their boss and claim they have “the 24-hour flu”? Has the addict become violent or verbally abusive to you or someone else, and you tell others that something else caused a physical injury or conflict? Do you bail them out of jail? Do you find yourself apologizing or accepting blame for things that have happened to them?

Why should an addict stop engaging in dangerous or destructive behaviors if you continually protect them from the consequences? If you are able to answer any of these questions positively, it may be time to reconsider your role in relationship to the person who has been abusing substances. The good news is that, unlike many other chronic or terminal conditions your loved one may be diagnosed with, you do have options in how you respond to addiction. Your choices and behaviors can help them find the path to recovery.

See also:

• Dual Diagnosis: When Addiction and Mental Health Collide
• Sending them to Treatment: What’s Next?
• Substance Abuse and Domestic Violence
• Why You Shouldn’t Fight Addiction Alone