Addiction and enabling go hand in hand. Working with addiction, without working with the family is cutting my own throat. As long as there is someone supporting the addiction (consciously, or unconsciously), the addiction will persist. Carl Whitaker believed that if you can stop the enabler from supporting the addiction, you’ve done your job. In reality, it is half the job. You still have to contend with the addiction.
I think Enabling has gotten a bad rap. Enable actually means “to make able,” and that sounds like helping to me. Helping is not a bad thing? Helping others is a virtue. Then how do we distinguish between helping that is positive versus negative. My favorite illustration comes from parenting. If I pick up my 1 year old when he falls, I’m being a good parent. However, if I pick up my 21 year old every time he falls, I am doing him a great disservice. He needs to learn how to pick himself up.
Enabling is doing something for someone that they could do for themselves. If you are picking up your 1 year-old, you may be doing something for him, that would be difficult on his own. When you pick up your 21 year-old, you are cheating him from accomplishing something that he can do for himself.
A great example came at the end of a family session. A young man who was addicted to substances had completed the rehab. program and was about to be discharged. We were having a final session. Near the end of the session the mother asked me if she could pose a question:
“He has asked me to buy him a car. He says he’ll need it to get to meetings, therapy and a job. Do you think I should buy him one?”
“Have you ever bought him one before?”
“Yes, many times.”
“Excuse me?”
“I think I have bought him six cars over the years.”
“Where are all those cars?”
“He cracked them all up.”
“Then I would consider buying him a car like playing Russian Roulette. One of these cars is going to kill him and you don’t know which one. Drive him to his first meeting, let him raise his hand and ask for rides from the people in the A.A. meeting. They love to help each other. Buying him another car would be like putting a gun in the hand of someone who was suicidal.”
She probably bought it for him. Unconsciously, she was killing him, but neither of them knew it. She may not have been able to resist buying it. It was wired in to her to help her son. Remember, enabling is generated by love. Helping our children is built into every specie. What person wouldn’t want to help their loved one.
I don’t like the term “tough love.” It has too many negative connotations that go with it. I avoid the term. However, the person enabling the addiction needs to be motivated to change. Acknowledging that enabling is generated by love, is tolerated by most family members that enter my office.
“I know that you love him/her. Don’t stop loving them. I just want you to think of a new way to show it. The way you have been showing it isn’t working. It contributes to killing your loved one. They need you to find a new way to love them.”
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