How to Love an Addict Without Enabling

When your loved one is struggling with an addiction, it is only natural to want to try and help them recover. However, this mindset often unintentionally turns into enabling, which can have detrimental effects. Here’s how to love an addict without enabling them. 

What is Enabling?

Enabling means that you are doing something for someone that they could do themselves, and is a way of protecting the addict from the consequences of their own actions.

Enabling is different from helping or supporting an addict, because helping them means you are pointing them in the right direction, without doing everything for them. This may mean you give them the tools to do something, but they are the one to put it into action. 

Enabling is not the same as codependency, but enabling behavior can often lead to the development of a codependent relationship. 

In regards to addiction, enabling is an especially common behavior among parents, towards their addicted child.

The Harmful Effects of Enabling an Addict

Even though you may have the best intentions, enabling behaviors negatively impact the addict. By constantly trying to shield your loved one from the consequences of their addiction, you are not giving them any reason to quit their addiction. 

In order to start the recovery process, the addict needs to come to terms with the consequences of their actions, and start to realize how their behavior affects those around them. 

Signs of Enabling an Addict

There are many different ways that you may be enabling your addicted loved one, and there are many reasons why enabling occurs.

Making Excuses for the Addict

You may feel the need to justify the addict’s behavior to yourself or others, in an attempt to protect them. Examples include saying, “They’re just going through a hard time right now,” or “They couldn’t make it tonight because ____.”

Lending Financial Support

It can be hard to see your loved one in a difficult situation, and feeling like you would do anything to bail them out. Lending them money once or twice is one thing, but having them consistently rely on your finances is not fair to either of you. 

Eventually, they need to realize that if they need money, they will have to work for it. 

Avoiding Conflict

Sometimes enabling happens simply because we don’t feel like getting into an argument with the addict, and giving into their every need seems like the easier route to take. 

Neglecting Your Own Needs

Enablers will put the needs of the addict above their own, and put so much time and energy into the addict, that their own needs do not get met.

When you have a loved one struggling with an addiction, it’s extra important for you to take care of yourself, so that you can avoid getting burnt out and resentful towards your loved one. 

How to Stop Enabling an Addict

It’s important to realize that no matter how much you try, you cannot heal your loved one. They can only recover when they are ready.

Here are a few ways to stop enabling an addict, so that you can have a healthier relationship with your loved one. 

1. Set Boundaries

Although it may not feel like it initially, establishing boundaries is actually an act of love. It protects yourself and your loved one from having an unhealthy codependent relationship.

This will require you to be very clear with what you will and will not tolerate, and what the consequences will be if this boundary is violated. Be sure to actually follow through with the consequences, so that they know you’re serious about your boundaries. 

2. Empower Them to Make a Change

 Empowering someone doesn’t mean that you are going to do it for them - it simply means that you are giving them the tools so that they can do it themselves. Try encouraging your loved one to see a counselor, or attend a treatment center.

3. Work With a Counselor

One way that you can look out for your own well-being, while also doing what’s best for your addicted loved one, is to seek counseling for yourself. 

Having an addicted loved one can cause a lot of stress, depression, and confusion, and it can be very useful to have a counselor to help you through this process.

A counselor may also be able to help you understand how your actions (such as enabling) negatively influence the addict, and what you can do instead. 

What Happens When You Stop Enabling an Addict?

The moment parents acknowledge that their addicted child requires more support than they can offer, they may feel as though they have failed in their most significant life responsibility.

However, acknowledging that you cannot heal your loved one, and instead putting them in the care of addiction professionals, will greatly benefit your loved one. 

When you stop enabling your addicted loved one, you can start to feel better about yourself and hopefully encourage your loved one to seek the treatment that they need. 

Ultimately, you may find that when you stop enabling your loved one, your relationship with them actually improves. 

Get Support for Addiction Recovery

If you or a loved one are struggling with a drug or alcohol addiction, Aquila Recovery of Virginia is here to help. We offer a variety of outpatient treatment programs, including an intensive outpatient program (IOP), which allows clients to receive structured treatment, while also giving them the flexibility to live their lives. We also offer support for family members.

To learn more about our programs and how we can help, speak to our addiction specialists.