It is one of the most painful experiences to watch a loved one, child, sibling or parent slowly kill themselves through there addiction to drugs and alcohol. One cannot help but think whether I have caused this or whether I’m doing enough to stop it. These thoughts evoke painful and uncomfortable emotions like guilt, shame, anxiety and fear. Often these emotions drive us to continue to try and help. However, there comes a point where loved one’s attempts to help become problematic and exacerbates the addiction. This dynamic, also known as enabling, is part of the process in the relationship with a person in active addiction.
E.g when does a parent or loved one, stop funding another treatment, after the third, four, tenth time or after they rebond their house? When do you stop paying the addicts debt with the dealer? When do you stop investing in a relationship when it is reciprocated with manipulation, emotional mental physical and financial abuse? These are not easy questions to answer. The possible reputations if you stop your enabling behaviour is that the addict might be hurt by the dealer, go to prison, become homeless or die. Or they will experience the adverse consequences of their addiction because you not absorbing it anymore, and become motivated to stop. However, loved ones are too fearful of the latter and continue the enabling.
When the loved ones of the addict start a process of healing, they realize what they have been through during the addiction. For the first time, they are given the space to focus on themselves and not the addict.
They connect with the trauma they have experiences and acknowledge how they have neglected themselves. Their obsession to help the addict can be so powerful, that they neglect other relationship like other children or their spouse, as a result. They are faced with the reality, that the addict’s change is ultimately dependent on the addict. Once they put the focus on themselves and do not have a constant distraction of the addict’s chaos, they are faced with the pain and neglect of sometimes years and decades. These two abovementioned points will keep loved ones in the enabling dynamic.
I try and help loved ones work towards stopping the enabling dynamic from a place of love and care for themselves, rather than another attempt to stop the addict from drinking/using. This is sometimes a long process of healing and relearning. Many are not ready to commit to this process and that is ok. It a process, not an event.
So if the addict is not stopping drinking/using and you are depleted, you are faced with two options. To take the focus off the addict and start your process of prioritizing your needs, sometimes this means setting boundaries by not engaging in the behaviour in relation to the addict that hurts you and not accept behaviour from the addict that hurts you. Sometimes this means ending contact with the addict as long as they engage in that behaviour. The other option is to decide to continue your relationship as it was before, however, now it will be a decision you made and are responsible for the consequences.
If you reading this post to the end, in some way the content is resonating with you. This can be confronting and disheartening. Don’t be hard on yourself, you doing the best you can with what you know. However, you do not need to go through this on your own. There are support group out there with people going through exactly what you are experiencing. Take small steps in being more caring towards yourself
Start your process of healing.
SHARING IS CARING
