Enabling, in contrast, is a well-intentioned behavior that ultimately protects the individual from experiencing the natural consequences of their actions. These professionals can help individuals and their families navigate the complexities of addiction, address enabling behaviors, and develop effective coping strategies. To break the cycle of enabling, it is crucial for families and loved ones to establish clear boundaries. Setting boundaries helps protect the well-being of both the individual with the substance use disorder and their loved ones. This may include establishing rules against drug or alcohol use, financial support for substances, lying, or abusive behaviors 4.

When you show support, you have to be honest and establish healthy boundaries, ideally without being judgemental. Supporting someone is about promoting the other person’s development and growth by allowing them to learn from their failures and mistakes. Examples of supportive behavior include calling to check on a family member who’s struggling or providing a listening ear to a friend going through a difficult time. Enabling can impede the recovery process for individuals with substance use disorders. By removing the natural consequences of their actions, enabling can create a sense of dependency and enable the continuation of harmful behaviors. It can also prevent individuals from taking responsibility for their actions and hinder their personal growth.

Sneaky Signs Of Resentment In Relationships

  • Your loved one may end up resenting you in the end for not providing them with the skills, resources, or opportunities to improve their life.
  • Establishing and maintaining healthy boundaries is essential in helping relationships, especially when it comes to addressing enabling behaviors.
  • Enabling is delivering fresh filleted fish every day to a competent adult at your expense while they don’t have a care in the world and don’t appreciate it, and are out and about.
  • Additionally, a patient struggling with addiction may be enabled by the people around them who try to excuse their behavior out of the desire to not admit that there is a deep seeded issue.
  • Often, individuals engage in enabling behaviors motivated by a wish to protect their loved ones from discomfort or pain.

Supportive behaviors empower a person to make choices toward their recovery. Overcoming enabling behavior can be challenging and may require support from professionals, such as therapists or addiction counselors. Seeking guidance and education on healthy boundaries, communication, and the nature of addiction can be beneficial in this process. With dedication and a shift in perspective, individuals can break free from enabling behaviors and foster a healthier, more supportive environment for their loved ones. When it comes to helping a loved one who is going through a difficult time, it’s important to be aware of the distinction between enabling and empowering. Enabling behaviors involve justifying or indirectly supporting someone else’s potentially harmful behavior, often with the intention of providing support or protection 1.

Setting Healthy Boundaries

By practicing these behaviors, families can play a more constructive role in their loved one’s recovery journey. “They’re just going through a tough time” or “It’s not their fault” might feel supportive, but these narratives ultimately prevent personal accountability. Every excuse becomes another layer of protection around destructive behavior. Caretaking and enabling are commonly seen in families where a loved one is struggling with substance abuse or addiction.

How Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy Improves Problem-Solving Skills in Recovery

Your initial support helped get us here and bolstered our newsroom, which kept us strong during uncertain times. “Enabling is delivering fresh filleted fish daily to a completely capable adult, at your own expense, while they don’t have a care in the world, don’t appreciate it and are out and about,” Varma said.

Signs of Enabling Behavior

Boundaries begin by recognizing the difference between enabling and supporting someone. Maintaining boundaries between enabling and supporting may be key to helping friends, family members, and loved ones. If you love someone with a mental health condition or substance use disorder, you may feel as though you’re doing everything in your power to help them, but it’s just not working. Enabling behaviors in the context of substance use disorders can vary widely.

  • One example is giving money to a spouse or child living with a drug addiction instead of helping them get treatment.
  • Conversely, helping involves providing a support system that fosters a person’s growth, learning, and attainment of goals.
  • Identifying these signs can help individuals reflect on their behaviors and make necessary changes to promote positive growth and personal development.
  • What you’re doing is enabling the same behaviors that got them in trouble in the first place.

It’s important to acknowledge that every situation is unique, and what works for one person may not work for another. This complexity requires a nuanced approach that prioritizes both empathy and accountability, enabling individuals to take responsibility for their actions while still feeling supported. Supporting someone empowers the person to take active steps in their recovery.

You can show compassion through support while still refusing to support unhealthy behavior. Try to make your intentions clear from the start, and remember that taking care of your needs is necessary to be emotionally available to others. If you and your struggling loved one are stuck, start by asking them how you can help them. This helps them articulate their needs and prioritize what feels most helpful. It also encourages them to start brainstorming possible solutions to their problem. No one wants to see their loved ones suffer, and in their care and concern, they mistakably end up enabling the very behaviors that caused the suffering in the first place.

“People often do not realize that they are crossing the fine line between support and enabling,” Stuempfig said. She noted that support often means showing up and sitting with the mess of someone’s emotions as they navigate challenges in life. Going to work again and interacting with colleagues helped him feel engaged and useful.

You’re absolving him from his responsibility to take accountability for his actions. Ask her to give you two days’ advance notice or you will have to take a rain check. The next time she repeats the behavior, politely tell her you can’t see her. She’ll eventually realize she needs to change in order to enjoy your company. Boundaries are a collection of rules you introduce to guide people’s behaviors toward you and those you love. Believe it or not, you and those close to you suffer when you allow them to do whatever they want without fear of consequences.

The benefits of journaling for self-reflection in recovery

Recognizing when a pattern of enabling behavior has developed is vital. Signs include ignoring or tolerating problematic behavior and covering for the loved one 5. Understanding these indicators can guide one toward healthier interactions and greater emotional well-being.

It’s a great piece about distancing yourself from things you can’t, and maybe shouldn’t, control. People will start taking you for granted if you let them slide all the time. Instead of ending this toxic and emotionally abusive relationship, you put up with him.

Helping someone involves enabling vs supporting providing a supportive framework that encourages their growth, learning, and achievement of personal goals. The defining distinction between helping and enabling lies in their outcomes. While enabling often maintains the existing issues, helping actively promotes long-term improvement and empowers the individual 1.

It presupposes that the person you’re enabling isn’t able to find or give themselves what you give them or to obtain this power on their own. As a result, if you enable, it tends to reinforce the powerless position of the person you’re trying to help. There is no shame in reaching out for therapy if that toll becomes too much to handle on their own. Serious threats such as those need to be handled by trained professionals. That being said, family and friends should always remember to look after themselves and, if things suddenly begin to go poorly, to remember that it is not their fault.