Incapable

“Helping is doing something for someone that he is not capable of doing himself.  Enabling is doing for someone things that he could and should be doing himself.” (Anonymous)

Enabling refers to a pattern within the families of people addicted to alcohol and drugs wherein the family members excuse, justify, ignore, deny, and smooth over the addiction. In its original context, enabling refers to a pattern within the families of people addicted to alcohol and drugs, wherein the family members excuse, justify, ignore, deny, and smooth over the addiction.

The enabled person’s behavior elicits a great deal of anxiety within the people who love him or her. This creates a dysfunctional system into which people that are close to, love, or care for the person can become enmeshed: compelled to organize their own behavior around the needs and choices of the enabled person.

The enabled person becomes stuck in a role in which they feel incompetent, incapable, disempowered, dependent, and ineffectual. The one thing that all enablers have in common is this: they love someone who is out of control, and they find themselves taking more responsibility for the actions of that person than the person is taking for themselves.

The key to breaking the pattern of enabling is to return responsibility to the person it belongs to. This involves setting boundaries between yourself and your loved one. You can no longer attempt to take on responsibility for anyone else’s actions, but your own. Your loved one’s choices are (and have always been) his or hers. Your loved one’s outcomes and consequences, as well, belong to him or her alone. Below are characteristics of enablers:

·        Enablers avoid conflict to keep the peace.

·        Enablers are in denial about the seriousness of their loved one’s addiction.

·        Enablers bottle their emotions.

·        Enablers think the problem will improve given time.

·        Enablers lecture, blame, and criticize their addicted loved one.

·        Enablers take on the responsibilities of the addicted.

·        Enablers repeatedly come to the rescue of the addicted one.

·        Enablers do whatever it takes to protect their loved one from pain.

·        Enablers treat the addicted person like a child.

·        Enablers financially support their loved one even if that person is a grown adult.

·        Enablers try to control the dependent person.

·        Enablers endure. They think this is temporary.

·        Enablers are always willing to give just one more chance, and then another, and so on.

“You need to stop doing things for someone when you find out it’s expected rather than appreciated.”(InspiredtoReality.com)[i]

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[i] Sources used:

·        “14 Characteristics of an Enabler” by SOS Safety Magazine

·        “Enabling 101: How Love Becomes Fear and Help Becomes Control” by Kyle S. King