Enablers, even if well-intentioned, allow a person to continue destructive behaviors. Help them celebrate their wins and promote healthy behaviors by doing things that are beneficial for both of you. Setting boundaries is important in showing someone what you will and will not tolerate, holding them accountable, and avoiding the encouragement of destructive behaviors.
What Is the Role of an Enabler?
Do any of these enabling behaviors, often disguised as helpful behaviors, strike a chord? The opposite of an enabler is someone who prevents or discourages another person from engaging in destructive behaviors. The behaviors of a codependent person and an enabler can often share similarities, but they are not the same. When a person has a parent who is an enabler, the parent often relies emotionally on the child, which causes them to make excuses for the child or protect them from the consequences of their actions. An example of an enabler can be someone who supports another person’s alcohol addiction.
Psychological Aspects of Enabling
Try to be honest with yourself about those behaviors that might not have contributed to a solution. At the same time, it may be difficult for you to stop enabling them, which in turn might increase your irritation. By allowing the other person to constantly rely on you to get their tasks done, they may be less likely to find reasons to do them the next time. Enabling behavior might be preventing them from facing the consequences of their actions. You may also justify their behavior to others or yourself by acknowledging they’ve gone through a difficult time or live with specific challenges.
Long-Term Effects on the Enabled Individual
- They can also help you learn ways to empower, rather than enable, your loved one.
- Offering a parent living with diabetes a piece of cake they’re not supposed to eat.
- For example, a parent of an adult child with substance use issues might prepare all their meals, clean their home, and handle their bills, thinking, “If I take care of everything, they won’t spiral further.”
- Fortunately, treatment programs are available when they’re ready to change.
- Disconnecting from a loved one is a self-protective measure — and it’s usually a last resort
- Her work spans various health-related topics, including mental health, fitness, nutrition, and wellness.
As with other behaviors, you can manage and change enabling tendencies. That is, accept that you’ve played a part in perpetuating unacceptable behaviors in your loved one and make a commitment to breaking the cycle. If this is sounding familiar, it may be time to reassess your role in allowing problematic behaviors to continue. The specifics can change, but at its core, enabling behavior tends to have some common themes. And it’s counterproductive to the person you’re trying to help. Often, people are unaware they are enabling their loved ones and have good intentions.
Enablers are often empathetic and compassionate people. If you allow this, you may be enabling them without knowing it. When they ask, you give them money without asking how they’ll use it. While you may not think it’s a big deal, it complicates recovery.
- Instead of focusing on what you feel you did wrong, identifying concrete behaviors that might have excused your loved one’s actions could help.
- Generational trauma is one example—patterns like “family always takes care of each other” can be passed down in ways that discourage healthy boundaries or accountability.
- But even if all you want is to support your loved one, enabling may not contribute to the situation the way you might think it does.
- For example, a parent who has been covering for their adult child’s substance use may suddenly face the reality when the child gets arrested or loses their job.
- A passive enabler is someone who is unaware or indirectly enables another person.
Your support may make all the difference between them spiraling further and starting to climb out. In fact, sometimes it could even be crucial. Provide reasonable logistical support and attention If you help a loved one set realistic, incremental milestones right from the start, there will hopefully be many opportunities to celebrate.
Helping vs enabling
For example, enabling behavior may include providing the school with an excuse so someone can skip class, even if they did because they spent the night drinking. In this case, an enabler is a person who often takes responsibility for their loved one’s actions and emotions. In other words, enabling is directly or indirectly supporting someone else’s unhealthy tendencies.
Lending financial support
Some specialists and professionals can help you or your loved one to recover from SUD. Handling a person with SUD is stressful and challenging. You may also consider talking with your friends and family, so you don’t have to do it alone.
What Is an Example of an Enabler?
The road to recovery and change is almost never a spotless one, so it’s important not to guilt trip or shame them if and when they slip. When the person is ready to change–to get off drugs, leave a toxic relationship, make a monthly budget–you can be ready to keep them accountable if they ask for help. Give them ample space to talk through their thoughts and feelings. Let go of judgments and radically accept this person.
What Are Some Common Signs That Someone Might Be an Enabler?
Rather than helping them understand the consequences of their actions, you’re letting them get away with it. Before you start to help someone, it’s important to acknowledge that you can’t control another person’s behavior, and it’s not your job to do so. Accidental enablers can use boundaries to stop the cycle. We sometimes reflexively feel like we have to give money or some other non-specific form of “bail.” But after a time or two, you simply become the ATM (or the dog house, or life raft). Cleaning up includes any form of shielding the person from the natural negative consequences of their own behavior. Sandstone Care is here to help you learn how to set the right boundaries with your loved ones to help them recover from substance use and mental health issues.
Over time, this type of helicopter parenting can prevent the child from building confidence in their abilities. While the intention is to support the child, this behavior keeps them from learning responsibility, problem-solving skills, and the ability to manage their own challenges. For example, a parent might repeatedly do their teenage child’s homework for them, thinking, “If I don’t help, they’ll fail their class and fall behind.” This can mean that they might keep the person from facing the consequences of their actions or resolve the other person’s problems themselves.
Here’s how to take note of enabling and correct it with empathy and boundaries.
When ‘helping’ others is unhealthy for you, it’s time to set firm boundaries Because you’re close to the person in need, you don’t want to believe they’re doing what they’re doing. It gives them permission to feel good about themselves, which is probably not easy for them if they’ve been struggling with unhealthy behaviors for a while. That doesn’t mean you condone their unhealthy behaviors; it simply means you acknowledge their intrinsic validity as a person. But if these “rescues” happen repeatedly, all you’re doing is preventing your loved one from learning the cause-and-effect pattern of their behaviors. Some of these “helping” behaviors might be okay if they happened only once and came with other, more concrete forms of support.
They might think, “If I don’t step in, everything will fall apart,” but this mindset keeps them stuck in a cycle of overgiving while the other person avoids responsibility. They often step in to fix problems, shield loved ones from consequences, or avoid conflict, even when it causes them stress or exhaustion. This often happens out of a desire to help or protect close relationships, but it actually ends up preventing the person from facing the consequences of their actions or taking responsibility. An enabler does things that the person should be able to do for themselves. One of the distinct differences between a helper and an enabler is that a helper does things for others when that person can’t do it themselves. When the term enabler is used, it is usually referring to drug addiction or alcohol misuse.
Enabling can be hard to spot for enabling behavior definition the people within the enabling relationship. Making excuses can be one way you help cover up problematic behavior and keep your loved one from being held accountable for their actions. But in an enabling relationship, a person who’s used to being enabled will come to expect your help. “Enabling happens when you see a loved one making unhealthy life choices, so you assume the role of problem solver.
Enabling actions are often intended to help and support a loved one. You might feel torn seeing your loved one face a difficult moment. This is opposed to providing means and opportunities to continue engaging in self-destructive behaviors.
You have to make them understand the gravity of their actions and behavior. Set a fine line for what you’re willing to put up with and what’s allowed for them. In doing so, they encourage problematic behavior.