What Is The Difference Between Helping And Enabling?
Los Angeles, California—March 25, 2009
As parents, family members, spouses and friends we try to give loved ones everything we can to insure their health and happiness. But when "helping" them crosses the line and becomes detrimental to the personal and spiritual growth of that family member or significant other, and continues when knowledge of that the individual is spiraling into drug addiction or alcoholism, or some other chronic addiction, it is no longer called "help," it's called "Enabling."
It is no longer about helping the individual. It is about the enabler fulfilling his or her own needs through the other person. “We have heard many alcoholic and drug addict come through our doors saying that their parents or wives "almost loved them to death" says Larry Luttrell, Founder of Liberty House. Enabling takes many forms, all of which allow the alcoholic to avoid the consequences of his actions, and ultimately to continue drinking and using.
Family members, friends and employers want so desperately to believe what the alcoholic is saying to them; “If I just had a car… if you could only help me with some money…or a place to live…I know what I’m doing…I don’t have a problem…I don’t need any help…I can stop using by myself.” But in their efforts to help the alcoholic they actually wind up making it easier for the addict to continue drinking and using.
“My dad was always bailing me out even into my forties.” Says Mike G. a recovering alcoholic. “When I got sober my father asked me what he could have done differently and I told him that I wished he had cut me off a long time ago. I definitely would not have liked it very much but my situation would have come to head a long time ago. I don’t know how it would have played out but I would have had to have made a decision to continue my drug use or get sober twenty years ago."
There are a variety of reasons why family members, spouses and friends have played an active role in keeping the alcoholic sick. “We deal with all of that stuff in our weekly family meetings.” Says Larry Luttrell, who has been the director for over 15 years of Liberty House, a structured sober living home in Los Angeles, California.
That’s why it’s so important for families to be involved in the addicts recovery, as well as their own, because it’s never just about the alcoholic. Alcoholism is a family disease. There’s so much wreckage, anger and hurt feelings that have to be addressed between the families and the alcoholic in order for the healing process to take place. Once family members and the alcoholic surrender and begin living in the solution the recovery process of personal growth and transformation commences for the entire family. Enabling, co-dependency and dysfunction go hand in hand with alcoholism. These relationships have taken years to develop. That’s why a structured long-term sober living is so crucial to the recovery process.
“These are issues that cannot be dealt with effectively in a thirty-day program. There is just not enough time. Nor can they, or will they be addressed in a non-structured sober living home.” Says Luttrell. “Because everyday at Liberty House we see the positive results of long-term structured sober living and we have the statistics to prove it.”
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