Helping Your Family Kick the Enabling Habit

SOBER BUT STILL ENABLED

Just making the commitment to abstinence should help your family as well as you: they won’t feel the need to clean up alcoholic vomits that never happen. However, there is a risk they’ll transfer the enabling habit to related situations:

• If they lied for you when you stayed home to nurse a hangover, they may do the same when you “just don’t feel like going to work.”
• If they covered up for you in other ways, they may “sympathetically” encourage your excuses for not making amends to others.
• If they became the sole breadwinner—and did all the household chores besides—they may hardly notice if you’re still not helping around the house or looking for work.

And yes, by making it easier for you to neglect the hard work involved in long-term sobriety, they might be “helping” you into an increased risk of relapse.

GET THE WHOLE FAMILY INTO THERAPY

The best way to head this off is to have outside accountability for everyone in the household. Look for a detox center with a family program, and do everything you can to get everyone actively involved (any center worth using will be ready to help you there). After initial detox, continue to attend therapy as a family, making long-term plans for ways the others can “enable” your sobriety instead of your addiction. Also, get everyone involved in peer support groups.

That’s the ideal situation. If you’re less fortunate, your enabling family member(s) may resist attending therapy, insisting on seeing the whole thing as your problem. They may even be addicted themselves—to the enabling—and not really want you to recover, which might cost them their role as the heroic one in the household. Perhaps they even fear you’ll leave them if you don’t need them anymore.

LEAD THEM NOT INTO TEMPTATION

Besides discussing any such situation with your own therapist and support group, here are some things you can do to reinforce your sobriety while helping loved ones adjust to the “new you”:

• Get accountability elsewhere. Besides having a support partner to call in case of emergency, ask a friend to help with everyday difficulties: for example, have someone you call each weekday morning to verify you’re up and at your job search.
• Look for opportunities to be responsible and helpful. Don’t wait for someone to ask you to hang up your jacket or put your dishes in the dishwasher or even scrub the toilet—just do it when you see it needs doing, and don’t worry about being “recognized” for it. (This is also a way to get around a perfectionistic partner’s micromanaging your housework efforts—it’s harder to criticize help they don’t witness.)
• Pay little attention and perform little acts of love daily. Remember, one reason people become enablers is that they fear being rejected. If they’re convinced you genuinely care about them and want to change for their sake too, they’ll be more willing to support you in effective ways.
• Be an empathetic listener! Don’t focus nonstop on all you’ve been through and how hard you’ve worked. Everyone has had a tough time and still has adjustments to make. If you want to help your family kick the enabling habit, be as patient and understanding with them as your support partners are with you.