Super Not Enabler Posted by:Lloyd Woodward--Friday, May 08, 2015

This is a theme at all our meetings. Indeed, with drug and alcohol addiction enabling and not enabling is a key concept. How do I know if I'm enabling? The answer is that if the help you are giving your teenager helps to enable him to continue his addictive lifestyle, then it's the kind of enabling that we want to avoid. On the other hand, if it's helping the teen but not enabling him to continue his addictive lifestyle, then while it might enabling something it's not enabling the addiction and it's not such a big deal. It might even be helping.  It might help to support a drug-free lifestyle.

Sometimes in group we talk about doing some enabling without expecting that it could help the teenager but doing it because it makes us feel better. "We paid for his attorney, but we did it for us really, so that we would feel better we didn't do it for him." OK, that is a good first step to address enabling; however, if whatever help we are giving enables the addictive lifestyle it doesn't matter about the intentions. It is not enough to assume that you know it won't help but you feel better giving aid.

There comes a time; however, when parents stop the enabling of anything that might further the addictive lifestyle and it is this non-enabling approach that helps the parent feel better. When you know you've pretty much done all you can and now it's up to the teenager, you are in a good place.