Exposing Enabling Behaviors and 20 Tips for Providing Healthy Support

Foreign. I'd like to welcome everybody to today's presentation on supporting the person without enabling. I'm your host, Dr. Donnelly Snipes. In this presentation, we're going to explore how a person becomes an enabler. We'll define enabling and examine the consequences. We'll learn about the connection between enabling and codependency, define characteristics of codependency and how they may develop from being in an enabling relationship, and examine practical strategies to provide support, support and encouragement to people without enabling them. So what makes an enabler? Well, you know, that's one of those labels we throw out there. Ultimately, I step back and I look and I ask, is this person doing something for somebody else that that person can do on their own? And are they doing it at their own expense? And is it nice to do things for people that they can do for themselves every once in a while? Sure. If your kid comes home and cleans the house for you before you get home from work, that's wonderful. Yes. You could have done it yourself, but they did it to be nice. They're not enabling. What we're looking for is a pattern of behavior that negatively impacts both parties. This often happens when a person you love is in trouble or in pain. So a person with an addiction or mental health issue may be enabled. They may be in a relationship with somebody who covers up for their mistakes, who makes sure that everything happens the way it's supposed to happen so that person doesn't get in trouble, so they don't lose their job, so they don't get more overwhelmed. And we'll talk about the manipulation that goes behind enabling in. In a few minutes. A person with chronic pain can also be enabled. Yes, sometimes you have chronic pain and you plum. Can't get out of the chair for the moment and. Okay, so you cannot do this on your own. It's not a do you don't want to. It's a you can't. But sometimes you've got chronic pain. And there are things you could do, like your physical therapy activities or getting up and making yourself something to eat, but you choose not to. And if somebody regularly. We'll use eating for an example. If somebody regularly brings you your food, even though you're perfectly capable of getting up and making your own food, then you may start relying on them and expecting them to do it. All right, what's the harm? Well, it's keeping you from moving, which could exacerbate your pain. It is potentially putting stress on them because they're doing, spending time doing things for you, when they probably have things they need to be doing for themselves. And often it's a gradual process or an erosion of responsibilities. The person who's being enabled starts out just being enabled in one area. And then they're like, well, can you do this for me too? And they give up that responsibility to the enabler. They're like, do that for me too. So it can be a gradual shaping process and we can enable our children. And this regardless of what's going on with them, they don't have to have an addiction or a mental health issue. Some parents, those helicopter parents, those enmeshed parents can be very enabling. They're doing their kids science projects for them, they are writing their kids reports. They are doing things for the child that the child really needs to be doing for themselves to learn and grow. But in order to prevent the child from getting stressed out, or maybe the child's just unmotivated and not willing to do it. So to prevent the child from experiencing negative consequences, the caregiver does for the child what the child can do for themselves. So we do need to be careful. There's, I mentioned before we started a concept called scaffolding. And sometimes people need a little support in doing things because they're not able to do it completely by themselves. And scaffolding is just like it sounds just like for a building. You, you're putting up this framework to help guide building. The building, scaffolding, you're putting up this framework to help guide another person's behavior. And we let them do what they can do up to the point that they get stuck. And then we provide prompts and resources to help them take the next step. We don't take the next step for them, we help them take the next step or we do it with them. And, and what I usually use when I explain scaffolding is tying your shoes. When you teach a child to tie their shoes, it's often a multi day, sometimes multi week process to get them to learn how to do all of the steps. But you let them do as many steps as they can until they get stuck. And then you try to give them a prompt. And if they can't remember what to do and they're just stuck, then you help them do it. You don't do it for them, but you say okay, and you take their little hand and you help them finish tying their shoe. So you have somebody who is who you perceive as needing you. Okay, you have somebody you perceive as needing you. You have a sense of responsibility for the problem. If I would have taught them how to do it better, if I would have been more aware of what was going on, John wouldn't have developed this wicked opioid addiction. If I would have been more sensitive to this person, they wouldn't feel rejected and be so depressed right now. If there's just a lot of if I woulda, coulda, shouldas. Well, you didn't. And we need to, in counseling, look at the things that each person is taking responsibility for. Teresa had asked about family dynamics of enabling. And I think this is a good place to bring it up for, at least to introduce it. In the addicted family, you have multiple roles. You have the person with the disorder, the identified patient, whether they are addicted or they have a mental health issue. You have the identified patient. Then you have the enabler that tries to compensate for the identified patient. Instead of making the identified patient doing. Do what they need to do to get better, the enabler protects them. And the enabler tries to make everything right and control everything. So the enabler often feels like it's their responsibility. And they fear. And this is where we get into codependency. They fear that if they loosen their grip, if they let go at all, that it's all going to break loose. And so the enabler is sort of your master puppeteer, trying to make everybody see what. What they want to be seen. Then you've got your hero in a chaotic family. I'll say a chaotic family instead of addicted, because this does apply to mental health issues as well. The hero in the chaotic family is the one who attracts attention from the identified patient. When things start to get too rough, the. The hero says, look, everything's fine. I'm getting straight A's. I'm the captain of the football team. I am the whatever. They are proving that, you know, I'm successful. That means everything must be fine with the family. You have the mascot who often makes a joke and tries to get everybody to laugh. They divert attention to themselves, but away from the pain, away from the person that's in distress. And they say, hey, look over here. Quit fighting, quit arguing. You know, we're just not going to pay attention to that because that's out of our control. Look at me. It's all going to be okay. So they all have their different ways of trying to survive a chaotic environment. You have the lost child who kind of disappears into the background and just tries to fly low and stay out of it. And then you have the scapegoat. And the scapegoat is the One that often gets blamed for everything that goes wrong. Not the identified patient, who probably contributed to whatever went wrong, but the scapegoat. If you would have not gotten on your father's last nerve, he wouldn't have had to drink. You caused him to relapse. If you would have done better in school, then your, your caregiver wouldn't have had to blah, blah, blah. So the scapegoat gets blamed. Anything they do wrong gets used, gets used as an excuse for the identified patient. If you would have been a better child, your caregiver, caregiver wouldn't feel so depressed all the time. So you can see how a lot of these behaviors are designed to cope with chaotic environments. And they all have their own. They all have their own functions. The person who is enable, an enabler often denies that there's a problem requiring professional help, at least initially. They don't want to see that their spouse or their child or whomever is clinically depressed or, or has an addiction or, you know, fill in the blank. They don't want to see that. They don't want to believe that. They want to believe that they can push through and all this person needs is their help, and together they can conquer the world. It just doesn't work that way sometimes. I'm sorry, it just doesn't. And it's important to look with the enabler, look at what is causing their resistance to seeking help. What is causing their resistance to admitting that there might be a problem? What does this problem mean about them? If. Does it mean that they're a bad spouse or a bad caregiver? Does it, does it mean that they are inadequate in some way? Does it bring up feelings that they had in their family of origin? Maybe they came from a chaotic family and they learned that they had to keep control of things. But they're comparing, they're saying in this situation, it's, it's, it's not that bad. My family of origin, that was bad. This isn't that bad. We can handle this. I'm going to deny that there's a problem and recognizing that once people have helped, it's often hard to stop. And Mal asks, what if things don't get out of control because the enabler keeps everything battened down? Eventually something gonna give. And I went through this with my family. I remember watching my aunt enable one of her children. And over time, the child's addiction got progressively worse. I mean, way bad, way bad. And my aunt got to the point where she couldn't do enough the addiction had progressed so far, my aunt couldn't cover up for it anymore. On top of that, my aunt has diabetes, and her diabetes, because of the stress of enabling and worrying about her child all the time, her stress just got out of control. Her diabetes got out of control. Her sugar was just. I mean, even with a pump, it was all over the place. Their marriage started deteriorating because she and her partner were constantly arguing about her enabling behaviors. So she was starting to experience negative consequences. We see in addictions, typically, the addiction progresses over time. Now, with mental health issues, it may not progress at the same rate, but we also want to look at. It's not just is the addiction progressing, we want to look at the condition, the quality of life of the person who's enabling. And over time, that person often starts developing feelings of frustration and resentment toward the identified patient. Great question, though. And. And yes, Jeff, some roles in a chaotic family do overlap. You can be the enabler as well as the hero. Maybe you are the partner of somebody who has a disorder, and you're enabling that. You're trying to cover up for it. You're trying to make everybody believe that. Nothing to see here. They're fine. John's fine. I've got it. And you're also CEO of a company, and you're getting all these accolades, so. So you go to these big fancy dinners and you're putting on that facade to redirect attention away from the identified patient toward yourself. So, yeah, that can be same thing with the lost child. You can see a lot of overlap. A lot of times people don't have that many individuals in their family, so you may not have all of the roles represented. Or some people may represent multiple roles. Sometimes they're the lost child, sometimes they're the mascot. A great question, though. Enablers often succumb to emotional manipulation to maintain their behaviors. The enabler is not doing the manipulating this time. Both of them are very manipulative, but the enabler is not doing them manipulating this time. It's the identified patient. Well, you did this for me in the past. Why aren't you doing it for me now? If you would have bailed me out of jail this last time, I would have changed. But you didn't. And so now I lost my career and I've got charges and blah, blah, blah. So they're blame. There's a lot of blaming. If you don't help me, if you don't do for me the things that I need to do for myself, then I am. It's going to Be your fault when I hit a wall. When I experience. Wait for it. When I experience natural consequences. Enabling can develop for a lot of reasons. It's not always because of addiction. It's not always because you came from a chaotic family and you're afraid of abandonment. But that is not uncommon. Enabling can develop when there's a fear of losing someone. And it could be to death, Especially with major depression. And with addiction, we see suicide and we see overdose and as well as other homicide and other things that go along with drug use. But those things are terrifying. And you don't want to see that happen to someone you love. And so you may keep trying to do these things, Hoping that they recognize that they're loved and they will come back to safety. Unfortunately, the pool of whatever's maintaining their behaviors is stronger. And we need to examine that again in therapy. Some people develop enabling behaviors Due to attachment trauma. As a child, maybe they never developed secure attachment because they were in a chaotic environment. And they learned from an early age by being parentified that they had to keep everything together. Eight years old, they were getting up, Making sure their siblings got dressed and ready for school. They were tucking their mom and dad in to bed at night. Because mom and dad were passed out drunk. So we may see that. And that's a behavior that the child holds on to, is if I don't take care of it, nobody will. And other people are not capable of taking care of themselves. That's what they learned. We can also have a great childhood. And then have something happen in an significant adult relationship. Usually it's addiction. Sometimes it can be suicide. In which the person loses somebody, Whether they die. Or they just, you know, succumb to their addiction. And that is extremely traumatic throughout the addiction process. Remember, addiction doesn't just start out being this raging fire. It starts out as a smolder, smoldering ember. And over time, sometimes faster than others, but over time, it grows. And the person that's in a relationship with somebody with an addiction or a mental health issue, at first, the symptoms may seem manageable. But over time, they start being unable to help the person. And they don't. They don't really see the growth of the disorder. They just see the lack of their ability to help the person. So they start feeling more and more powerless in this situation. And a lot of times the response is to ratchet down on the control. But that doesn't always work. And some people enable because for whatever reason, they need other people to approve of them. They need other people to say, hey, you're okay if I do things for you, even though I know you can do them for yourself, but I do things for you to make myself indispensable, to make myself seem like you need me or you want me around, then I may ease into that. Enabling. For some people, especially parents who become enablers, it may have to do with their need for approval and a from their child they want to be. They want their child to say I love you. And it could be they need approval from others about what a good parent they are. So they make sure that their child looks perfect, that everything looks perfect. Please remember to like and subscribe. That really helps. Please share this video to anybody you think would be useful. And if you need CEUs, you can get them@allce.com so let's look at enabling behaviors. It protects the identified patient from the natural national wow. Natural consequences of their behavior. If John is developing an alcohol addiction and Sally makes sure that she calls John's boss and says, you know, he's got the flu. I don't know what he got into, but he's not going to be into work today. John's passed out drunk in the living room, but Sally's calling in and making excuses for him. That is protecting John from the natural consequences of his behavior. We learn from the natural consequences. You put your hand on a hot stove, you get burned. You don't do it again. You put your hand on a hot stove and somehow you don't get burned, you're going to keep doing it. I don't know how that would happen, but I had to stick with the metaphor. Enabling people keep secrets about the identified patient's behavior from others in order to keep the peace. So that may even be in their own nuclear family. I'm not. We're going to keep this from the kids. We're not going to let them know that you're going through a bottle of oxy every week. You know, we're just working to hide this from them. In order to keep the peace, they make excuses for the person's behaviors with teachers, friends, legal authorities, employers, and even other family members. Why John isn't at the family reunion, why John was late for Thanksgiving dinner. Why John. Poor John. John's had a bad run of it. Makes excuses for why they're not there. It's not because they're drunk. It's not because they didn't want to be here. It's because there's just this big thing that happened or they're sick or something else. That people wouldn't question. The enabler bails the person out of trouble. They may pay their debts, fix their tickets, hire lawyers for them, get them jobs, do their schoolwork. Anything that needs to be done to keep that facade that John's okay, the enabler is going to do. They're going to fill in all the gaps. Whatever John's not getting done, they're going to do. The enabler blames others for the person's behavior. Friends, teachers, employers, the family themselves. You know, John's this way because he grew up with a malignantly malignant narcissistic parent. John is this way because John's not getting his work done because you're, you're just demanding too much of him. It's not his fault. He's. He's just overworked. John's not getting his work done at school because you're giving him too much, too much homework or, you know, whatever you're doing is unreasonable. Everybody else is the cause of John's problem, not John himself. So John never has to take responsibility and own up and go, yeah, you know, I really, I played video games for six hours last night when I should have been doing my homework. All right? The enabler sees the problem as the result of something else. It's shyness. The person isn't. The person needs to have a couple of drinks in order to get loosened up because they're so shy. You know, they don't have a problem. They just, they need to loosen up a little bit. This person is just experimenting with drugs or alcohol or being impulsive or irresponsible because they're an adolescent. It doesn't have anything to do with their depression or their drug use or their gaming habit, loneliness coming from a broken home, ADHD or any other illness. The person with, who enables is going to do as much as they can to make an excuse for the identified patient's behavior, to give people an explanation that draws empathy and sympathy and pity or maybe at least understanding. Instead of saying, yeah, John screwed up, the enabler avoids the person in order to keep the peace. At a certain point when the enabler starts feeling resentful, they start feeling like they can't go on with their life because they have to micromanage John. Then they may start avoiding John. I just, I, I've got John in a safe place right now, and I'm just going to do everything, you know, just sit there, be quiet, stay out of trouble, and I'll do everything else, which may work for a while, but eventually that too starts to fail. And the enabler often gives help that is undeserved, unearned or unappreciated. As I mentioned earlier, there are times where we all do things for people that are nice that they could have done for themselves. We help a neighbor who is not feeling well by mowing their lawn and you know, we're just trying to be nice to them. We're not doing it all the time, but we are trying to help them out. That's not enabling. That is when we help a neighbor out and we feel good about it and it doesn't detract negatively from other areas of our life. No problem, no harm, no foul. It's when these behaviors start negatively impacting the enabler, causing them exhaustion, resentment, to ignore things that are important in their rich and meaningful life. And when it starts allowing the, the identified patient to avoid doing anything they don't want to do, and that could include recovery. The enabler attempts to control the other person by planning activities, choosing friends, and getting them jobs and doctor's appointments. As an adult, you know, obviously an eight year old's not going to make their own doctor's appointment and you may have to help them figure out how to make friends. But when they're 18, 28, 58, they're adults, they need to be empowered to do some of this stuff. And until they are, until they get over the belief that either they can't, or the fear of doing it, or the belief that, you know, if I just don't do it, somebody else will jump in, if I don't pay the electric bill, you know, somebody else will jump in and that's a really slippery slope to get on because then eventually they're not going to pay the electric bill, they're going to spend their money on gambling or whatever and they won't be able to get assistance from United Way or somewhere else to pay their electric and all of a sudden their electric gets shut off. And the person, the identified patient, is often genuinely, genuinely surprised. It's like, what? Somebody didn't fix it for me? And they don't look at their own behavior. There's a difference between working your butt off and not being able to make bills and playing video games for 14 hours a day, not trying to get a job and being 48 years old and expecting somebody else to still pay your bills. The enabler often makes threats that have no follow through or consistency. And this is a big thing. In recovery, empty threats are not allowed. You need to learn the, the person in Recovery from enabling needs to learn how to set boundaries and set limits and stick to them. That tough love. And it sucks. It hurts. However, the identified patient needs to experience some natural consequences. So the enabler may caretake the person by doing what the identified patient is expected to do for themselves, as I mentioned earlier, paying their bills, doing their homework, calling their boss and making excuses for why they won't be into work, running school, drop off for them because they're too drunk to take the kids to school. They may ignore the person's negative or potentially dangerous behavior. And remember last slide we talked about? The enablers already made excuses for this person's behavior. Now think about why might that be. Why might they go to these great lengths not only to prove to the rest of the world that there's a reason for this behavior, but also to rectify the cognitive dis. Dissonance in their own mind, where their brain's going. This person can get up and make their own food or pay their own bills, go to work. There's a little voice in the back of their head that's saying that in and in order to silence that voice, in order to get rid of the cognitive dissonance, they have to believe for themselves that there's a reason why this person is not doing these things. And generally the enabler often comes to believe that the other person is unable to do these things. They're incapable, incompetent, they may have difficulty expressing expressing emotions, especially if there are negative repercussions for doing so. If the enabler tries to express their disappointment or their frustration with the identified patient, the identified patient learns all I've got to do is put it back on them. Why are you hassling me? The reason that I do all these things is because you hassle me all the time or you don't love me. And a lot of times the identified patient will use guilt and anger to manipulate the enabler and get them to just back off, shut up and go back to doing what they were doing. The person who enables prioritizes the need of the identified patient before their own. If you need me to take your kids to school, I'll take them to school and I'll be late for work. I'll. I'll take the hit for it. They often act out of fear. Since addiction and mental health issues can cause frightening events, the enabler will often do whatever it takes to avoid such situations. When you're talking about people who have borderline personality, for example, or who engage in suicidal threats or non suicidal self Injury that can be really terrifying. And the enabler doesn't want to go there. And so they may act out of fear just to prevent that from happening. And the enabler, as I mentioned earlier, also often resents the person who is the identified patient. They resent the person with the problem. Somewhere in their mind, they can see, they recognize that this, the identified patient is able to take steps that they're unwilling to take, but they don't know how to motivate them to do that. What does enabling look like? Here are a few quotes. He's so irresponsible with money, he could never make it on his own. If I kicked him out, he would be homeless. So letting him stay here and paying his bills for him, what else can I do? Every time I've tried to talk to her about her addiction, she's gone on an even worse binge. If I talk to her, I'm afraid she's going to overdose. So I'm just going to keep my mouth shut. I knew I shouldn't have paid for his lawyer after that third dui, but we rely on his income. Every time she and her boyfriend fight, she crashes here. I. I let her because I know he can be violent and I don't want her to be hurt. So in this case, the person is enabling someone to stay in a violent relationship. Now, I'm not saying shut your door and say, no, you can't come in here. Don't get me wrong. What I'm saying is help setting some boundaries and saying, all right, I'm not going to keep being your safety net. You, you need to tap into these other resources and show that you're making progress, whether that's a domestic violence shelter or counseling or something. What I need is to see forward movement from you and ultimately getting to a place where you're safe. Okay, more quotes. If I don't get the emails, he will miss him and lose his scholarship. This is obviously a parent who is worried about their child losing their scholarship. And instead of saying, well, you know, if you don't get your emails, if you're not responsible, then you're gonna have to get a job to pay for your college. They say, I'm going to enable. I'm going to keep my child from experiencing discomfort as a result of their irresponsibility. It's my fault she's in pain, so I must do whatever she wants. If you're driving a car and, and you get into a wreck and the passenger gets, you know, horrible injuries and they're in Pain and they're going to probably be in pain because they had spinal injuries or something. Accepting that and being manipulated into doing whatever that person wants, not just through that initial recovery period, but henceforth and forevermore, you are now their puppet. That's enabling. If I can't change what he did, at least I can limit the damage. Maybe he will wake up and come to his senses one day and finally maybe I just need to find the right treatment for him. So what are the consequences of enabling? Enablers detest the behaviors of the enabled but fear the consequences of those behaviors even more. So it's a fear based response. I'm terrified of rejection. I'm terrified of losing you. I'm terrified of. They're often locked into a lose lose position in the family. Setting boundaries feels like a punishment or abandonment of the person they love. If I say, you cannot come here if you are under the influence, then and my child with an addiction shows up and they're drunk as a skunk on Sunday and I say, no, you can't come in here, then I feel guilty for not letting them in. I feel like a bad person and it feels like a punishment to me. I mean, it feels horrible to me sending this person away even though I know I need to let them experience the natural consequences. Enablers may struggle with the guilt they would feel if the person they're enabling were hurt by the real consequences of their actions. And the identified patient is usually good at turning it back on the enabler saying, I experienced these consequences and it's your fault. Enablers are also protecting themselves and or their children from those consequences. I bailed this person out of jail because we rely on their income to keep a roof over our head. And my children and I need a roof over our head. Now what are the alternatives to that? Is something that you can brainstorm to try to figure out what would happen. Because eventually, if John keeps getting all of these DUIs, John's going to lose his job and go to jail anyway and there's nothing you can do about it. And you're going to, eventually you're going to lose his salary. So what's your safety plan? Enabling means that someone else will always fix, solve or make the consequences go away. They're, they're going to fix it. Enabled persons will come to expect that their behaviors have no consequences or negative outcomes. Yeah, that little thing happened over there, that was a hiccup. But mom will fix it, dad will make it go away. Enablers may become emotional hostages as the person learns to Manipulate them in order to ensure that that help and support keep on coming. I can keep doing what I want to over here or I can keep stay stuck in this place that I'm at. I don't have to try to move forward. There are where I'm at right now. It may not be great, but I know what to expect and it's sort of comfortable because it's a known the enabler is desperate to prevent some one enormous crisis, but winds up experiencing a constant state of stress. The enabled person and the enabler become stuck in a role in which they both feel incompetent, incapable, disempowered and ineffectual. They may gradually accept a self concept that includes these negative traits which destroy each of their self esteem and may lead to codependency. The codependent person is very much has enabling characteristics. Not all enablers are codependent, but all codependents are enablers. The codependent had someone they loved and failed to fix them. The loved one chose another behavior over the relationship, impacting the enabler self esteem, self efficacy and triggering abandonment anxiety. The person had someone they loved and believed and believes or believed that it is their responsibility to take care of of the other person. The codependent person has an exaggerated sense of responsibility for the actions of others which often stems from prior relationships. Again, when they fail to fix a person and make it better. A tendency to confuse love and pity with the tendency to love people that they can pity and rescue. A willingness to do anything to hold on to a relationship to avoid the feeling of abandonment. So in codependency, one of the core features is really this fear of abandonment, this fear of losing control. This fear of failing to be able to fix another and control another person. An extreme need for approval and recognition. Oh my gosh, Jane, John has put you through the paces the past couple of years with his addiction and you are just such a strong woman sticking by him through this whole thing or whatever. They need approval and recognition from the identified patient as well as from others about the struggles and the strength that they've endured. So they kind of become martyr like. There's a sense of guilt when asserting themselves or setting boundaries and a tendency to do more than their share and become hurt when people don't recognize their efforts. They're regularly giving and giving and giving at their own expense, hoping that somebody's going to give back. But unfortunately in our society, a lot of times that just doesn't happen. People are too caught up in their own selves and so the person who's been giving expecting that eventually somebody's going to notice and give back, has a rude awakening. The codependent person has a compelling need to control others because they've learned that if they don't control other people that bad things are going to happen because everybody else is pretty much incompetent of caring for themselves. There's a lack of trust in themselves and others, a difficulty identifying feelings. The codependent person doesn't have time to feel feelings they are on, they are afraid, they're trying to control. They're in this stress response pretty much constantly. And when you're really stressed most of the time it's hard to feel happy, it's hard to feel gleeful. So there's difficulty identifying those feelings. It all just becomes noise. There may be rigidity and difficulty adjusting to change. Well, change means letting go of control a little bit. Having to. Every time we make a change, it's a alteration. And things are not the same. So there's a potential for things getting out of control. There's problems with intimacy and boundaries, chronic anger, lying and dishonesty. Not only to other people, you know, to protect John, but also to themselves. About the negative impact of what's going on with the identified patient. There may be poor communications and difficulty making decisions in the chaotic family. The identified patient is often what the family revolves around. And you don't talk, you don't trust, you don't feel. The identified patient tells you what to say, who to trust and what to feel. So it's safer just not to feel, talk or trust in anything. So what do we do about it? I sped through that stuff because I wanted to get to the practical stuff. Learn about addiction and any co occurring issues the person may have. It's important to understand what's going on with the individual. Physically, interpersonally, cognitively, emotionally. Get help and support from others. Joining Codependents Anonymous or going to therapy or getting support from your faith based congregation. Wherever you can find help and support from people is important not only in dealing with what's going on, but in helping you learn how to set and maintain boundaries and deal with the guilt you feel when you. When you do so, calmly let your loved one know that you are aware of their problem, that you won't tolerate that continued behavior and that you're willing and able to support them on the road to full recovery. This should include explaining that you will be withdrawing financial and other support should they refuse your help, should they choose to refuse your help. Which means that you will not enable them, but only support them on the path to recovery. So if you want to get better, I've got a room, you can move back in. I will do everything in my power to support you. If you're going to keep using, you're not moving back in. So you have a choice in this. I love you and I want you to move back in, but I can't allow that in my household. I can't allow that. I can't allow you to be living here and, and continue hurting yourself. Healthy help involves providing information, encouragement and coaching to the loved one. Give the person contact information for doctors, counselors, lawyers, or rehabilitation programs without feeling the need to force them to accept this help. I regularly have parents call me and try to make appointments for their adult children or for their spouse, and I'm like, no, have them call me if they want help. I am happy to schedule an appointment, but I need them to call me. I have found over the course of 20 some odd years that if the person, if the patient doesn't call for themselves, they are much less likely to follow through with attending appointments or participating in treatment. Discuss with the person what the possible consequences of actions might be without feeling as if you must make sure they make the choice you want them to make. All right, here's the line in the sand. I will help you. I'll help pay your rent, I'll let you move in here. I'll, you know, this is what I will do. If you are doing these things, you're staying clean, you're going to therapy, you're going to meetings, you're going to work, whatever it is that you need them to do, that's what I need from you. In order for me to provide you these things, you have a choice. If you want to keep using, then, you know, it breaks my heart and I really hate seeing you struggle like that. However, I feel that continuing to provide you these things while you're doing this is just helping you or enabling you to continue hurting yourself. Foster hope for you and the person. Sometimes people refuse to get help only to turn around and ask for help a short time later. A lot of people, whether they're enabling or an identified patient, both groups of people have their own control issues and none of us likes being forced to do anything. So if you are telling somebody they have to get help, they may dig their heels in and go, no, I don't wanna. However, a couple weeks later, a couple months later, they may decide they want help. They are now initiating the help, which if you've already given them the numbers for the doctors and the rehab centers and etc, then they're poised to start making the next right steps. By refusing to tolerate or enable the addiction or addict mental health related behavior, but being willing to fully support their recovery, you can foster hope that can grow and catch on. Practical strategies Take care of yourself. This is one that goes really early in the enabling game. Sleep. You know you're answering the phone at 2 in the morning to go bail Johnny out, or you're taking calls at 2 in the morning from somebody who is clinically depressed and feeling suicidal. And I'm not saying don't answer the phone. I'm saying this is where we start seeing sleep going when we're not encouraging people to reach out for help and take steps to and be empowered to move toward their highest quality of life. Nutrition. Gotta eat. Gotta fuel that body factory in order to have energy or the neurotransmitters or hormones to function. Exercise. This may mean just kind of getting up and dancing around the house a little bit. You may not have the energy or desire to go to the gym. That's fine. Move your body. Don't just sit on the couch or in bed all day long. Take care of your emotions. Nurture your emotions. If you feel angry, deal with it. If you feel anxious, notice it and deal with it. If you feel depressed, have compassion for yourself and deal with it. And I'm not saying deal with it as in deal with it. I'm saying figure out what you need to do, what's causing that feeling and what you need to do to manage that emotion in that situation. Engage in social relationships and activities. Support groups are great, but not the only thing to be involved in. There are other things that can help you live your rich and meaningful life. Just like life is not all about work. You don't want to spend all of your time at work and doing things with work people and just everything's work. Same thing with recovery and from enabling and recovery from addiction and depression. It's not always all about therapy. There are other things in life, rock climbing for example, which may have nothing to do with recovery and you may not do with people who are in recovery, but it's something you enjoy doing and be aware of what's truly important to you. When you're with the identified patient, remember not to helicopter. Just keep asking yourself, is this something they can do for themselves? And if so, how can I support them in doing it instead of doing it for them? And try not to obsess or worry about the person, remind yourself you've given them resources, you've given them tools, you've given them options. They are competent adults that have the ability to make decisions. Having self talk that can help you quiet some of the worry is helpful. Example thoughts that somebody who's in early recovery from enabling may have. I have to do this or they will experience a bad consequence. All right, what are the facts in this context at this time? And what is the probability that this person is going to have extreme negative consequences if you don't rescue them? Another thought, if I truly loved them, I would blah, blah, blah. All right, well, let's look at that. If you do this, in what way does it show love? If you enable them, in what way does it show love? If you don't enable them, in what ways does that show love for them? If they choose that behavior, it means I'm a failure and unlovable. Well, we, we could talk about that for two weeks. In treatment, we want to examine where the person got that belief that someone else's behavior says volumes about them and not only about their behavior, but about them. So it's not if my child fails out of college, it means I'm a failure as a parent. That's not what they're saying, if my child fails out of college, it means I'm a failure. Well, we want to separate the person from the behavior. And we also want to recognize that we all have free will and we all have the ability as adults to make decisions that sometimes may not be in our best interest. And it I had, my parents told me some things when I was growing up that I didn't pay attention to. And years later, I came to regret it. And I realized now, just like the saying goes, by the time I turned 25, my parents had learned so much. Suddenly I had this epiphany about how right they were. But I didn't follow their advice, so I took a different path. And, and it didn't mean that they were failures as parents. It means I made a bad choice based on my own willfulness in recovery. Unhook from those thoughts instead of I'm having the thought that I'm a horrible person, or I'm, I'm, I am a horrible person. Say to yourself, I'm having the thought that I'm a horrible person. And then look for the facts for and against those that belief. Challenging questions, what's the evidence for and against the belief? What parts of this are my responsibility? You know, I gave John options on what he could do. I, I am not responsible for his choices. John is responsible for his choices. I am responsible for providing options. Play it through to the end. If I do this, if I bail John out of out of jail for the fourth time tonight, then what are going, what's going to happen? Is he suddenly going to wake up and go to treatment and you know, get into recovery? What's the probability of that? If I do this, what is the likely consequence down the road of this behavior? Which important things does this help move me toward or away from in my life? If I do this, is it helping me move toward the things that are important in my rich and meaningful life or away from it? And which values of mine does doing this support and which values does it undermine? And again, when we're talking about enabling, we're generally talking about somebody we care about deeply. So there's going to be values on both sides and we need to make the best decision in a bad situation. Try not to judge the identified patient or yourself. It is what it is. You can judge behaviors, that was a bad behavior, that was a bad choice, but don't judge the person. Try not to have expectations of others. Instead, set expectations for yourself and try to meet them. Remember that you didn't cause someone else's behavior and your only response is for yours. And I know that's a hard one, especially for parents to recognize that ultimately we've given them the tools while they were in the nest. We provided them all this training and tools and then we pushed them out of the nest. And they have the skills and tools. Should they want to use them, they have the support from us. Should they want to call us and go, hey, I'm trying to do this new thing. My daughter and her husband are trying to buy a house right now and, and they're just getting the run around by some really bad real estate agents. But calling us and saying, hey, my real estate agent's telling me this, is it true? Knowing that we've been through that before, we're not buying the house for them, but we're serving as a resource and a support for them. You can't fix or change someone else. You can tell them how you would like them to change. You can provide them resources. So maybe they can change, but only they can choose to change. Before engaging in enabling behavior, weigh your options for your short term and long term pain. If I do this right now, it's going to hurt like hell, but in the long term, maybe it will produce positive effects. Or if I do this If I don't do this right now, I won't feel guilty. But in the long term, I may be setting John up for a worse addiction and potentially overdose. Write about your feelings in a journal and pursue your own interests and have fun. Set boundaries. Part of your recovery as an enabler is to get very clear about your boundaries. What are my thoughts, my feelings, my needs? And what are your thoughts, your feelings and your needs? They don't have to be the same, and that's okay. What can I trust you with? This is my boundary. This is my cognitive and my interpersonal boundary. What can I trust you with and what can I not trust you with? What do you expect from your partner? Start becoming aware of. If John has. Maybe he doesn't have an addiction. Maybe he has major depression. What is it that you expect from them? You're not going to expect them to go from having major depressive disorder to being, you know, Susie Sunshine in 24 hours. What is it you expect? You expect them to make an appointment with a therapist and to go to counseling. You expect them to get up and shower. Make be very clear about objective things that you're expecting from your partner and make sure to communicate those. What behaviors are acceptable and what behaviors will you no longer tolerate? You won't tolerate John staying in bed for seven days straight and refusing to shower or eat or whatever. And if he does, if there's a relapse, what are the consequences going to be? Now, obviously the consequences for addiction and for depression are going to be somewhat different. But the. The enabler or enabler in recovery has to decide what those consequences are going to be. What do you, the enabler in recovery, need in order to feel safe and secure and loved? Learn how to say no and mean it. I'm sorry, but I can't do that. And learn how to ask for help and get it. For a lot of people who've been enablers, asking for help is just as hard as saying no, because it means admitting they can't do everything themselves. Take time out when you get emotional. Practice distress tolerance and get into your wise mind. Each day, identify three things you did well or like about yourself and write them in your awesomeness journal. Take the labels off Good, bad, should, could, would. When it comes to expectations, assumptions and excuses, ask yourself how you would treat the other person if they weren't your loved one. If this was just some person off the street that did this, what would you do when you're tempted to think or worry about someone else? Turn your attention back to you. I'm worried about John right now, but when John is ready to get healthy, John's going to need me to be healthy, so I need to turn my attention back to me so I can be there when John is ready. And pay attention to how you talk to and treat yourself. Silence the inner critic and be compassionate. Have some fun. Pursue hobbies and interests. Spend time alone with yourself. For a lot of people, this is really hard because alone time is when all those voices in their heads start really yammering. So that may be an advanced skill. Start looking for the positive in your life and add to your gratitude list each day. Stand up for yourself if someone criticizes, undermines, or tries to control you. Practice mindfulness and radical acceptance to deal with worry, letting go of control and the need to manage other people and accept yourself as imperfect because we all are. Get in touch with your feelings without judging them. Feelings just are. They're not logical, they're not right or wrong. It's just your body's reaction to stimulus. Then you can evaluate based on the facts in this context at this time if the feeling is accurate and if so, what to do about it. Express yourself honestly with everyone, including yourself, and say what you think and feel and ask for you, what you want and need and reach out for help when you feel bad. Don't fall into the trap of thinking you should be able to manage a loan. That's a symptom of codependency too. Encourage and support recovery activities in yourself and others. People who are in recovery from codependency need support too. You can't be the identified patient's only support. You can encourage and support by helping to arrange time in the family schedule and budget and providing emotional support or transportation for them to interact with their other supports. Encouraging doesn't mean forcing, manipulating, making ultimatums or nagging. It means saying, here it is, I'm here to help you when you're ready to come to the trough and drink. Restore balance by stopping ex, making excuses, minimizing or avoiding problems. And let people do things for themselves that they can do for themselves. Leave the person to clean up their own messes while engaging in the destructive behavior. You can be empathetic, but don't clean it up for them. Don't allow the person to put you in situations which may endanger you or others. And follow through with plans even if the person refuses to participate. You're depressed, you're drunk. Whatever. We were planning on going to the park today. We're still going to the park. You can come or not, but we're still going to go about our lives. Enabling behaviors can occur with anyone, not just with somebody who's addicted. Most of the time, people do not start out enabling. They often feel responsible in some way for the person's condition and are trying to make things better. Supporting without enabling means getting clear about your wants and needs, setting boundaries, learning how to say no, and being willing to encourage and support healthy behaviors in the identified patient. Thank you all for being here today. I know I went over a little bit, but I appreciate it. I told you I would stick around if you had any more questions. I know I tried to answer some during the, during the class because I could see that y' all were pretty active in the chat room. It. How do we get a family to see an adult child with a 16 year old son unable to maintain employment, housing and transportation and the mom and dad continue to let her back into the home? That is frustrating from the the case care manager's perspective for certain. Obviously it's important to examine what what's going on with the mom and dad and it whether the mom and dad are afraid of being alone, which at that stage in their life they may be. They may be afraid of setting boundaries because they're like, I may need this person in a couple of years to get my groceries and take me to the doctor. So that may be one thing that's preventing them from setting boundaries. The 50 year old may be manipulating the adults, manipulating the older adults by saying this is your fault, you were horrible parents and this is why I can't get a job or hold a job so I need to move in with you because it's your fault. So we want to look at what's the motivation for mom and dad continuing to let the 50 year old move in there. The other thing that I'm seeing is the 16 year old son maybe a pawn in that dynamic where the dad says you're not going to put your grandson out on the street so we're moving back in with you. How do we respond to that? That is a tricky question based again based on why the older adults, the mom and dad continue to let the 50 year old son and grandson can move back in. Can a person and a family have an addiction and not necessarily have all the other family dynamics going on? I won't say it's impossible. At a certain point in an addiction it is likely that other people in the family are going to be impacted. Now that can result in them setting boundaries and going, you need to Clean this up or them starting to enable, hide, divert attention from. Each family responds differently. But yes, not every family that has someone with an addiction or mental health issue is going to become an addicted family or a chaotic family. Sometimes the other adult partner in the family stands up and says no, we ain't doing this. Well, thank you Dr. Kumar. I'm sorry, Dr. Kumar. Kawinda, if there's a mental health problem I would do an assessment and see or send them to maybe your vocational rehabilitation, see if there is a mental health issue. See if he qualifies for SSI or SSDI in which case he may be able to get housing with a minor son. He probably qualifies for Medicaid as Well as Section 8 and other housing vouchers. So I would call down to your housing housing services place and see whether he qualifies again. Being 50 years old and having a 16 year old, he probably also qualifies not only for Medicaid but also for EBT as well as TANF funding. So there are a lot of financial resources out there that he could be tapping into. He may just not know how to or be overwhelmed by the process. The process can be pretty scary and overwhelming. And that would be if he has major depression, if he has autism spectrum, if he has substance use disorder that's in remission, then any of those things should probably be available to him which would enable him to move out of mom and dad's house. And you're right, Michelle, a lot of times enabling does develop into unrealistic expectations. I'm doing all this for you, so I expect you to be grateful. I expect you to snap out of it and change your behavior. I expect expect you to do all these things and it's just not realistic. We hope, we wish, but people can't just turn on a dime like that. And so you're right, we do often set unrealistic expectations. And along with that I would also say that in many cases what I've seen is in families where there is enabling, the enabling person often doesn't articulate their expectations. They just expect the rest of the family to read their mind and meet their expectations. J I agree. I've heard all of these reasons for not setting boundaries before. I've heard it from my own family as well as from clients that I've worked with. And I hear their pain, I hear their fear. And I try, a lot of times I try to avoid using the label codependency or enabler unless I need to drive home a point or I think that getting them involved in Codependents Anonymous might be helpful, but I try to just really help them objectively evaluate the benefits and drawbacks to their behavior, both for them and for their significant other, both in the short term and in the long term. Sometimes it is hard to set those boundaries if somebody has really dug themsel into a hole. Unfortunately, in some cases bottom may mean being homeless and until people hit their bottom, they are not going to be motivated to to recover. Bottom is different for different people, but some people do need to get to the place where they're either incarcerated or homeless and unsheltered homeless at that, to be motivated to actually face the pain that they've been trying to run from with their addiction or face the pain that is keeping them stuck in this deep depression. Thank you K. I appreciate you sharing this video with anyone. You can share it far and wide. This is recovery month after all. So hashtag recovery is possible. Never thought I would say that word. Hashtag, not recovery is possible. All right, let me jump down here to any other last minute questions that came in. Alrighty everybody. It looks like all the questions have been answered. So on that oh hey Kira. I see you saying hi to Chuck, but I'm going to say hi to you. Oh, you said hi to me earlier. Welcome. I'm glad to have you here. I know you are in a totally different time zone, but it's always great when you drop in that. And there's always a balance, Mike, of the fear of change versus the fear of staying the same. And we're not going to change until the fear of staying the same is more powerful than change. Okay, have a wonderful day and I will see you on Monday. We'll we'll do another live Q A at 1:00pm EST, noon my time. And then Wednesday we will do the live continuing education webinar.