Amber HollingsworthRecovery Conversation Simulator, Amber's Recovery Practice Lab · Interactive learning tool trained on Amber methodoloy

Are You Enabling Without Realizing It? #codependency #addictionrecovery #boundaries #selfcare

2 Mar 2026 · 1 min

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1:13

Amber Hollingsworth breaks down how people enable addiction without meaning to: covering problems, giving money, lying, employing the person. Enablers end up doing all the work while the addicted person contributes nothing, and the emotional cost is steep—anxiety, resentment, lost sense of self.

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We're often guilty of propping up our loved ones, and this is out of fear, and this is out of anxiety. We do this in the following ways, but they include providing housing, fixing problems, helping avoid problems, smoothing over problems, lying, covering for them, smoothing the way, acting like it's all okay and just ignoring the problem in general, giving them money to make their lives possible, letting them work for us. We see this a lot with spouses working together, and the one that's addicted is really dragging down, but the other one does all the work, or parents who have a kid working for them and he's not showing up or doing anything, but we keep hiring them or keep letting them work and then letting them live with us despite not working or contributing. What this actually does to us, you guys, is it actually propagates anxiety because we worry that they won't change. We worry that this isn't enough. We worry about what we're doing and what outcome it's gonna have. It gives us a very false sense of control, responsibility, and safety. And then that makes us more anxious because now we're responsible for this other person's life. It builds resentment long-term. It makes us angry and taken advantage of, and it uses so much of our emotional energy and time that it's just— we lose ourselves.