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

Over-helping An Addict

16 Aug 2024 · 1 min

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0:38

Amber Hollingsworth (speaker) explains how common helping actions toward a person with addiction (paying bills, filling applications, watching kids, aiding job-search tasks) can trigger loved ones. These triggers come from feeling like they are resuming full responsibility, fearing they're enabling, doubting the other person’s honesty, and spiraling into fear, confusion, and self-blame.

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Another thing that triggers loved ones that you might not even think of as a trigger is when you are doing something to help the other person out again. Maybe you're helping to pay a bill, or you're helping to fill out an application, or you're helping watch their kids while they go to a job interview, or something like that. It triggers you because you feel like you're back in that old position of carrying all the responsibilities. It triggers you because you feel like, am I just enabling? Am I being dumb? Am I falling back into their crap again? Are they lying about it? And so you start to spiral back into that part of you that's scared, that's confused, that's not sure if they're being told the truth.