Addiction is a disease that impacts the entire family and disrupts family dynamics. As a family member of someone with substance use disorder, you walk a very challenging line between offering unwavering support and getting your loved one the help they deserve.

How you respond to your loved one’s behavior is critical in supporting their recovery. Some will try to control or change their loved one’s destructive behavior, while others will be in denial or try to rationalize it. While each of these attempts to cope may come from a well-intentioned place, it often ends up creating more harm than good.

What Is Enabling?

Enabling allows the person with a substance use disorder to continue behaving in unhealthy, destructive ways as the family attempts to protect them from the consequences of their actions. This is a typical scenario that plays out in family dynamics when one family member has a substance use disorder. Loved ones are convinced they are helping when they’re actually enabling them and worsening the problem.

Examples of enabling include:

• Shielding your loved one from their consequences, such as paying their rent because they don’t have a job or can’t hold one.
• Helping them resolve legal problems.
• Doing things for them that they should be able to do themselves, such as finding a job, doing their laundry, cooking their meals, driving them around, etc.
• Denying that there is a problem, or minimizing it.
• Giving them money.
• Threatening to kick them out, without ever following through.
• Offering rewards or incentives for sobriety.
• Doing anything else that perpetuates their bad behavior.

How to Break the Cycle of Enabling

Because addiction is a family disease, it’s critical for the whole family to engage in treatment and get some support of their own. Ending the cycle of enabling requires healthy boundaries, but for family members who are used to enabling, it can feel a little frightening to say no.

Addiction disrupts our boundary system and treatment requires us to reassess. Healthy boundaries set a limit for what behavior you find acceptable and what you do not. Establishing new, healthy boundaries can facilitate more meaningful discussions, honest communication and vulnerability. Individual counseling, family therapy and support groups can teach family members how to set and maintain healthy boundaries to support their loved one’s recovery.

What do healthy boundaries within a family look like? The family:

• Communicates honestly, openly and thoughtfully.
• Respects one another and each other’s boundaries.
• Values one another.
• Admits problems and mistakes, and seeks help from others.
• Maintains trust through reliability.
• Shares responsibilities and maintains order.
• Spends time together.

It’s so crucial for family members to receive support while their loved one is in recovery. Segue Recovery Support offers a range of services that can help families end the cycle of enabling, set healthy boundaries and restore family dynamics. For more information, contact a Segue Recovery Support Specialist at 1-833-485-0789.