Whether it’s a close family member or a dear friend, addiction can wreak havoc in relationships. While many may want to limit their interactions or even break off contact with such family members or friends, choosing to stay and support without enabling can be a massive challenge.
While working with a family interventionist can be beneficial in establishing initial contact and smoothening rough folds in relationships, it is still vital to understand direct or indirect ways one’s actions can be enabling addiction. It is essential to recognize that the transition is new for everyone; feeling overwhelmed or unsure is expected, but holding onto your ground will be the key to re-establishing relationships.
Here’s everything to know:
What is Enabling?
Enabling behavior in case of addiction can be anything that supports the needs and wants of a loved one who struggles with addiction.
It can be by financially supporting them in hopes of improvement, not letting them recognize how their behavior is causing disputes in the family, or avoiding any conversations surrounding their habits.
Enabling a person with addiction convinces them that there’s nothing wrong with what they are doing and that anyone not supporting their needs is against their well-being.
How to Love and Support without Enabling Addiction?
Here are seven key changes you can make in your behavior and approach to curb enabling behavior while encouraging your loved one to seek help:
- Avoid making sudden changes
Expecting a person with addiction to be rational and understanding will always end up in disappointment. The substances or alcohol have a substantial impact on the brain and nervous system, making it challenging for the individual to think and act responsibly.
Sudden changes heighten the risk of extreme mood swings. Instead, work with an interventionist to establish constructive conversations where you can share concerns and worries while discussing how things will be from your end moving forward.
- Don’t navigate difficult conversations yourself
Avoid starting complex conversations yourself. A person with addiction may not understand the real intentions and may believe what their paranoia tells them.
It can lead to complicated situations that could be harmful in the worst cases. Always plan and bring up sensitive topics during intervention sessions only.
- Set boundaries and ways to retain them under stressful situations
Boundaries are an effective way to communicate love while clearly outlining how their addiction and erratic behavior patterns are not appreciated without causing conflicts.
These boundaries can be as simple as refusing to give money, disengaging when the individual seems agitated or manipulative, and even not allowing them near you if they seem overly aggressive.
- Engage in self-care habits to focus on your well-being
Attending to your own needs often takes a backseat when you are caring for a person with addiction. It is essential to understand that looking after your own needs is a habit that can prevent exhaustion and jeopardizing negative behaviors from kicking in.
Consider creating a self-care routine that allows you to tap into your inner self and do things that make you excited and happy about your life.
- Create solid mental boundaries
Manipulation and gaslighting are tactics that are often used by the person with an addiction to get their way.
Instigating fights, getting upset, guilt-tripping, or even accusing family or friends of their condition are some common strategies used by individuals with addiction to get their way.
Wherever you find yourself in such tricky situations, it is crucial not to react strongly, keep your distance, and avoid reasoning.
Bottomline
Sometimes, even holding the most regular forms of communication with a person with addiction can be exhausting. Working within a family intervention setting will be beneficial in expressing concerns, worries, expectations, and boundaries without instigating conflicts.
These interventions aim to help affected family members and friends by coaching them with pragmatic coping strategies and techniques. Thus, you can develop skills and boundaries while restructuring your thinking patterns.
Remember, loving a person with addiction is possible without enabling them or their behavior.
