Early in our Al Anon and Nar-Anon recovery programs we hear about the concept of enabling behavior. This is usually defined as doing things for the addicted loved one to prevent them from experiencing a laundry list of consequences that occur because of their addiction. The result of this behavior is that the addict’s self esteem is damaged and their desire for recovery diminished. They also come to resent us and we in turn become frustrated, angry and resentful because our “help” almost always makes the situation worse. While this definition makes sense to us, we find later that it is extremely difficult for us to recognize our own enabling behaviors and even more difficult to stop them. This is especially true for parents of addicted children.
The father of an addicted daughter, for example, faces a gut wrenching dilemma when he must accept that he can no longer protect and make things OK for his little girl. This dilemma goes right to the core of a father’s basic instincts and his perceived role as a man. After numerous failures to “help” his daughter he typically takes on an equally powerful motivator to continue to “help”. This motivator is guilt and is the result of thinking that he is a failure as a father and as a man. He finds many justifications for continuing to “help” including thinking that this time it will work and that, as a father and a man, he simply must continue to try to do something. Taking some kind of action also provides temporary relief from the pain of watching his daughter suffer. So how does he get out of this dilemma?
The single most important thing is to accept that his daughter has a disease over which he has absolutely no control or power. This acceptance must occur in his mind, heart and soul or he will be pulled back to the instinctive protective mode. Once the acceptance has occurred, he can move on to the next step which is separating his daughter from her disease. He learns that he can love his daughter but hate the disease. This distinction then allows him to discern what is enabling versus what is helping and loving. Often by this time he has lost sight of the beautiful person his daughter is and becomes focused entirely on her behavior. It can be helpful to think about and write a letter about his daughter’s good qualities and even more helpful to both he and his daughter to give her this letter.
Bob T
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written by findhelp, October 09, 2007
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