Parenting: Enabling a teen's drug addiction | INTERVENE: A Community for Parents

Dealing with an Addicted Child, Enabling, Family History, Recovery, Taking Care of Yourself:

The Second Parental Deadly Sin – Enabling

Tuesday, October 13th, 2009

Enabling means to make able or possible, to give power. It is a major environmental factor in addiction. Enabling allows the addict to continue in his disease by preventing him from experiencing the negative consequences of his behavior. Giving in to my daughter Lauren, who had a spiraling addiction, was a recipe for disaster. It mortifies me to think about how I handed out money and gave her rides to be with her drug-dealing boyfriend during her using days. I think the scariest thing about enabling is that most parents don’t even realize they’re doing it — and that was certainly true for me. I believe my enabling was just another way for me to protect myself while being fed by the lies and deception that Lauren used to hide her using.

Facing the truth was too hard and I wanted to be able to trust my daughter and give her the freedom that any typical teenager should have. The problem was that what we were dealing with was anything but “typical.”

Many times I hear parents say, “But I want my kid to like me.” Dealing with a rebellious teenager is tough enough for most parents; add to that a growing addiction and you are faced with something beyond your control. Coming from an alcoholic upbringing myself, I struggled at times with codependent tendencies, including weak boundaries and difficulty asserting myself with my kids. Living with an active addiction in my teen triggered those inclinations. I was an easy target as my daughter developed into a master manipulator in her quest to acquire the drugs she needed to fuel her addiction.

Lauren needed professional help for her addiction and I needed help just as badly for my enabling ways around her disease. One addiction counselor told me that my daughter was not ready to change because she liked her life. What I didn’t realize was how much I was responsible for providing the comfortable environment in which her disease was thriving. Once I implemented some “Tough Love” principles and set boundaries with money and rides, and mandated a recovery program for her if she wanted to live in my home, it rocked her world and things started to change.

Many teen substance abusers are able to reach a point where they want to recover because they cannot stand to lose any more of their former privileges. Only when addicted teens are faced with real consequences can they start to make a change. There is help for parents available in the form of free meetings with other families who are dealing with family addiction. The purpose of these groups is to learn from one another how to stop being codependent and how to end enabling behavior.

Five ways to stop enabling behavior:

1) Attend meetings for families of addicts.
2) Get professional help for yourself.
3) Establish “Tough Love” consequences in your home.
4) Stop providing money and privileges for your substance abuser.
5) Develop a support system with other parents of addicts.

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Posted by Karen Franklin | Filed under Dealing with an Addicted Child, Enabling, Family History, Recovery, Taking Care of Yourself

This article is very true. As an addictions counselor I often have more trouble dealing with the families who continue to help the youth stay in denial of their problem. I have friends in Al Anon who still help me in dealing with my son (who is addicted). It is very difficult to be honest and allow natural consequences to occur.

In our effort to “love” our children out of addiction, we never realize that we are enabling them to continue to be addicted. We become so addicted to their addiction and so hell bent on fixing them, that we dont see the harm in giving them a few dollars, buying them food, cigarettes or gas. When someone finally tells you, and you get it, that you are putting nails in their coffin, and you stop enabling, you and your child can start to heal. Best advise for a parent of an addicted child: Let go and let God. Been there!

Check out our local website, or go to mamasite.net for more information on methamphetamine addiction.

I loved what was said and it is so true about “putting nails in their coffin”. When I stopped being the “good mom”, it helped raise my daughter’s bottom. The other thing I heard said is that “nothing changes if no one changes”, and that hit me hard. I think I was resentful in the beginning that I had to be the one to change first, but the payoffs were huge in the end. I really didn’t know how messed up “I” was.

Dear Karen, Reading your words made me think, “how did she know all about me??” Other than your daughter being a teen and my daughter is 21, so many of your experiences were like mine. I was so ignorant of the issues of drug addiction that I did everything wrong. I thought I was so smart since I was once married to an addict. But my experiences with my daughter were a real wake-up call for me.

I gave her money because I thought she was buying food or paying for things she needed at school. She was verrrry good at working things to her advantage whether it was accusing me of past deeds to make me feel like I had failed her or telling me that she could get help if I would just help pay for it. It took me a few months to finally put two and two together and come up with four.

Her friends would find fault with me and at first I felt bad. But then, one day, I suddenly said, “I don’t think you understand, I don’t care what your friends think of me.” After I said this I felt rather liberated.

I was recently at an Alanon meeting and a woman there said something that has resonated with me. With tears she said, “If I give him money, he will use drugs. If I DON’T give him money he will use drugs. If I give him a place to stay, he will use drugs. If I DON’T give him a place to stay, he will use drugs. If I tell him I love him and I’m there to help, he will use drugs. If I tell him I’m disappointed in him and he needs to get his life together on his own, he will use drugs.”

Her words have stayed with me. I now know that it won’t matter what I do. It’s up to my daughter to find her way through this. There’s no reason for me to try to punish or cajole or bribe. It won’t change the fact that she’s an addict. I don’t know all the solutions but I’ve learned to take care of myself first.

Hi Susan, You have received an awareness because of your willingness to get help for yourself. Good for you! So many times we just want “them” to change or “stop using drugs” or whatever. I was so surprised when I learned that I had choices. Changed attitudes aid recovery.

Dear Karen - A year has gone by and yesterday my daughter told me with anxiety in her voice that she will probably go to jail. This is so hard. I continue to feel that if I had just done something differently, she wouldn’t have a criminal record and she would be clean and sober.

She has tried several times to quit. This is a terrible disease. She has been so sick over the past year and she’s told me the worst part is the mental anxiety that hits after about a week of being clean. And then she relapses and feels even worse about herself.

The interesting part about our situation is that neither one of us has been in denial except in the very beginning. She has wanted to get clean and go back to school. I learned to not give her money or rides within 2 months of discovering what was really going on. Watching her on this roller coaster of misery and now seeing her charged with a crime is so hard. How I wish I could put my arms around her and say that everything will be OK. But I haven’t given up hope.

…That applies to us all, no matter the circumstances. When we recognize the need for change it can help so much to listen, even more, to our instincts. We have an internal wisdom that tells us to seek out those sources of information and help that will serve in our discovery and acceptance of our own personal truth, and the personal reality of our circumstances on toward better balance.

It’s a commonly occurring challenge that in our process we can potentially get stuck, with the comparing to others, our journey, our addiction-challenged son or daughter, and the details of their specific circumstances, i.e., their challenge of addiction and the aftermath of life-management chaos that commonly follows, as well as their possible mental health disorder and its impact.

There is so much good in being able to relate to the feelings and circumstances of others. It helps us not feel so alone and isolated. It “should” at some point though also provide us with a growing, consistent supply/sense of “can do this” as opposed to extended feelings of anxiety and fear, as in “I’m feeling like this might never get better and it’s just all so awful and scary and I wish I had ___ for my son/daughter”.

Those kinds of thoughts and feelings happen to every parent facing the challenge of the substance use disorder and/or mental health disorder of their child. And, these feelings and thoughts can happen a lot. But, when these kinds of thoughts and feelings begin to consistently outnumber the, “I feel like I can get through this and become better and better able to manage these challenges in a way that helps me feel growing confidence and belief that there are better days coming, a life for me to embrace in hope”, then, that’s usually the cue from our greater wisdom/our instincts that it’s time to try something else, or, at least, it’s time to ”try” something, in addition, to what we are already doing.

This “try” something else process helps build stamina for the journey. There is power and empowerment even in the “attempt” by us to facilitate helping ourselves in the challenges –even if the new thing we try doesn’t get us all the way there. It’s a process.

A large percentage of people who struggle with a substance use disorder also have a mental health disorder, such as a (treatable) anxiety disorder, depressive disorder, bipolar disorder, etc., whether it’s been diagnosed, or not.

One out of four people (that’s “general population”) have a diagnosable mental health disorder. There is a more than good chance that you care about someone with diagnosable mental health condition, and it’s very possible they self-medicate their psychological (and physical)pain with substances that are not good for them, and which also impairs their innate life management skill set.

There is very good, effective, life-enhancing treatment available for these mental health conditions. These “helps” can serve in the reconnecting of an individual, (struggling to even get through the day), to their desired hope and dreams and goals for themselves, when it has become clear that the symptoms they are experiencing have begun to interrupt health and threaten a productive, rewarding, peaceful life.

In seeking out a potential diagnosis, from a qualified, vetted clinician, and then engaging appropriate treatment for these mental health conditions, with resources sought out and available at the moment; there is even more reason to be hopeful that a co-occurring substance use disorder will also be appropriately treated. It’s a process.

We can help our kids with substance dependency by learning all we can about addiction and mental health-related conditions. We can help our kids by investing in kinds of supports that help “us” feel, not only understood and comforted, but, most importantly, increasingly empowered… thus, increasingly hope filled… thus, increasingly empowered…increasingly hope filled…increasingly empowered -A pattern well worth repeating, in any way you can. It’s a process.

These individuals who are challenged by an addiction and/or mental health disorder are the people we love… and that’s life. That’s people. That’s one of the many realities that makes the canvas of humanity so colorful and creative and inspiring, in my view.

I have been in Alanon for a few years due to being in a marriage with an alcoholic. After six years of separation, we are now divorced. He has had quite a roller-coaster ride since I left. It has included a drinking-driving accident, prison and rehab, and he is still on house arrest as his trial doesn’t come up until March. Two years after the accident. The drunk girlfriend received over $100,000 for her injuries, which he may have to pay back. His addictions have cost this 58 year old man all his life savings, and he nearly lost his home and leased truck. It has been hard to watch all this, as I have still been a friend and made power-of-attorney to pay bills, etc. through all this. But, I did not enable. I only did what he could not do for himself. Starting this week, we will have severed all contact, as I will be giving back his mail key. Life is a lot more peaceful now, but it takes a concentrated effort to get back from living in a survival mode, to enjoying life and all it has to offer, without any pulls at your heart, mind, and emotions. Alanon helps strengthen, teach and gives you a purpose in helping others as well.

People deserve second chances and a chance to better themselves. It’s hard when there are others who stand in the way and give people a hard time and set them up for failure. One should look at their own lives instead of imposing their thoughts or assumptions on others. As a professional in this field, you should encourage to be helpful and support instead of being negative and wanting someone to fail.

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