Four Primary Emotions
Why do they keep enabling?
Many times people have questions for us at Intervention Services about Enabling. “Why do my parents continue to enable my brother?” they ask. It is important to understand that enabling doesn’t actually come from the person who is doing the enabling. In actuality it is a learned behavior that is being taught or trained by a substance abuser using specific emotions to manipulate.
In general, the purpose of using emotions to train other people is primarily to do one of four things:
- Cause people to enable and give a substance abuser some form of comfort.
- Cause people to enable and absorb negative consequences for a substance abuser.
- Cause people to enable and assume a substance abuser’s responsibilities for them.
- Cause people to enable and assume the actual responsibility of the addiction.
The Four Primary Emotions used by a Substance Abuser to Train Someone to Enable Them
Covered in more detail on the following pages, the actual four primary emotions used by a substance abuser to train people to enable are:
See more: Articles


Not sure what to do?
Wondering if an intervention is the right move?
Get free advice here: 888-467-2839