How Enabling Affects Your Loved Ones

Understanding Enabling

“Understanding Enabling from a Recovering Addicts Perspective” is to help families to understand the “Four Emotions an Addict uses to cause People to Enable Them”.  It seeks to show how enabling addiction can affect their loved ones. A part of our Intervention Video Response Series, which answers questions emailed in from families in need of help, this particular response is to help a family that has one family member that is enabling and won’t stop.  David Lee, Founder of Intervention Services tries to explain Enabling from the perspective of a recovering ex-addict or substance abuser.

Understanding Enabling from David Lee on Vimeo.

Dear Intervention Services

I hope you can help me and my family. We are in desperate need of help and my brother’s addiction is tearing our life apart. My brother is 32 years old, addicted to cocaine and he doesn’t even have a job. He’s living at my parents house, stealing money from them and they don’t stop it. He says that he wants to quit and that he’s going to get a job but he’s been saying that for years.

This is killing me to watch my brother do this to my family. I know that this is destroying my parents marriage as well. Dad wants to kick him out but mom won’t let him. My brother has stolen thousands of dollars from them, and the money they’ve saved for retirement is getting wasted on a drug addict who says he’ll quit but never does.

We’ve tried to talk to Mom about her enabling, but she says she’ll never throw her son out to die. My parents fight all the time now, and Dad just told me that he’s probably going to leave if things don’t change.

How can we talk to Mom about her enabling. She isn’t helping my brother, she is giving him all her money, and their marriage is going to end if she doesn’t stop. What can we say to get Mom to stop enabling?

Please Help

A Loving Sister

Video Response Series

If you are in need of a detailed answer to a question you may have in regards to your loved one, you may contact us anytime and we may provide a video response for you.  All video responses, although publicly made, have been altered to adhere to the utmost in confidentiality and respect of the delicacy of your situation.

Understanding Enabling is to help families to understand Enabling in a different way then they have had it explained before.  A part of our Intervention Video Response Series, which answers questions emailed in from families in need of help, this has become one of our most popular.

Reaching the Bottom is another in our Intervention Video Responses Series.  Does your loved one need to reach their bottom in order to change?  It is important for families to collectively understand that waiting for this mysterious event, this “bottom” that they have often been mistakenly informed of…often results in disastrous consequences.

More Intervention and Educational Presentations:

The following presentations are examples of the many public service presentations that we provide for schools, educators, treatment providers, churches, and social services. If you are in need of a workshop or presentation, please contact us for scheduling.

“Why Families Wait” is an educational presentation delivered for local families, police officers and educators to help people understand why the majority of families wait to intervene. Unfortunately, most families will never intervene, but instead will wait…often until the worst happens. David Lee, our Founder, explains why.

“The Rogue Elephant” is a presentation delivered by our Founder, David Lee, to the Cedar Lake Key Club during their annual “Night out in a box” benefit for the homeless where teenagers spend an evening living in a cardboard box to better understand the needs of the homeless.