Here, below, I've "copied and pasted" an excerpt from the "Getting Your Children Sober" book, on the subject of "enabling".
******** THIS MATERIAL ALSO APPLIES TO RELATIONSHIPS WITH ADULT ALCOHOLICS...........
From Toby Drews, the author of the million-selling "Getting Them Sober'' books, endorsed by 'dear Abby', Dr. Norman Vincent Peale, and Melody Beattie:
phone 410-243-8352
email tdrews3879@aol.com
www.GettingThemSober.com
phone 410-243-8352
email tdrews3879@aol.com
www.GettingThemSober.com
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Here it is-------
“Enabling” is meant to describe the rescue operations that the spouse or parent of an alcoholic carries out, when he can’t stand watching the alcoholic suffer the consequences of the disease. When that happens, he “cleans up” the alcoholic’s messes. That way, the alcoholic doesn’t suffer the real consequences of his behavior.
A parent (or spouse) must learn, eventually, to get some detachment on watching these crises happen in order to stop cleaning up after the alcoholic.
The idea is to allow the disease to hurt the alcoholic/addict so much that he or she wants to get sober. Of course, it takes a partner/parent a lot of time in a healing group such as Al-Anon in order to be able to do this.
And this detachment can’t be forced or rushed by counselors.
It is a slow process, and very frightening.
When a mother rescues her alcoholic child and I label her an enabler, she obviously is still doing the rescuing behaviors and is not yet unafraid enough to give them up.
She knows I am being judgmental when I use this term.
Even when I say it lovingly, I seem to be admonishing her to go faster than she is capable of doing at that time.
And she often feels despairing, because she is doing her best.
She may get so discouraged and frustrated and overwhelmed that she stops treatment.
More specifically, the term 'enabler' implies that while the parents did not cause the drinking, their rescue operations contributed to the PERPETUATION of the drinking (i.e., that we somehow "contributed" to the disease with our actions).
Such thinking is dangerous; it leads alcoholics, who are already looking for a way to blame others for the drinking, into again placing responsibility for the drinking on the family.
Alcoholics do not need any encouragement to blame others!
Alcoholism counselors spend most of their time trying to crack through the blame-systems of alcoholics.
It is considered to be a major breakthrough in the wellness process of alcoholics when they begin to acknowledge that nothing “got them drunk.”
In contrast, alcoholics who have had relapses and are re-entering treatment are now often heard saying, “I wouldn’t have gone out that time if I hadn’t been enabled!”
The alternative to being labeled enablers is-------- to teach you to end the rescue operations through the simple but effective process of detachment.
For, detachment will help end your fears – and it is your fears that originally caused you to rescue.
And even though, in this book, we are primarily talking about parents and kids, the detachment process is especially important if you also are married to an alcoholic.
It is important for you to lose your fears of that adult alcoholic so you can get on with your life and become more able to deal with your children-alcoholics.
How does detachment work?
How does it help you to lose your fears of your alcoholic child or spouse?
The general process goes something like this:
1) When you begin to learn ways to stop watching the alcoholic in order to begin the healing process of seeing to your own needs, the alcoholic has radar and senses this switch in focus.
2) Much of the “games” stop then, because the alcoholic knows that less attention will be paid to him or her.
3) By continuing to focus on yourself instead of the alcoholic, you get an even greater distance (detachment) from the threats, and begin to lose your fears of them.
4) Again, the alcoholic senses this. He or she begins to threaten even less.
5) You see that detachment works! You gain more confidence. Many of the illusions in your relationship, are beginning to end.
6) You lose much of your preoccupation with the alcoholic.
Your preoccupation was based on your needing to stop him or her from hurting you.
You now see they are much less capable of hurting you than you thought.
They’ve already done most of the damage they can do.
But the game has been to keep up more of the same junk, to keep up the illusion that the alcoholic is powerful.
This no longer works. You have learned not to look at him or her; to walk out of the room; out of the house – to not beg.
7) The alcoholic now stands alone with his or her disease. "The cheese stands alone".
They’ve lost their audience, and therefore drop much of the bullying.
You are not watching it.
The alcoholic can no longer get you to believe you are responsible for his or her drinking and for the resultant craziness of their disease.
9) The alcoholic has a chance to grow up and make a decision to get help.
10) You are free.
When I teach parents and partners of alcoholics, the dynamic of what I have just described, they begin to naturally let go of the disease – to detach, and therefore stop 'enabling' – because they are losing their fears of the alcoholics. All of us stop manipulating and controlling alcoholics/addicts when we lose our fears of them....and our fears of losing their love.
NOW------ what is a better term for us to use instead of 'enabling'----since our using that term perpetuates the idea that we are to blame.
Using the term "rescuer" instead of "enabler" to describe our actions to bail them out of the consequences of their disease, helps us much more than using the word 'enabler'.
The connotation of the word 'rescuer' is a kind connotation.
Who are rescuers? Fireman, policemen.
When WE say 'we have rescued'------instead of 'we are enablers'----- we are using a term that is kind to us.
And boy do we need to do more of that.
ALSO--------- below, I've copied and pasted one of the Recovery Tips of the Month (from that section of this website) that details this subject.
Here it is------
"September, 2002, Recovery Tip of the Month"
It was about 1984 that I first started noticing the subtle and not-so-subtle attacks on the spouses of alcoholics in some of the literature about alcoholism and the family.
a.) The first launch on the families in some of the literature started calling the families "enablers" instead of "rescuers". (think of the difference in connotation----- the first term has the "feel" of a deliberate act of helping the alcoholic to stay drunk---- the second has a much more gentle "feel" of a family member who is loving and well-meaning but who is using ineffective means to help.)
b.)Then, it got a bit worse -- the spouse of the alcoholic started being called The Chief Enabler..... the connotation there needs almost no explanation. It screams of an almost planned deliberate plan of action to keep the alcoholic sick.
c.) Then, towards the end of the 1980's, there appeared a few articles in journals that claimed that Al-Anon was really only a place for spouses of alcoholics who were basically hopeless......hopelessly attached to the alcoholic and not strong enough to be one of those majority of stronger wives of alcoholics who COULD break away. Around that time, I started receiving hundreds of phone calls from families about these very questions ------ families whose heads were spinning from not knowing what to do when they were confronted by counselors they just met who insisted that they leave decades-long marriages because (they were told) they
were either "enablers" or "too codependent". They were told that if they tried to help their spouses, they were "enablers". If they wanted to stay in their marriages, they were "too codependent". (Around that time, I read an article in the Baltimore Sunpapers about a reporter who watched a film, along with family members, at a local treatment center, entitled "the enablers" ------and the reporter watched the families' angry faces after the film was over. The reporter asked the families, why
are you so angry? One woman put it so well------- "If we're helping, we're enablers; if we're angry, we're b**ches. When do we win?!"
What is very difficult to get some people to understand is, is that this disease of alcoholism ----- this crazymaking, emotionally abusive behavior of the drinking alcoholic ------ is so terrifying to the family, and yet is, at the same time, so cunningly hooking in its way of going from soul-destruction of the family to making the family feel so special, so close -- and back-and-forth and back-and-forth ------- that the result is that the family is so turned on its head and confused and winds up so lacking in self-trust and self-worth that it halfway believes that it will literally fall apart without that alcoholic. (I go more into this in the chapter called "the
irregular behavior of the alcoholic keeps us attached" in the book, "Getting Them Sober, volume 4". This resultant hooking-attachment that occurs is SO strong that it baffles even counselors at battered women's shelters. There is often a huge turnover in personnel at those shelters because they feel so frustrated at why these women go back to abusers.
What is not understood is that when counselors keep asking, "WHY do you stay?!" -- it only adds shame. Shame because the spouse of course knows that "taking it" is awful-----but she cannot leave. And shame does not make one be able to leave the marriage...... it only means she'll leave the counseling. And what the simplistic admonition to "leave the codependent relationship" also does not take into account is what Al-Anon, that God-given program, has always known------ that many marriages that seemed awful can be saved when one person changes. It does not always take two. One person changing his or her behavior can change the entire outlook of the family.
There seems to be two diametrically-opposed "poles" out there, now --- two theoretical concepts that still keep drumming on the families of alcoholics ---- specifically on the spouses -----
a.) that if one is "strong", one does not stay with someone who is emotionally abusive
b.) that if one is truly Christian, one stays with your spouse..... learns communications skills, learns the marriage skills based on true religion that will work to make the marriage successful. When I wrote the first volume of "Getting Them Sober" in the late 1970's that was later published in 1980, I wrote this in the introduction: "This book won't tell you, perhaps like a well-meaning friend might do, to "throw the bum out". Only you know what you can live with and what you cannot live with. On the other hand, I know you don't need any more outsiders telling you to "stop attacking the poor guy"."
Not much has changed, has it?
The point is, what DOES work in helping families of alcoholics to heal is to accept them EXACTLY where they are....... not play God and tell them they should leave OR stay in marriages...... assume they are adults and have the God-given right and dignity to make their own decisions.... and gently help them untangle the huge ball of tangled string of issues at their own pace, in their own time.
Very few people "move" out of any dysfunctional situation if they are shamed for staying. And constantly telling someone that they shouldn't "be taking it anymore" is an IMPLIED shaming. What DOES work? When I am counseling, I stress --
a.) you must, to the best of your ability, not minimize what is going on.
b.) you must, to the best of your ability, not shame yourself for not being able to move in any direction, take any steps, as quickly as you think you should -- or even at all.
c.) you must at least try Al-Anon for 8 meetings..... precisely because it is a spiritual program, when we start to say no to the littlest thing where we did not do so before, an irrational unconscious guilt sets in and that guilt is a real kicker! What saying no even a little bit does to MOST of us spouses of alcoholics is set off guilt ------ so then we try to "make up to the alcoholic" for "being so mean" as to say no, for the first time. We usually do not even know we are having this reaction-response --- we think we are punishing them when we start to say "no" with even a smidgeon of anger in our voices. But when we find a Higher Power that is gentle with us, we get a kind of spiritual "permission" to say no to those things that we used to put up with. Why is that important? Because most of us families of alcoholics have been so beaten down that we need that spiritual permission to allow us to feel like we have the right to ANY dignity without guilt.
d.) When we allow ourselves the TOTAL freedom to stay OR to leave, we then don't feel scared to look at what is really going on...... there's no pressure..... there's no shame........ we're not frozen with terror, just thinking about "having to leave". We know that we have the right to stay or leave or stay and leave and stay
and leave again.......... and when we know that no one is making us feel ashamed or wrong for staying, and if we stay honest with ourselves about the situation, we heal much quicker!
e.) And as Al-Anon so wisely knows------ there are a lot of us who will become emotionally stronger IN that marriage and that strengthening may very well create a dynamic that can eventually result in a total healing of the family. But we cannot discover what is TRULY an authentic choice for ourselves unless we listen to only our inner voices, in our own time, in our own way. Years ago, in my counseling practice, I worked closely with Dr. Max Weisman....many of you will remember his name. He died a few years ago.... he was a real pioneer in this field, a psychiatrist who, decades ago, started a subcommittee on alcoholism in the American Medical Association. He spent summers in Russia and Eastern Europe, training other psychiatrists on how to adapt the 12-step programs in their countries that were essentially atheist in philosophy.... and he succeeded in helping them make that bridge for healing.
I remember him telling me that this field was the only one that he knew of that produced counselors who had the arrogance to tell people that they should break up their marriages. For about twenty years, now, there have been groups that have decried Al-Anon for spawning severe codependence...... and they have gotten followers. For the most part, these followers have been folks who, when you meet them, seem to be pretty strong people. But many of them only became strong after years in gentle groups like Al-Anon, that accepted them for what they were, that offered nothing but kindness and non-shaming help........ and I wonder if most of these now-strong people could have gotten to where they are now, if they had been made to feel so shamed "for staying in an emotionally abusive marriage" when they first walked into the rooms of Al-Anon -- terrified and unable to make a move?
One also hears from these groups that decry Al-Anon, that Al-Anon "is good for awhile, but it keeps people in codependent dead-end marriages". What they are saying is that after a while----- say, after a year or two----- one "should be able to get on with one's life" and leave a marriage where the alcoholic is still drinking.
This is just another variation on the same theme as I spoke of above, but this time, allows the spouse of the alcoholic a little slack -------- allows her/him to have a little time to "be codependent" and then says to her/him, "ok, get on with it..... time to leave".
f.) In my thirty-plus years of working in this field, training counselors, counseling families, I have found that helping families pull apart that big ball of wax of tangled threads----- the threads that are the lies the disease has made us believe ----- and helping the families see them in the light of day ------- helps to actually MELT the fears of the families..... and when those fears are melted........ and when, at the same time, I do not shame them and terrorize them into thinking that they must make moves that they either are not ready for OR THAT THEY SHOULD PROBABLY NOT EVER DO BECAUSE IT IS NOT GOOD FOR THEM FOR SOME REASON THAT I DON'T KNOW AND THAT THEY PROBABLY DO NOT KNOW AT THE TIME I AM COUNSELING THEM ----------- only then do they relax enough to trust enough to "turn it over" and learn, INTERNALLY, what is truly good for them.
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