What Is An Enabler Behavior And How To Stop It?

Handling a person with SUD is stressful and challenging. You may also consider talking with your friends and family, so you don’t have to do it alone. Sit them down and confront them about their actions. Set a fine line for what you’re willing to put up with what does it mean to be an enabler and what’s allowed for them. In doing so, they encourage problematic behavior. Enablers are often empathetic and compassionate people.

What Causes Enabling Behavior?

Establishing boundaries can help prevent you from enabling your loved one’s problematic behaviors. This is particularly the case if the funds you’re providing are supporting potentially harmful behaviors like substance use or gambling. Rather than confronting a loved one or setting boundaries, someone who engages in enabling behavior may persistently steer clear of conflict. But what exactly is an enabler, and how can you know whether you’ve engaged in enabling behaviors? Enabler behavior can have negative consequences for the enabler and the person they’re enabling.

How to Spot and Stop Enabling Behavior

While it might feel like you’re helping in the moment, this behavior often makes it harder for the addicted person to change or grow. This often happens out of a desire to help or protect close relationships, but it actually ends up preventing the person from facing the consequences of their actions or taking responsibility. Enabling behavior is when someone unintentionally supports or encourages another person’s harmful habits or choices.

Not to be confused, enabling doesn’t mean that a person thinks the behaviors of the other person are okay, but they might tolerate them because they don’t know how to better handle the situation. Many people who are enablers may not be trying to be or be aware that they are enabling their loved ones. An enabler is a person who allows someone close to them to continue unhealthy or self-destructive patterns of behavior.

For example, an enabler might support someone else’s consumption of alcohol or substance use, self-harm, unlawful action, or manipulation even after knowing the consequences. In short, an enabler personality supports or encourages unhealthy tendencies. Enabling happens when you justify or support problematic behaviors in a loved one under the guise that you’re helping them. However, most people who engage in enabling behaviors do so unknowingly.

Health Categories To Explore

Learning how to identify the main signs can help you prevent and stop enabling behaviors in your relationships. It’s important to take steps to recognize this behavior and correct it by setting boundaries with the person, avoiding making excuses for them, letting them take responsibility for their actions, and encouraging them to get help. If someone’s addiction or irresponsible behavior is harming you (or them), refusing to participate is a step toward healthier patterns.

An enabler personality ignores their own needs. Support groups like Al-Anon may be useful for people whose loved ones are living with addiction. That is, accept that you’ve played a part in perpetuating unacceptable behaviors in your loved one and make a commitment to breaking the cycle.

• They might think, “It’s my job to protect him because we’re family,” but in reality, they’re shielding him from the consequences he needs to face to grow.
• I hope this blog helps you understand what is an enabler personality and how to stop being an enabler.
• It’s not easy for someone with substance abuse problems to avoid drugs or alcohol.
• One of the biggest risks of being an enabler is that it can end up becoming extremely draining and distressing for both the enabler and the person being enabled.
• However, it is often because they think that things will get worse if they aren’t there for their loved ones in the way they think they need them.

Signs of Enabling Behavior

In this case, an enabler is a person who often takes responsibility for their loved one’s actions and emotions. The term “enabler” refers to someone who persistently behaves in enabling ways, justifying or indirectly supporting someone else’s potentially harmful behavior. In many cases, enabling begins as an effort to support a loved one who may be having a hard time.

• After learning more about addiction, you should now realize that most people do not recover on their own and almost always require professional treatment.
• Keeping alcohol or other drugs accessible can make it difficult for someone with an addiction.
• It can quickly turn into a draining and unhealthy relationship when loved ones try to provide support they aren’t qualified for.
• There is a fine line between providing support and enabling.
• “Ending an enabling relationship requires assertiveness — the ability to say no,” Dr. Borland says.

What causes enabling behavior?

Not all experts agree on the amount of stages when it comes to enabling, but some include denial, compliance, control, and crisis. While this may keep things running smoothly in the short term, it allows the other person to avoid their responsibilities and creates an imbalance in the relationship. For example, a partner might take on all the household chores and bills because their spouse refuses to contribute, thinking, “If I don’t do it, nothing will get done.” Overcompensating involves neglecting one’s own needs and taking on the responsibilities and tasks of another person. For example, a friend might repeatedly loan money to someone who overspends, thinking, “If I don’t help, they’ll be in serious trouble.”

What Is an Enabling Behavior?

“If you’re giving and giving and giving to someone else, eventually, you’re going to start running on empty. So, when you start taking on tasks to help others, it’s only natural that eventually something has to give. You may need to take care of children or aging parents. Enabling can also be a way of protecting those we love from others’ scrutiny — or protecting ourselves from acknowledging a loved one’s shortcomings.

This can reinforce denial and delay the person’s motivation to change. Enablers often shield loved ones from criticism. Avoiding conflict might seem like the easier path, but sidestepping real issues can validate harmful actions. Empowerment, on the other hand, involves supporting someone’s autonomy and decision-making—even if you disagree with the choices they make.

Therefore, we encourage our readers to seek the guidance of qualified health professionals for further queries related to your health or mental health condition. Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment. Therefore, make some positive changes within, start taking responsibility, look after each other’s needs, and face your consequences instead of passing them. Extend your support and help them through their recovery phase. While communicating with them, be an active listener, let them speak out, understand their emotions, and support them. If not, it’s okay; we have got your back.

This may encourage them to continue acting the same way. You may find yourself running the other person’s errands, doing their chores, or even completing their work. They may skip the topic or pretend they didn’t see the problematic behavior. You might put yourself under duress by doing some of these things you feel are helping your loved one.

Enabling another person’s behavior also can lead to them struggling for longer periods of time, since they never learn the skills they need to break out of the destructive cycle they are in. In the innocent enabling stage, a person starts with love and concern for the other person, but they don’t know how to guide or help them. This can mean that they might keep the person from facing the consequences of their actions or resolve the other person’s problems themselves.

Enabling behavior might be preventing them from facing the consequences of their actions. But even if all you want is to support your loved one, enabling may not contribute to the situation the way you might think it does. For example, enabling behavior may include providing the school with an excuse so someone can skip class, even if they did because they spent the night drinking. In other words, enabling is directly or indirectly supporting someone else’s unhealthy tendencies.

These are all examples of enabler behavior. Enabling them can take a toll on your mental health. Addiction, compulsive habits, and mental health issues often require professional assistance. This only fuels further detrimental behavior. This robs the individual of the incentive to become self-reliant or face consequences. Enablers step in and handle tasks a loved one should do themselves, such as job-hunting, paying rent, or cleaning up legal messes.

When the term enabler is used, it is usually referring to drug addiction or alcohol misuse. I hope this blog helps you understand what is an enabler personality and how to stop being an enabler. Look for the right time, communicate problematic behaviors in front of them, and provide them some space and time to understand. Do you identify yourself as an enabler personality… well if yes, now, you might be clear why you adopted an enabler personality.