so many people get stuck on the idea that enabling just means giving people
money or buying them things but enabling is so much more than that so in this
video I'm going to give you the top ten ways that you could be enabling not even
aware that you're doing it because these things don't even involve money at all
if this is your first time joining us welcome I'm amber Hollingsworth Master
addiction counselor and you are watching put the shovel down the youtube channel
dedicated to helping families understand the psychology of addiction so you can
recover your loved one and get your life back on track
now if that sounds like something you need to do consider subscribing alright
let's go through our list I'm gonna give you those ten things now and all of
these things are more like emotional things because like I said before you
give you can give someone the emotional currency to continue to justify and be
able to make these bad decisions over and over and over again okay number one
you might be enabling if you are making excuses for the person so for
example if you know that the person has stayed up all night drinking and using
drugs and can't function well enough to go to work the next day and you're
calling in because you just desperately don't want them to lose that job because
if you know if they lose that job it's gonna get really bad or you're calling
the school because you know they have now missed that day past the ten days or
however many days it is that they're allowed to be absent you're calling the
school and you're making an excuse for them basically you're trying to sort of
run interference for them definitely an enabling behavior number two you are
harping on them about the responsibilities you keep nagging and
nagging and nagging and you make sure they do their homework you make sure
they stop by and pay that bill you make sure they call their mother on her
birthday and say happy birthday now of course everyone given a reminder you
know is being helpful but nagging and just staying on top of it on top of
and on top of it that's definitely a whole other level of something and the
problem the reason why I put that in enabling category is because you might
just get them to do that and when they do those things it just adds to the
false reality that their life is manageable so it's like you're getting
them to be functional just enough to convince them that they got this under
control and that enables more about decisions number three
fixing their mistakes like paying their tickets like bailing them out of jail
like paying they're really exorbitantly high car insurance now those are all
ways that we think about fixing mistakes that involve money but there are ways
that we fix their mistakes by covering up for them so like before we talked
about running interference if someone's like damage control trying to help
before the problem happens this is sort of the same thing but doing it on the
back end of the problem so you can you know if you're addict or
alcoholic has done a lot of damage to a relationship you can kind of run
interference on the backend by trying to fix that you can try to fix things by
asking their teacher to give them extra credit so anytime you're going in and
you're fixing some of the problems that they've caused
definitely enabling number four now number four is similar to the one
previous to that but it's just taking it to a whole other level so not only are
you kind of going in run interference and trying to like smooth things over
for someone but in number four you're flat-out lying for the person not just
trying to sort of bend the truth a little bit but when you're just lying
you don't want people to find out about this sometimes it's because you're
trying to protect your loved one and sometimes honestly it's because you're
trying to protect yourself because you don't want to deal with the hassle or
the heartache of it now I'm definitely a big proponent that
it's not your job to necessarily go out and tell the whole world or shout it
from the rooftops but it's also not your job to lie for
the person number five not holding the boundaries that you have very clearly
set so if you have already set boundaries that says if this then
that and you're just not doing it definitely enabling now I want to give
you another little word on that topic because I'm usually against setting
these hardcore like black and white no tolerance lines in the sand kind of
rules because of this very thing because what you're going to do is you're going
to back yourself into a corner and you're either going to find yourself in
a situation where you're not going to be able to back up something that you said
you're going to do or you're not going to want to do that
which is going to make you look like a liar and like you're inconsistent and
then they just basically blow you off anytime you say something like that ever
again or you're gonna have to back it up and do what you said even though you
really don't feel like the situation's pertinent or you're not emotionally
ready to do that so be very very careful about any of those if-then statements
that you put out there those of you that know me pretty well you've seen one of
these videos you know that I am NOT a fan of the home contracts I've got some
videos on that be sure and check them out because I know that might sound a
little confusing to you and you've probably been told the opposite of that
before number six making any kind of decisions out of
guilt fear or shame those are making decisions because you're trying to avoid
something particularly a negative feeling and it's a desperate kind of
decision-making when you find yourself doing that you're probably making
enabling decisions number seven putting the addict or the alcoholics
needs above not just your own but everyone else in the house so let's say
it's your spouse or let's say it's your kid and their other siblings in the
house or their other kids in the house or just whoever else is in the family
that's really close and you're putting their needs ahead of everyone else's
like when it's Christmas Day or it's the big event it's somebody's birthday
dinner and the addict or the alcoholic hasn't shown up and you're literally
holding everybody you're holding Christmas hostage waiting for this
person to come home because I want you to think about this when they come home
it's not gonna be a good scene because they might miss it altogether they might
be really late they may be intoxicated you know you're letting that run the
show and I know it's really hard not to cuz
inside you're in such a difficult place it's like it's hard to even celebrate
things or care about things but to the best that you can make sure that you're
trying to keep the family as balanced as you possibly can
number eight minimizing or justifying their behaviors I know that lots of
times when you're dealing with someone the addiction problem they do have
difficult things in their life and they may have other mental health concerns
like depression anxiety insecurity self-esteem stresses and I totally get
that I'm not saying like oh that's not it at all it's an excuse what I am
saying is yeah they probably do have that and yeah it may be super likely
that they're using substances to medicate some kind of situation like
that but you cannot minimize it or keep allowing it to happen because you feel
really bad for them about it and mostly because it's a really ineffective
strategy to solve that problem so definitely don't fall into the pity
party you're not helping them any number 9 if you're still not sure and you're
not and you're doing something I'm sure well is that enabling is it not enabling
here's the simple easy formula for you if you're working harder to solve their
problems than they're working then you're enabling and if you're not sure
if you're working harder than they're working I just want you to stop and do a
little self check if you feel a resentment inside because you have done
all these things and you don't feel appreciated and you don't feel
reciprocated and you don't feel they're even trying for themselves then you're
definitely in this category and lastly number 10 and some of y'all know how I
feel about this and this is to me this is the Big Mama the big cat daddy it is
you are allowing them to make you the bad guy many of you know that I feel
like that is the number one thing that you can do to enable someone and they're
so good at it you know they can do something really out of bounds they can
do something really hurtful they can do something really wrong and they have
this ninja like way of like turning it on you and making you the bad guy turning
you into a screaming raving lunatic crazy person and then all of a sudden
you're the bad guy and then they get to justify continued
bad decisions now if you're watching this video and you're thinking to
yourself okay amber I know I'm enabling like I didn't even need this video to
know that I just don't know how to stop I'm gonna give you a couple of resources
here number one I have a whole playlist on this channel about how to have
healthy boundaries with someone that has an addiction problem either in active
addiction or in early recovery definitely check that out I'll put it on
the screen at the end of this video for you and there's a second playlist that's
titled helping versus enabling which is another really good one and I'll also
put that one up here for you at the end of the video and if you think you just
need something even a little bit more than that you need some one-on-one help
guidance coaching you can always book a session with one of our family resource
experts this is what we do all day every day and you may have a situation on your
hands you're like yeah I get it but there's this one little part of this
story that I just need you to hear and I need some special guidance on it you can
find a link for how to do that in the description below okay see you next time
and make sure you check out those playlists I'm gonna put them right up
here on the screen for you