Ann

There is a difference between helpful encouragement and providing the means for our addicted loved ones to keep using.

How did I enable?

I gave him money for prescriptions he needed...and he used the money to buy drugs.

I bought him tools so he could begin a new job with a renovator...and he returned the belt and bought drugs.

I brought him groceries from a store near where he lived, so he could have basics like milk, eggs, cereal, fruit and vegetables and a little meat...and when I left he returned what he could to get what he could to buy drugs.

I bought him a bus pass so he could get around the city to meetings, to job interviews, to counseling...and he sold it to buy drugs.

I bailed him out of jail on the promise he would go to meetings, find a rehab, and follow the rules at home...a promise made while weeping with tears and desperation. We hadn't even made it home when he got out of the car and went looking for drugs...putting me at risk of losing every dime of bail.

I let him come live at home with us thinking that if he had a loving home and healthy environment with good food and a warm bed, he might get/stay clean. With the money he saved by living at home, he bought drugs...which he brought to hide in my home along with stolen goods, jeopardizing me and putting ME at risk of arrest or attack by those who provided drugs.

All the things I did, I did as a loving mother. Each of the things I did enabled him to keep using drugs. My good intentions became a means to the end for him...get his drugs and use them.

Oh yes it most certainly is. It is enabling when what we do provides a means for them to continue using, no matter how much love is behind it. As the first owner of SR, a recovering addict named Jon, once told me..."You just might love him right into his grave." Those words hurt but they were also the wisest words ever spoken to me.

Enabling kills. My son may kill himself using drugs but they won't be drugs provided by me thinking I was helping. Not on your life. Not on his.