tangerinedream

So I'm wondering...exactly when does caring for someone you love become "enabling"?

Brief history: my boyfriend has been using off and on since before I met him. He has been in and out of AA/sober living/rehab and has gone through good periods and bad. Just last week I kicked him out of our apartment and it was HORRIBLE. I was so sad and missed him so much... a few days later He OD'd (heroin) and I somebody sent me a text message. I picked him up at the hospital and the next morning he took off again. He came back the next day while I was sleeping (after he'd been walking around the block for 2 hours) and woke me up in tears, "I don't want to be without you, I want to spend the rest of my life with you, I'm checking into structured sober living on Monday." Which he did. I am SO HAPPY to have him back and SO HAPPY that he's actually trying to work on getting well again that I'm sure I've already been way too nice. I don't want to be the reason his sobriety doesn't work, which I know is possible.

I've gone to a couple Al anon meetings and his Mom sent me some books to go over, but I guess I'm just looking for some input on what I shouldn't do. Like buy him cigarettes or make him dinner or something.

Thoughts?

:help

outtolunch

Something about this does not ring true, with me.


It's common for heroin addicts who have recently fixed to talk about plans for getting off the junk. Such talk is often accompanied by profuse tears, proclamations of love and a life together. In other words, it's right out of the Addict Handbook. It's what addicts do.

Once those withdrawals set in, it's a different story and then it's back to the reality of procurring money and connectig for their next hit.

Regardless, get out of his way. Let him seek sobriety or fall on his own terms. There is no need to subsidize this with cigs or treats. He owns his addiction/sobriety. He is responsible for himself and his own outcome.

Keep the focus on yourself.

tangerinedream

why because it's good?

he's taking suboxone and it has not used since saturday (unless of course he's pulling one over on the guy who runs the sober house.)

anyway, the question was about enabling. buying him cigarettes and making him dinner are pretty normal in our lives, so it's not really like a treat. it's what i've always done. i just don't want it to seem like i'm rewarding him for totally ******* up last week, but i AM happy he's alive and i AM happy he's making an effort and i AM...happy. make more sense?

greeteachday

What always helped me when I tried to figure out whether I was enabling or supporting was to look at my motives. Was I doing what I was doing because I truly wanted to and it was just a kind and loving act with no thought of getting anything out of it, or was I doing it in hopes of a result (stop use; keep the peace; shelter from pain, etc). If the latter, I was still trying to control things.

I have also heard it said don't do anything for the addict that he or she can do for him/herself. Some people take that to an extreme (I won't open the door for you when you are carrying things because you can put the stuff down and open it yourself) while others, like me, probably did do some things that I should have allowed my addicted love one to do. But changing "me" didn't happen over night - So going with your gut and asking yourself what your motives are may be a good way to start practicing.

I understand that walking on egg shells feeling, but I really believe that if he wants recovery, nothing you do or don't do will make him use. I also think that there are times when we do things that, had we let our loved one do it, we would have given them the opportunity to build self esteem, realize a sense of accomplishment and triumph.

tangerinedream

(this makes me feel so overwhelmed and awful because it really just made me realize that i don't do ANYTHING because i truly want to, and that everything i do is motivated by "hopes of a result". and i am SO not ready to deal with that.)

i should probably let him take the bus more often than i do, and maybe not buy so many popsicles.

ugh.

this feels hopeless and i feel guilty and i'm not sure why.

Abundance

Tangerine...... you sound like me when I first joined SR.

I just wanted to know what I can do!!!! I went to the Substance Abuse forum and asked. I got the same answers there, as I got here. Which was:

Look after yourself! While it's great to share "joy" together.... it's also so important that your "joy" doesn't mostly depend on the other.
I was told that the more I stayed in his world the more I would lose sight of my world. In fact, I saw it all un-folding that way! It's like I just watched myself go down... lose more and more of myself. And I let it happen by thinking up ways to prove everyone wrong! I have so much faith in him to do what he is not doing for himself that I wound up losing faith in myself! I was in such denial - even though I "knew" - my heart was so much stronger than my head.

So... you want to know how to help, but not enable. Make boundaries of what you won't tolerate for YOU. Share these with your bf. The most important remedy here is that you make these boundaries - realistic. Meaning that you will stick by them. In doing so, you reclaim back more of your personal power, but you also give him a little bit of a track. But THEN, it's up to him to do what he is going to do. He knows what is okay for you in YOUR life.... and that he has some trust to earn with you.

The actions are what count.

The tender loving moments like him returning are beautiful and hopefully never to be forgotten... keep the hope that what he says today will be true tomorrow, keep positive....... but also have a plan "B".

I would feel guilty... heck I still do at times. I would feel guilty for coming to realize my part in it... and then I'd feel guilty for beating myself up about it.

I am so allergic to addiction ... I get totally crazy and overwhelmed by it - mostly because I try to make sense of it! Which is a laugh - because you can't! It is a cunning and baffling disease. Which then I become feeling guilty again, because if he had the disease of cancer would I leave him? I'd like to think I wouldn't. But the truth of the matter is, there is more chance of him helping himself and healing himself to BEAT cancer than him "choosing" to beat addiction.

I'll close with..... by helping yourself - you are helping him. By being in your own recovery - you are helping him. And the more you grow in recovery you will learn that it's really no longer about him, but about YOU! But I don't want to give too much away -this is your journey .... how do you want it to go?

Peace & Love xoxo

rose

It is hard sometimes to know, what is being supportive and what is being enabling. My husband was not living with us, but I would go and buy groceries for him and cook him meals...enabling.

I was the one phoning all sorts of treatment centers when he said he wanted to go...enabling. This was something he should have been doing himself. He was coming down after a high and had the downs, he only lasted a week in treatment and back at it again.

I did go with him one night to an NA meeting, I think that was being supportive. I only went a couple of times, but my was interested to listen to the otherside.

I myself joined an al-anon group, I haven't been in a longtime, but what really sticks out in my mind is someone said "for each time you enable them, it keeps them sicker for 2 days". By me running food to him I was interfering with any chances he had to hit bottom.

So I guess it is pretty important to really be aware of if you are enabling or being supportive. Kind of hard to be supportive though when they are using.

Rose

jerect

Enabling...
your giving him a place to stay so that you at least know where he is at night... this may sound harsh but sometimes letting them have the experiance of sleeping out on the street or in a shelter will perhaps help them hit their bottom a little bit quicker

When you do the same things that you have always done you will get the same results.. I'm thinking that you are tired of the results you are getting otherwise you would not be reaching out here..

Listion, I know its hard and somedays I have a hard time deciphering if what I'm doing is enabling my AH or just doing things that wifes do. Sometimes I just have to follow my gut and ask myself what my motives are.. I do go by the rule... i will not do anything for my AH that he cannot do for himself... which means, looking for a job, ironing his clothes for an interview, getting him up in the mornings so that he can look for a job, buying him cigerettes while he is out of a job, (he needed to quit anyway and at 5 bucks a pack we can't afford them) you get the picture. It may sound mean but it's the only way he will go out and do what he needs to do and when I'm interfering or "helping" it makes life easier for him and harder for me and why should I make my life any harder.. I already live with an addict thats hard enough.

Falling for that manipulation crap.. enabling... yeah, those are nice words to hear and all but now you need to pay attention to what his actions are telling you... wait and see if he successfully stays in a sober living house for a good length of time, gets a job, works a program, and makes a positive contribution to society...then and only then should you believe those words..otherwise he is just quacking.. In most sober living houses they give you only a certain amount of time to find a job and if you don't find one or keep one then out on the streets you go.. taking him back because he has not found a job or has lost a job, that is enabling too.

You will never be the reason his sobriety does not work... if he relapses it will always be his choice not yours.. he and he alone is in charge of his sobriety.. so do not ever put that kind of expectation on yourself that you will be the reason his sobriety does not work if you happen to enable him.

He can get a job so that he can buy his own cigarettes.. in the meantime he can bum one off of someone, though at the price they are going these days he may be hard up to find someone that will share. Might motivate him to get a job a lot quicker.

Alaia

Yes, please listen to this, as the same advice was give to me...but I didn't listen. I gave him cigs, treats, gifts, money. Very very bad idea cause he strung me along while he persued other women. I was his sugar momma but meant nothing else...and he was very good at making me believe he honestly and truly cared about me, and loved me, said I was the love of his life and he wanted to spend the rest of his life with me. He knew how to keep me happy for his own benefit and now I am tossed aside like a piece of trash and it hurts beyond belief.

leelee5675

You are getting some good advice here. I have just "enabled" my daughter to stay addicted to meth for nearly 3 years. Every time I bailed her out I thought, "Surely she learned something from this, and won't do it again." WRONG.

Most of the advice here so far has been geared toward not doing anything for him that he can do for himself. That is probably the best overall meter you can use. You can still be kind and loving toward him, and supportive, but try really hard to remember that you have to question his motives constantly.

Here's another thing to consider about enabling. Think about what the word enable means. It means doing something that causes or promotes something happening. If you buy him cigarettes, doesn't that free up more of his money to buy drugs? If you give him a popsicle, maybe that's just a kind gesture.

He has to work for his sobriety, or it will mean nothing to him. If it's still there (I think it is) read the sticky at the first of this forum "What Addicts Do". It sounds exaggerated at first, but I assure you it's accurate. I just went through years of this behavior with my daughter, and it was written by an addict.

Hang in there an be assured that coming here and communicating is the right thing to do. You might not take everything you read to heart right away, but you will eventually see that these people have "been there, done that" and they know what they're talking about. You will hear things you don't want to face or think about, but you will eventually see.

Stay safe, remember how much more important you are than drugs, and watch which he chooses.

kj3880

If he disappeared for a few hours in the morning at this stage of the game, you can trust me that it wasn't to "take a walk around the block." He was coping drugs. Believe it now, or you will be shown it, later on, after he's worked you for more. More money, more "treats," more care. Do you want to know what a recovering addict looks like? Here are some signs:

Going to meetings daily,
Talking to a sponsor daily,
Handling responsibilities, clumsily at first, but doing it,
Taking pride in paying his share, even if it means taking on two jobs,
Writing on stepwork frequently,
Reading literature,
Talking to a new clean network,
Making amends, as best as he can.
Lots of new feelings for him to deal with, like shame and guilt, emotional roller-coaster
Making himself accountable to people he cares about, checking in with you to see if you are ok.
Making doc appointments on time
Taking only his medication as prescribed, exactly as prescribed.

That's what I had to do, what it takes to stay clean. It won't be a secret if he's really in recovery. Real recovery is time consuming and you'd see some real behavioral changes. You'd notice if he was doing it.

Here's what behavior you'd not see anymore:

Asking for money.
Asking you to buy him things.
Accepting treats without reciprocating,
Disappearing acts followed by apologizing (lots of "it'll never happen again, baby")
Shady characters stopping in or calling
Avoiding your phone calls when he is "out"
Seems like it's all about him, all the time.
He isn't where he said he would be
He has no or infrequent sex drive
His pupils are pinpoints
He sometimes misses his doctor appointments or is late
He uses up his Suboxone before the next appointment, or has too many left over.
You have the feeling something is "off."

Pay attention to your feelings. We get in more trouble when we dismiss that "something isn't right" feeling as women.

Love,
KJ

outtolunch

Welcome to the human race. Most of the things, most of us do, are done because, we expect a result of some sort. When we do not get the expected result, we tend to become resentful, angry, depressed and the ole pity party for one, is on. Sound familiar?

It's our expectations that cause so many of our own problems.

outtolunch

Oh Lordy.....that was something...hearing for the first time, that the best thing to do was take care of me. I was stunned by it.

I have said it before and will do so again, I am forever grateful for the wake-up call I got on this forum. Without it, I would have been in the nut house.

ventuhome

Ideas on what to do or not do: Since he's in a sober living house, its probably best to let him work on his recovery and stay out of the picture at first. After a few weeks, plan a short visit with him and bring TWO popsicles - one for you too!! A weekly visit or phone call should be enough. Spend your time away from him reading the books and reading around here. And go have some fun by yourself or wit hsome friends. Its summer, head for the beach!!

tangerinedream

touche'.

tangerinedream

i know the disappear in the morning act. but that's not what happened this time. he basically went outside "to smoke" and didn't come back for almost 2 days. he came back about 36 hours later and responded in a way i've never seen him respond before. it was beyond anything i expected and it was positive.

this is a great list, and it leads me to believe that he might not stick to sobriety yet again, because since he checked into sober living he has been sleeping at our house during the day. but to his credit he has been going to meetings daily, and will be one week sober on sunday i think. he says he's still feeling benzo withdrawls and is going to start the job hunt on monday afternoon (court date on monday morning) - if he doesn't, then i think i'm going to take his keys away and not let him come over until he's employed.

i like ventu's suggestion and wish i'd seen it sooner.

thanks

kwigers

Hi Tangerine,
Lots of great information here. I had all sorts of memories come flooding back ass I was reading each post.

I especially loved this from Anvilhead! Start with the attitude that HE doesn't NEED anything from you. I would like to add; AND You do not NEED anything from him as either.

It is so easy to fall out of a centered place within oneself when involved with an addict. What do you want for your own life? What do you enjoy in life? Where do you see yourself in 5 or 10 years from now? Does addiction fit into your plans?

Nothing is ever for certain in life, but from the experience of many here and elsewhere, when you become involved with an addict in such a personal way as a boyfriend, girlfriend, wife, husband, etc... it is like raising a selfish, self centered child that will never grow up, and gets into a lot of mischief. Their emotional and mental growth becomes stunted at whatever age they begin to use drugs or alcohol. Often times the love and affection one dreams of having in a partner turns into empty hopes and lucid dreams that leave one feeling emotionally abandaned, and lonely, as the addict choose their drug of choice over their mate time and time again.

It is a tough road to walk, and if you are in a position where you can step back, and spend some time figuring our what you want for yourself out of this life, now may be an excellent time to do so! At some point, it is just to easy to get sucked in and your life sucked right out of you, as you spend your time caring for the addict, and watching to see if ...he is using, or not using, or lieing or not lieing, or...the list goes on and on and on...

Just my 2 cents plus 4.
Much love and light to you!
~Cheryl

tangerinedream

is it really horrible that this made me laugh and think, "maybe he is still 15 years old and that's why he loves candy and popsicles so much...."??

;-)

kwigers

It is not horrible! It can be part of the attraction, addicts can be lots of fun...and touch that child side within for awhile... until it gets old... :-)
~Cheryl

jerect

But it's so true. I feel like I'm living with a really bad teenager most of the time. This makes it hard not to enable at times but I have to remember when I do things for him I'm hurting me. I'm not his mother, I'm his wife... big difference there.

If he is checked into sober living but crashing on your couch during the day sleeping... thats a serious problem. What is he doing all night that he has to come crash at your house to sleep? Why wait till monday to look for a job? Whats wrong with today? Yes Girl, take those keys away from him until he successfully stays sober, holds down a job and lives in sober living for at least 6 months. As long as you are making it the least bit easy on him he will continue to take advantage of your hospitality.

I could be wrong but aren't you paying for his subs too. If so, please stop. If he really wants to get clean he can do it without suboxone. He has to do this all by himself. If he wants suboxone then he can get a job and pay for them himself.