Hi Diane, and welcome! You are not alone. Many of us came here confused, frustrated, sad, angry, and desperate. We understand your feelings. We had an alcoholic in our life, and it was more than we could handle alone. But we found help and hope.

If you can write more about what is going on for you, people here will give their experience, strength, and hope.

We can still be deeply affected by the disease of alcoholism, even if we don't enable. There are still a lot of challenges around caring about someone with a drinking problem aside from just not enabling.

Glad you're here, and I hope you find yourself some face-to-face meetings, too.

Welcome RM-I did little enabling, but I got really crushed by my A's behavior. As a result I lost myself and had a host of emotional problems. And the worst of all was that I couldn't see it. But now I'm involved in alanon and it's as though I have a new life. Yes I still have stress and problems but I handle everything different, and most of the time, better. I can just encourage you to try. Lyne

I too send a warm welcome to you RM! Glad you found us and glad that you shared. It was easier for me to see my contribution to enabling by looking at the informal definition we often hear in recovery - doing for others what they should/could do for themselves.

Please keep coming back - there is always hope and help in recovery!

Welcome Diane Please search out alanon face to face meetings in your community. enabling is only one of the many negative tools we implement when dealing with alcoholism. pick up some literature and keep coming back

Welcome Diane - you're in the right place and you're not alone. Keep coming back- it works and you're worth it

Welcome...enabling is not just the "only" problem we face in having a loved one suffer from alcoholism/addiction. In addition, most people look at the one-dimensional definition of enabling, that being, doing something for the alcoholic that they can do for themselves, and that too is an oversimplified assessment. We can "contribute" to the disease in many other ways, and can "enable" the disease, the drama, the chaos, the turmoil, and not the person. We hear about helping -- the kind of helping we did before alanon -- is hurting, and that can be so very true.

Go to face to face meetings, as many and as often as you can. Find a sponsor, and start doing the work. You can, and will, get better and get healthy. All the best.