The material presented
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wintergirl, I'm only 4 days involved with al anon so I may not be the one that has the most experience since I'm going through most head trips that all of us that are affected by an alcoholic have gone through. but realizing I was an enabler was one of my first realizations and what caused me to separate and finally file for divorce. I'd been married for 32 years and realized that I had to have played a part to get her to where she was, and looking back, being the one that agreed to drive, holding her up when she stumbled, picking up her wine and liquor, keeping quite when she thought I didn't realize that her coffee cup didn't have coffee but was booze amongst over things including drinking together. My realization to help me stop being the enabler was that I was no longer going to be a part of helping her kill herself through the abuse of prescription pills and alcohol. It's hard and hasn't gotten much easier, but this place has brought a little sanity to my racing thoughts.
Welcome.... In it's most simplistic terms, we are "enabling" when we:
"do something for our A that they could do for themselves, that prevents them from feeling the consequences of their behavior."
Now, it's pretty easy to muddy the line between 'enabling', and simply being a thoughtful and caring person.... perhaps some examples will help (note that these are just my opinions on the matter)
1. Alcoholic passes out at the bottom of the stairs, throwing up all over the floor. Enabler - helps drag him upstair to bed, gets him tucked in, and then goes down and cleans up the mess. Detaching - leaves him alone, perhaps covers him with a blanket where he is, and goes to bed without him
2. Alcoholic is too drunk/hungover to go to work. Enabler - you call his work, and call in sick for him, telling him that he has the flu Detaching - he is a big boy, and needs to take care of this himself
3. Alcoholic, while drunk, has run out of cigarettes, or booze, and wants you to go get some for him. Enabler - you dutifully go get it for him (rationalizing that at least he isn't driving drunk) Detaching - "No" is a complete sentence.
I'm sure we could all come up with dozens of examples, but the bottom line is - we are better off to allow the alcoholic to reap the consequences of his/her behavior.... If we keep giving them the 'soft landing' and cleaning up all their messes, they invariably stay 'stuck' longer....
Hope that helps Tom
__________________
"He is either gonna drink, or he won't.... what are YOU gonna do?"
"What you think of me is none of my business"
"If you knew the answer to what you are worrying about, would it REALLY change anything?"
In our program we talk alot about detachment -detach with love . the best explantion i heard was If your husb passes out on the lawn , its not your job to drag him in the house , leave him there let him explain to the neighbours what hes doing there its not your job to explain his behavior - the love part comes when you turn off the automatic sprinkler before going to bed .
thank you everyone.....I am just beginning to practice this with my ah. it is draining but I can see now that it's necessary. I have been reaching out to our family so that we are all on the same page and understand how not to "enable". I did have to laugh at the sprinkler comment..thank you for that.
