Am I helping or enabling? - Al-Anon Family Group

wojo · Newbie

Am I helping or enabling?

grateful2be · ~*Service Worker*~

To answer your question, I see both his sister and you enabling him. He doesn't have to get and stay sober. All of his needs and responsibilities are being met by people other than him. Why stop drinking when you don't have to grow up and take care of yourself?

I suggest Al-Anon meetings for you if you are not already going. He is an adult who can find a way to get to AA meetings if he truly wants to go. It appears he just truly wants everybody to leave him alone so he can drink in peace. If he can't afford gas and you don't drive him, there might be somebody in AA willing to give him a lift. Al-Anon could be and will be a big help to you.

-- Edited by grateful2be on Wednesday 9th of July 2014 04:01:13 PM

hotrod · ~*Service Worker*~

Hi WOJO welcome to Miracles in Progress. Helping or enabling is a tricky question because there is so many facets to our lives and why we do what we do say what we say. You are living in his house, working, helping to pay the bills, supplying gas and food which you are both enjoying. It is important to examine your motives and try too separate out what you're doing for yourself and what you doing for him then might be able to answer the question. I know when I examined my motives I was shocked find that although it looked like I was doing things for others, I was doing in order to manipulate my will get what I wanted.

Alcoholism is a progressive fatal disease over which you are powerless. Al-Anon is a support organization for people who live with or have lived with the disease of alcoholism.

Living with this disease,we become irritable and unreasonable without knowing it. I learned that I focusing my r attention on my partner I had neglected my needs and my self-esteem plummeted . In order to restore our courage serenity and wisdom is important to learn new constructive tools to live by .

Al-Anon holds face-to-face meetings in most communities. The hotline number is found in the white pages and I would urge you to call and attend. It is here that I learned that I was powerless over people places and things and that the kindest most supportive thing I could do for somebody is to learn how to take care of myself in a constructive manner.

Al-Anon provided the tools that enable me to do this. Living one day at a time, refusing to look to the past and project to the future, focusing on myself and my needs and treating my partner with courtesy and respect enabled me to understand how to take care of myself in a destructive relationship.

Please keep coming back here as well there is hope and help

Debilyn · ~*Service Worker*~

"fail until he reaches rock bottom." makes it sound like when he hits that then maybe goes to detox and rehab he will do ok. When in truth that is a hard process, and the disease is not cured.

I don't believe in this bottom thing. Every A is different, some don't even have a level they get to, to go into recovery! My AH lost everything. I mean even his toothbrush, but still uses. He had years of a great recovery program.Medically relapsed and is so pickled with wet brain he wouldn't know bottom if you showed him a video of himself.

yes they seriously do want to quit at times, but they can't until if and when they get to a place for them that they give it a go. But even working a program can have difficult situations and drama.

This is why Al Anon supports us in taking care of ourselves and stop trying to control the A, stop enabling them.

Your A is an adult. It is not program to support them financially or assist in them driving. Its is not our job! Plus if we keep paying their bills,why would they ever go to work? When we keep them comfy, the disease loves it, we make it easier for it to do what it wants and have no consequences.

Why should he ever get to a point he can go on program, he is not realizing hey! I have no money for gas, I have lost my house. I have no clean cloths. NO food in the house! power turned off. He has to get to where he is miserable and really needs out of this mess!

We do not want to do anything for them that they can do themselves. And yes there are jobs out there!

Love changes nothing. We do not want to be a part of our A's demise.

so glad you stopped in and shared. it isn't easy. then you get feedback which is pretty tough! We care about you, we also care about the A's in your life.

keep coming, debilyn

Jerry F · ~*Service Worker*~

What I learned in Al-Anon was "that if she has the time, ability and facility to get her needs met and I step in and take over, I am enabling...the disease to progress. If she lacks any one of those three things and she ask for help...and I think about whether I can or can't and am willing to before stepping up...that is helping" I get to make the decision each and every time...there is no commitment to taking over and becoming responsible "for" her. I get to be responsible to her on a time to time basis...my choice. So run what you're doing and not doing thru that filter and see how it comes up for you. If nothing changes....nothing changes (Al-Anon philosophy). Doing the same thing over and over again expecting different results is the definition of insanity. (Another Al-Anon philosophy) If he is acting like he doesn't owe his sister anything he will act that way with you and everyone else. Gets to be a one-sided relationship and that is...alcoholism. Keep coming back and if you are deciding that this is the relationship you desire...look up the hotline number for Al-Anon in your area and go to the first meeting available and keep going for the next 3 months or for as long as you have been in the relationship with alcoholism...just to level things out. Keep coming back here ((((hugs)))) smile

pinkchip · ~*Service Worker*~

Yes...I agree with grateful. I see both you and the sister enabling. I challenge you to investigate what it is that has you more worried about what will happen to him without you as opposed to what will happen to you if you stay with him. Also, how would you be starting over? This is life and and he is just a part of it. Starting over means you lost everything. Sounds like you have a job and other strengths. It's not necessarily starting over as much as it could be moving forward. I am not saying break up if you don't want but I would try and let him have his own consequences and insulate yourself as much as you can from financial wreckage and other things that go along with choosing to stay in a relationship with an active alcoholic.

Jen61 · ~*Service Worker*~

Take care of you first. I agree with everyone else about the enabling. If you BF did not have you and his sister to do everything for him where would he be? On the street? In rehab? Only time will tell. A person does not do another person any favor by always coming to their rescue. I have done it and I am sure most everyone here has too. It just does not work. When you can detach from their problems and concentrate on you things will get better. Please keep coming here, go to face to face meetings, read the literature. It all helps. Take care.

The material presented here is not Al-Anon Conference Approved Literature. It is a method to exchange information, ideas, feelings, problems and solutions on a personal level.