Am I Helping or Hurting Them?

What is Co-dependency?

•  Someone who supports the addiction of another person by excusing, denying, or concealing behavior. 
• Codependency is defined as taking an excessively passive, controlling or caretaking role in your relationship with another.

What is Enablement?

a person or thing that makes something possible | a person who encourages or enables negative or self-destructive behaviour in another 

Codependents believe that they are acting out of compassion and often become martyrs to the cause of their addict. Their intentions are good.

But in fact, if anything, you are enabling and you are protecting your addict from facing the full ugliness of their addiction as you provide excuses, deny the impact of their actions and let them continue to use you as their source of comfort while giving back nothing.

Codependency can be hard to identify because we often think we are just being selfless, caring and loving. We feel noble for loving someone at his or her worst. 

If you are still not sure that you are condenpendent and/or an enabler, please see if any of these apply to you:

• Desperate for approval
• Uncomfortable being strong or assertive
• Wanting to control others
• Basing self worth on the approval of others
• Denying or diminishing feelings
• Struggling to make decisions in fear of upsetting others
• Giving up interests, friends or hobbies for the sake of others
• Feeling unnecessarily responsible for your loved ones actions
• Mistaking the need to rescue someone, with loving them
• Confusing being needed for being loved
• Giving more of yourself than the people you love give back to you

If you answered yes to any of these, chances are you are an enabler.

 I know a lot of family members of addicts are lost on how to help their loved one.  By working at a treatment facility and seeing addiction from the other side, I have a totally different perspective on codependency and enablement.  I often wonder if my parents had stopped enabling me sooner, would I  have gotten better long before now? Who knows....

I have awesome parents.  They did their very best raising me. I was an only child and was very spoiled.  They always made sure I had what I needed AND what I wanted.  My parents and grandparents raised me to believe that I was the best thing since sliced bread....that I hung the moon and  the stars.  If my parents did not get it for me, my grandparents would.

They also had high expectations of me! I was expected to look my best.  I had the best grades and belonged to numerous clubs and organizations. I couldn't let them down.  I had to do more, be more! Now I realize that a lot of the things that I did back then was to please my family, not because I necessarily wanted to do it.  I craved the love and affection that I would get when I won an award, got a good grade, etc.  My parents wanted me to go to college and have a great career because that is the definition of success, right?  So, I did well in school and got a scholarship to the University of Kentucky.  When I got there, I did not really know what I wanted to major in or what I wanted to be.  I had spent so much of my life doing what others had wanted me to do, that I could not make a decision for myself.  I had no real passion or desire for anything. I was just basking in the admiration from my family that I had went to college.

So, I started my college and what I like to call my drug career at UK.  I lost my scholarship first, then financial aide, then I got kicked out! Addiction gets progressively worse NEVER better! My parents during these years probably knew that something was going on, but did not want to believe it.  I had good jobs, but never any money.  They paid my bills for numerous years while I spent all of my money on dope.  I stole from them, but they would turn a blind eye.  I would get high in their home. I was awful! But they kept trying to support and help me. I basically bankrupted them at one point! 

Then there came a time when the money ran out.  They bailed me out of jail the first time, but would not the second time (even though the second time the bail was much cheaper).  They sent me to rehab after rehab, psych ward after psych ward...They were at their wits end! My parents were helpless and hopeless.  They realized that there was nothing that they could do for me any longer...so, they cut me off! And that is when the I came to myself....

I entered treatment on July 22, 2011.  My uncle picked me up in Lexington at my duplex I was being evicted from.  He was so disgusted with me, he barely spoke.  My dad met us in Mt. Sterling, we ate a meal at Jerry's Restaurant  and they dropped me off for treatment stay number 12.  For 6 months, they did not come and visit me.  On visitation day, I would anxiously wait for my mother or father, uncle, ANYBODY to walk through the doors and no one came.  I would sit and watch all of the other clients visit with their families. It hurt. I knew that I had created this mess! I did not deserve for anyone to come and visit me! I hurt all of my friends and family for so long, how could I expect them to even speak to me again?! However, there was still a small part of me that was angry...How could they abandon me like this? 

That 6 months was actually the best thing that ever happened to me!!!! You see for me I had to lose EVERYTHING and not know if and/or when I would get it back in order to realize that I had to do this on my own.  No one could save me from this disease of addiction, but me!  

It has been my experience that a lot of addicts won't even have the desire to get better as long as they know that there will be someone to bail them out. Families are sometimes the biggest problem the addict has. They spend thousands of dollars bailing them out of jail!  We have adults in treatment whose families treat them like they are 2 and 3 years old.  They will call and ask things like: Have "Johnny" or "Susie" eaten today? Did they sleep well? Are they playing well with others? They put hundreds of dollars on their snack account. They bring them carton after carton of cigarettes, new clothes, etc.  They make it really easy and comfortable for them while they are in treatment. Almost like they are on vacation.  

 Some families will come and visit after the client has been here for 30 days and see them looking 100% better than they have in years, they seem to be thinking clearly....they got their child back!!! He or she is healed! So, if the courts have ordered them to 6 months or more of treatment they will start the process to get them out of rehab.  Why do they need to stay longer? They are off the dope and look great, they need to get back out their with their family. 

I believe in life that your actions need to cost you something! As long as Mommy and Daddy are constantly bailing you out, you will not understand that your actions have consequences.  And trust me there will be a time when Mommy, Daddy, Granny, Grandaddy will not be able to save you! Us addicts will eventually get ourselves in situations that we cannot be rescued from! Death being the most scary! Everytime you give your loved one who is in active addiction money, you are contributing to their potential death.  I know this is harsh, but I think that it is imporant to look at it this way.  

Why do you continously rescue your family member? You codependents out there, be honest with yourself. Why are you doing it? You ARE getting a payoff, or you wouldn’t be doing it. All of this is because of the real, underneath reason you are helping your family member because of your underlying need for acceptance and love. Some believe codependency is selfish because it makes the enabler feel good about themselves to help their loved one, that's why they do it. If you stop helping "Johnny" or "Susie" they may get upset with you and it does not feel good for them to be upset with you! If you stop helping, you may feel like you have lost control of the situation (which really you have no control over anyway...you just think you do). You may think that if you do all that you can, you can save them from themselves! Let me let you in on a little secret: there is nothing you can do for them, unless they start doing for themselves.  You can not save them.  No amount of money in the world can keep an addict out of jails, institutions and/or death! 

The best thing that happend to me is that my family and friends decided to love me from a distance.  They finally realized that there was NOTHING that they could do to help me! 

My mother is just now coming to terms with the fact that she raised me the best that she knew how to and I still ended up being a drug addict.  We are just now getting our relationship back on track.  I believe she resents me because of all of the horrible things that I have done and she resents herself for letting it go on for so long! She has never said this, but I think she may have been living her life through me, basing her happiness and sadness on what I did and how well or how poorly I did! For me, that is hard to live up to because I am not perfect and cannot live up to such high expectations!  I am not all that she had planned for me to be. I am not who she thought she had raised. But slowly she is starting to accept me for who I am and is actually proud of the woman I have become. She raised me the best that she knew how and I love her for that.  

PS-Spoiled children, like me are some of the hardest to help in recovery (in my humble opinion).  It was a hard pill for me to swallow when I found out that I didn't actually hang the moon and stars and that I wasn't the best thing since sliced bread. I wasn't all that great!  It was hard for me to understand the concept that in life people shouldn't just hand you everything you want, that you should have to work for it. I am not telling you what to do, but I am telling you my experience. Tending to adult babies is very difficult! Trust me, I was one. I hope that I didn't upset too many with what I have written, but if it did, that's okay. The beautiful thing is that you don't have to agree with me! 

I am not telling you to completely abandon your loved ones.  I understand how hard it is to let your loved one go.  However, sometimes you have to love them from a distance like mine did.  You have to set boundaries. You can support them without enabling.  By walking away, it may actually save their life.

I will not be putting any fashion in this post, I will save that for Sunday.  I just had the urge to sit down and start writing tonight and that is what I did! I hope that you got something out of this! If you have quesions feel free to ask me by commenting on here or through Instagram(IG name @sobrietymeetsfashion) or Facebook (Click here to go to my FB page)!