Enabling a Drug Addict

Living with a drug addict and dealing with their behavior can be a tough situation to handle. It can be extremely nerve-wracking and depressing to watch their life spin out of control with drug abuse. Although many family members and close friends to people with substance abuse issues may try to do everything they can to help, sometimes their love and support can actually do more damage than good.

When someone does things that they believe is helpful but in reality they only perpetuate the problem of drug addiction, this is known as enabling. Enabling allows drug addicts to continue living in their destructive cycle of substance abuse.

Enabling can involve many different aspects of helping a drug addict afford to continue their habit of substance abuse. This can include things such as making excuses for their behavior while they are under the influence, giving them a place to live, paying their bills, taking responsibility for their actions, and cleaning up their mess. Although people believe that they are helping by doing these things, they are in fact just prolonging the addiction and letting the addict continue their substance abuse.

Enabling typically stems from issues of co-dependency. When someone is co-dependent, they are so are so involved in someone else's addictive behavior that they basically become reliant on it. Co-dependency, in essence, is addictive behavior. People become so obsessed with dealing with someone else's addiction and issues that they lose sight of their own needs. Co-dependency fuels the fire of addiction and in the long run just makes it worse. It can be hard to watch a drug addict ruin their life and not try to help them, but sometimes the help only lets them continue on in their addiction.

In these types of situations, an intervention may be necessary in order to get someone to go to drug rehab. During the intervention, drug counselors will typically discuss enabling behavior with friends and family members. This is an important part of the process, as it informs people how they may be perpetuating the problem of addiction with behavior that they believe is helpful. Of course, this is not always easy, and it can be difficult to make people realize how they are enabling a drug addict.

Drug addiction affects not only the person that has problems with substance abuse, but everyone around them as well. Addiction can be harmful to anyone associated with a drug addict, and it can be difficult to not want to help an individual struggling with drug abuse problems. Especially for family members, close friends and people that truly care for someone, it can be hard to not enable their behavior. Watching someone spiral out of control with drug addiction can be painful, and not wanting to somehow help them is not easy. But it is important to remember that supporting them can only add to the severity of the situation.

The best thing that people can do for a drug addict is get them to seek treatment or drug rehab for their problem. Giving them money, a place to live or other means of support only allows them to continue on in their destructive path. Enabling, co-dependency and addiction often go hand in hand, and it can be a tough cycle to break. But getting someone to go to drug rehab will often be the best help you can give them.