This Is How We Define Enabling

What exactly is enabling? Darlene Lancer, in her book Conquering Shame and Codependency, offers a solid definition. She says “The term enabling can be applied to any form of help that removes the natural consequences of someone else’s behavior.” So when we feel responsible for someone else’s behavior and choose to fix their problems for them, we take away the consequences of what they have done and we let them off the hook. They are then never held accountable for their actions and they never learn to be responsible for their self-destructive behaviors.

I remember several years ago a man came to talk to me about his brother, who had a severe gambling problem. This man, we’ll call him Brendan, had been enabling his younger brother’s addiction by bailing him out every time he gambled-away more money than he had in the bank. In effect, Brendan became his brother’s personal banker; and whenever his brother—let’s call him Tom—had money-lenders at a given casino breathing down his neck, he simply went to the Bank of Brendan for a bailout loan, which he never repaid.

Over the years, Tom had borrowed thousands of dollars from the Bank of Brendan. Tom no longer saw his brother as a sibling, but simply as a rescuer. Tom knew that when he didn’t want to face himself, when he, instead wanted to emotionally medicate, he could run off to the casino and gamble away any amount of money with no consequences. All he had to do was go to Brendan and whine, blame his problems on his family of origin and guilt Brendan into giving him money one more time. Why would Brendan feel guilty enough to bail his brother out time and again? Because Brendan has a misplaced and codependent sense of responsibility for his younger brother.

Brendan came to me because he has just gotten another call from Tom. This time Tom needed $5,000. He had already double-mortgaged his house and was about to lose it to the bank if he didn’t come up with the $5,000. He hadn’t been making his house payments because he had gambled away every cent he had to his name. Brendan, once again, felt bad for Tom and he felt responsible.

Brendan asked me for advice. I said “I can’t tell you what to do, but if I was in this same situation, I’d say the Bank is closed. I wouldn’t give him a dime.” I went on to tell Brendan that his prior behavior had enabled Tom to stay stuck because Tom believed he could gamble away all the money he wanted and he would never have to pay any consequences. I told Brendan that it was about time that Tom learned that there are consequences to addictive behaviors. If he loses his house, that’s sad, but it may actually be the best thing that could ever happen to him because he will now learn that his out-of-control behavior does have serious consequences. He may then—hopefully—hit bottom and get the help he needs to recover from his addiction.

It’s difficult to do the right—and hard—thing when we love someone like Brendan loved his brother Tom. But enabling a person to stay stuck in self-destructive behavior by always bailing them out of the consequences isn’t loving. What seems like loving behavior on our part is really destructive behavior. Enabling means we have become partners in crime; the crime of aiding and abetting our loved ones in destroying themselves through addiction.

So if we truly love someone, we need to tell them that we love them, but that we cannot participate in their acts of self-destruction by giving them money, or making excuses for them to their bosses, or turning all of our focus from our lives to theirs in an attempt to rescue them from the consequences of their addictive behaviors. Instead, we can pray for them, assure them of our love and the only other support we can truly give them: a caring ear that is willing to listen to their pain and validate them.