When your loved one has a drug or alcohol addiction, fear and anxiety consume your mind. The constant worry can be detrimental to your physical and emotional health. Anxiety and fear can disrupt your normal daily routines, and although you want to help, you become an enabler. When you enable someone, you unintentionally encourage your loved one’s self-destructive behavior.
How do you know if you are enabling your loved one’s addiction? There is a difference between enabling and being supportive. To avoid enabling, you need to set boundaries to protect yourself. Although this can be hard to do, you need to take care of yourself first. When you stand firm in your boundaries, your loved one will know what is and is not acceptable.
Anxiety and fear can unknowingly contribute to your enabling. When your loved one is addicted to drugs or alcohol, you can go through a range of emotions. When levels of anxiety and fear are this intense, you could feel emotionally drained. Enabling your loved one could reduce levels of anxiety and fear, but you are contributing to his or her destructive behavior.
To avoid becoming an enabler, learn more about the behavior of a person who has a drug and alcohol addiction. Go to group therapy, attend AA or NA meetings, or join a drug and addiction forum. Meet other people who have loved ones with an addiction to drugs or alcohol and listen to their experiences. Talk to families coping with their loved one’s addiction.
Do not shame or degrade your loved one. That lowers their self-esteem and leads them to use more drugs and alcohol to cope. Set boundaries, do not enable him or her, stay positive and encourage them to get treatment. This will show that you care about and love them.
If your loved one has an addiction to drugs or alcohol, get help now. Cypress Lakes Lodge specializes in treatment for addiction, which focuses on mind, body, and spiritual therapy and offers aftercare services to transition more easily into a new sober lifestyle. Cypress Lakes Lodge is committed to the overall health and successful recovery of every client. Do not wait. Get help today. You can save your loved one’s life.
Cypress Lakes Lodge offers treatment for substance addiction, addictive behavior, dual diagnosis, and mental health conditions in a serene, remote, lush-green environment. The program encompasses holistic addiction therapy for the mind, body, and soul. The focus is on physical, mental, and emotional well-being by generating the balance of life-enriching treatment, wellness, and healthy sober relationships that are sustainable. Call us to get started: 877-938-1577