Debunking Myths - If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em

Myth:  I meet with people all the time who are in relationships with addicts of one sort or another.  Perhaps it’s a drinking husband, a shopaholic wife, a gambling brother, or a sex-addicted friend.  In any case, the non-addicted person often wants to help the addict, but doesn’t know what to do and feels as if nothing they could do would matter anyhow, so they just throw up their hands and decide to accept the person ‘as they are.’

There is a very common belief that it is helpful to just “love the addict as they are,” as if that gives the addict some form of self-esteem that might help them decide to give up their addictions.  It is also very common for people to just join the addict in whatever it is, thinking that the addict is going to do it anyhow, no matter what, so you may as well just keep them company or keep them safe, or supervise them while they do it.

Friends may actually go to the bar or the casino with the addict and engage in the destructive activity with the addict, seriously convinced that they are being a “friend” and that they are a “true friend” whereas others who have turned their backs on the addict are not “true friends.”

Fact: When you help, allow, facilitate, ignore, or condone an addict’s addictive behavior, that is called, “enabling,” and it is not helpful.  In fact, it can easily delay an addict’s getting the help and treatment they may desperately need.  In that regard, enabling can be harmful, and even deadly.

The addict wants to have everything, the addiction AND your friendship, the addiction AND a relationship with their kids, the addiction AND a high-paying job.  They don’t want to give any of it up.  Therefore, if they can sit with you, their friend, in the casino, and have their addiction AND their friend, they’ve got things exactly as they want them and there will be absolutely no motivation for them to change.

You can love an addict without enabling them.  Just because you will not go to the gas station and get the smoker their cigarettes does not mean you don’t love them.  It means you are unwilling to enable their addiction.  Just because you will not allow the alcoholic to bring wine to your holiday party does not mean that you don’t love them.  It means you welcome them to your holiday party, you want to spend time with them, and you will not condone their addiction in your home.  It sends a clear message of love and support to keep the addict in your life, but not facilitate the addiction.

Are they going to drink or smoke a half-hour after they leave your party?  Quite likely, but then that’s not on you.  You had no part of it.  You allowed them to have their relationships, but not at the same time as having their addictions.  You showed them that there is a choice to be made and that their addictions have costs.  You are teaching them that they cannot have it all and that when they choose addictions, they give up other things.

Marlo Archer, Ph.D.
Down to Earth Enterprises
1250 E. Baseline Rd., Suite 102
Tempe, AZ 85283
(480) 705-5007