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Unlocking the Mind of an Addict
“Unlocking the Mind of an Addict” has been a fascinating journey. When I first started writing this book I really did not know what I was getting into. I knew that addicts were different but I did not realize to what extent. When parents told me their child had two people inside one body, I knew I was on to something.
What if I could expose how addicts are different and how they manipulate their loved ones to stay active in their addiction? Then I could ultimately decrease chaos in the family, misery and ultimately death.
As I researched and wrote about how addicts manipulate, it became clear to me that the families were the ones ultimately affected the most. Addicts are extremely cunning as the definition indicates: “crafty in the use of special resources.” I realized that the families are the special resources within the context of the definition and it is through them that the battle will be fought and with the information in this book, ultimately won.
Enabling: The Silent Killer
Parents enable their children in many different ways. It would be in the reader’s best interest if I defined, contextually, what I consider enabling to be. Enabling is providing the resource or opportunity – to make the disease probable, practical or simple.
Many times, when family and friends try to help the addict, they are actually making it easier to contribute to the progression of the disease. Enabling allows one thing and that is for the addict to escape or avoid the consequences of his actions. Enabling allows the addict to continue his drug ingestion, secure in the knowledge that no matter how much he screws up, somebody will always be there to rescue him from his mistakes. As long as the addict has his enabling devices in place, it is easy to deny that he has a problem, since most of the problems are being solved by those around him. Only when he is forced to face the consequences of his actions will it finally begin to sink in how severe his problem has become.
There is a difference between helping and enabling. Helping is doing something for someone that he is not capable of doing himself. Enabling is doing for someone things that he could do and should be doing himself.
Simply put, enabling creates an atmosphere in which the addict can comfortably continue his addictive behaviors.
Here are a few questions that might help you to distinguish between helping and enabling.
- Have you ever called in sick for the addict, lying about his symptoms?
- Have you ever accepted part of the blame for the addict’s using behavior?
- Have you avoided talking about the addict’s behavior out of fear his response?
- Have you bailed him out of jail or paid his legal fees?
- Have you paid bills they were supposed to pay themselves?
- Have you loaned him money?
- Have you used with him to help strengthen the relationship?
- Have you given them one more chance, and then another and another?
- Have you threatened to leave and did not?
- Have you finished a job or a project that the addict failed to complete himself?
If you answered “yes” to any of these questions, you, at some point in time, have enabled the addict to avoid his own responsibilities. Rather than help the addict, you have actually made it easier for him to get worse.
If you answered “yes” to most or all of these questions, you have not only enabled the addict, you have probably become a major contributor to the growing and continuing problem and chances are you have become affected by the disease yourself.
Enabling is doing for others what they are capable of doing for themselves. When we enable addicts, we prevent them from experiencing the consequences of their own actions. When we do this we discourage them from learning from their own actions. When we do this we discourage them from learning from their own mistakes which, in turn, prevents them from realizing they have a problem.
The addict has been enabled most of his life, therefore developmental mile stones that most individuals achieve are unachieved by the addict. When we continue to reach in and do even simple things for the addict, how will he learn to do for himself?
We enable addicts by doing things such as:
- Paying their bills; making car payments; covering bounced checks; paying bail; paying traffic tickets
- Making excuses for their behavior; changing appointments; calling employers for absenteeism; writing late or absentee excuses to schools; covering up for missing family functions
- Providing them with money, clothing, housing and food
- These are a few examples that show the destructive pattern.
Example 1
A young female was admitted to treatment for heroin dependency. Her parents were divorced and did not get along and as a result of their conflict, they never communicated. The parents shared joint custody and at the time of admission she lived with her mother.
In an attempt to win her over, the father pressed for outpatient treatment instead of residential treatment. The child was of age to decide with whom she wanted to live, and could sign herself out of treatment. She decided to take the ticket out of treatment and live with her father.
Even though my professional opinion was that she needed residential level of care, there was nothing I could do legally. I recommended that she not be discharged to outpatient care and that she with the father. The girl overdosed on heroin two weeks later and nearly died.
Example 2
A young lady, 23, was admitted to treatment for alcohol and opiate dependence. She had a two-year-old son that her parents were actually raising.
This young lady worked for her parents and she would go to work hung over, or she would not show up at all. Her parents paid for her apartment and paid her bills. The money that she made was spent on drugs.
You, as parents, are probably thinking, “No way would I ever do this to my child.” When logically looking at this situation one can clearly see the enabling process and how it is actually killing the young lady. How do the parents rationalize and justify their actions? The answer is simple; cognition. When I asked her parents why they were enabling her, they said, “We thought we were actually helping by providing her basic needs.” The optimal word here is, thought. When I asked them what they were telling themselves I determined their actual beliefs were, “If we did not provide for her basic needs then she would do things like prostitution or burglary and perhaps be on the street or in jail. If we gave her a job then we would know where she was part of the time. We thought by giving her these things we were preventing death; unfortunately we were wrong… we were contributing to her death.”
Example 3
A young man in college was known to be drinking somewhat heavily and his grades weren’t what they should be. Finally, he drove his car into a parked vehicle while intoxicated and legal problems arose.
His parents ran to the rescue, thinking, “He’s just going through a phase. He can’t be an alcoholic. He is our beloved son.”
Instead of getting professional help, his parents called a lawyer to deal with the legal trouble. Unwittingly, they diminished the negative consequences of their son’s drinking. That is, they made the problem less of a problem for their son and ultimately they enabled the problem to continue. It wasn’t long after this incident that he received his second alcohol-related offense involving a vehicle and faced possible mandatory jail time. If they hadn’t enabled the first incident the second incident could have been avoided.
The end result of enabling is jails, institutions and/or death. Parents if you want to help your loved one stop enabling. I know it is hard, but it will be harder to bury your child.