Have a Loved One Who’s Addicted to Drugs? How to Tell the Difference Between Help and Harm

This article shows examples of ways to help someone struggling with addiction and actions that may seem helpful but are quite harmful.

Family members of those who struggle with addiction often try to do everything they can to help their loved ones. Unfortunately, some actions by family members and friends can seem helpful initially but are harmful.

What Does it Mean to Enable Someone?

Enabling someone means creating an environment where they can continue engaging in unacceptable behavior. It can be difficult to spot behavior that qualifies as enablement because it often appears on the surface that one is helping that person. Assisting someone with a hangover for the third time that week seems helpful. And yet, it is making it much, much easier for that individual to contend with one of the downsides (hangovers) of their addictive behavior, i.e., alcohol abuse.

In short, enabling behavior is any behavior that one exhibits that makes it easier for the person being enabled to engage in destructive activities.

Examples of Enabling Behavior

The following are examples of things one could do that would enable an addicted loved one to continue their harmful behavior:

• Denying their behavior exists. Ignoring or denying the fact that a loved one has a drinking or drug problem allows the problem to go unchallenged.

• Using substances with them. Drinking with an alcohol-addicted loved one as a show of solidarity or as a way of bonding with them affirms in that person’s mind that their behavior is acceptable.

• Justifying their behavior. Making excuses for their behavior or trying to explain it away is just another form of denial and allows the behavior to persist.

• Keeping one’s feelings inside. Not talking about the issue at hand and not confronting the loved one over their drinking or drug use allows the condition to persist.

• Avoiding confrontations. Avoiding potentially emotional or heated conversations around a loved one’s drinking or drug use creates a fake sense of acceptance, a signal to the individual that they can go on misusing substances without consequence.

• Minimizing or making less of the situation. Trying to explain away or make less of the harsh reality that is addiction delays getting the addicted loved one the help they so desperately need.

• Protecting the loved one from harmful consequences. Covering for an addicted loved one by driving them around when they are under the influence, lying to their employer or spouse about their addiction, giving them a place to stay when they’re going through withdrawals, and paying their legal bills are all activities that lessen the harmful impact that addiction has on them. Unfortunately, most addicts need to experience this harmful impact so they arrive at a place where they no longer want to live that way and instead want to seek help.

• Taking over the loved one’s responsibilities. Picking up after an addicted loved one by providing childcare to their children, taking on their responsibilities around the house, or earning money for the family so the loved one does not have to work are all examples of enabling behavior.

• Enduring through the harmful situation. Simply just “enduring” is itself enabling the loved one to continue using because to endure through the harmful situation is to assume eventually it will just “go away” on its own. Unfortunately, addiction does not go away on its own.

• Resenting the loved one. Resenting the addicted loved one and carrying that resentment through every day is not only unhelpful for the person with an addiction, it is also quite harmful to the individual resenting them.

• Giving them financial support. Giving an addict money, a phone, a car, and a place to stay are all examples of support that makes their lives easier and keeps them away from experiencing the truly harsh and brutal effects of drug and alcohol addiction. Again, an addict often needs to experience these effects to arrive at a place where they want to get help.

• Putting the loved one’s needs above one’s own. Sacrificing one’s health and needs for an addicted loved one is extremely harmful to one’s own betterment, and it usually does not result in the addicted loved one getting help.

What Constitutes Helpful Behavior?

While there are many ways one can enable an addicted loved one, there is only one way that one can truly help them. Simply:

The best type of helpful behavior directed towards a person with an addiction is behavior that assists them in seeking help for their drug or alcohol addiction. Helping an addicted loved one find a treatment center, transporting them to a treatment center, and taking care of their children or pets while they are away getting help are all examples of behavior that is helpful to addicts.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, just over 100,000 Americans are now dying from drug overdoses every year, an alarming fact that officially places drug overdoses as one of the leading causes of preventable death.¹

The situation is even worse with alcohol, with about 140,000 Americans losing their lives from alcohol-related harm each year. This statistic is much higher than just a few years ago.²

Drug and alcohol addiction is a life or death matter, and any behavior on the part of the family members of addicts that enables the addict to continue using drugs and alcohol is behavior that prolongs the addiction, worsening conditions and leading to higher and higher risk for serious harm. If you know someone who is addicted to drugs and alcohol, please do everything you can to help them find and enter a qualified residential addiction treatment center.

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