Enabling

Know the Difference: Healthy or Unhealthy Support System?

“Know the difference between those who stay to feed the soil and those who come to grab the fruit.”


This sobering statement recently came to my attention. I don’t know who originally said it, but it resonates, all the same.

It has personally factored in heavily as I have learned, firsthand, who was a part of my healthy support system…and who was NOT.

Indeed, this concept plays a MAJOR role for each of us as we navigate our addiction/recovery journeys. It is usually not too long in life, before we encounter the all too common cliché dysfunction of co-dependency, narcissism and/or exploitation.

Know the Difference: Healthy or Unhealthy Support System? Read More »

The Power of “No!”

A large part of my recovery process involves using the word “no.” Indeed, saying “yes” gotten me into more trouble and disease than standing in my own okay-ness with stating it simply, but firmly.

My eating disorder experiences were driven by an insatiable need for perfection, approval and to be pleasing at all cost. So, “no” became a dirty little word. After all, a girl, filled with sugar and spice, should be completely fulfilled with making other people happy.

Right?

Wrong.

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I’m a Typical Enabler and Victim. Help!

Question: I need help, I am the typical enabler and victim and I do not want my life to continue this way. Please help!

Guidance: I know your pain and suffering first hand. My experience comes from both sides. I grew up with an alcoholic step dad. When I got married I was the alcoholic and my husband was the enabler. I can now look back on my behavior and see how sick mentally, emotionally and spiritually I really was. Only when my husband stopped enabling the addiction did I get help for myself. Praise God I have been sober for 15 years! My personal testimony is written in the book Journey on the Roads Less Traveled.

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Finding It Hard to Forgive?

And forgive us our debts,
As we forgive our debtors. Matthew 6:12

How many times do we pray this portion of what is commonly called “The Lord’s Prayer” and yet fail to consider what we’re asking? It is a petition, a request of God to forgive us – in the same manner and proportion in which we forgive others. Are you okay with that? Are you comfortable with receiving God’s forgiveness to the same extent that you give it to others?

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Do You Love an Alcoholic? – Stop Rescuing and Enabling

Do you love an alcoholic? How can you live with an alcoholic and love them at the same time? Very carefully. It’s true, it is very difficult to live with an alcoholic, but people do it all the time. Alcohol controls the mind and spirit of a person, so in affect as long as the alcoholic is drinking you will not get much love in return. Being married to an alcoholic is not a reason for divorce. It is reason for helping your loved one with the disease. Alcohol addiction is called the insidious disease for a reason. It breaks up homes, kills lives, and keeps them from discovering the Creator. Can it get anymore insidious than that?

A person who drinks excessively is called an alcoholic but that is not who they are. A person who drives a truck is called a trucker, but that is not who they are. I believe alcohol addiction to be a phase or transition of a person’s life, meaning it can be temporary. But many alcoholics become sober only to start drinking again, soon after, why? It is because they think they are in control of their addiction, but they aren’t. If a person truly wants to get sober and stay sober, they will.

The person behind the destruction and deception of alcohol is a

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Overcoming Addiction: Addiction + Denial = Out of Control

My addiction used to control me. It overwhelmed the person inside of me, and I became a stranger to my family, and to myself. All I cared about was having another drink. All I thought about was where and when I was going to get my next drink. My mind was totally and completely absorbed within my addiction, and I didn’t even know it. I was proud, haughty and selfish. I was an alcoholic.

Do you have an addiction? Some of us overeat, over drink, smoke, look at porn, gamble, do drugs, or become abusive. We can even be addicted to our feelings. When we let our negative thoughts control us to do wrong, we are under the power of our thoughts and feelings. Addiction controls several aspects of our character that keep us from coming to our full potential. I know these things first hand; I have been there and done that.

Mentally the addiction affects the way we

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The Functioning Alcoholic

The Functional Alcoholic does not necessarily:

· get drunk every time he or she drinks
· drink a large amount
· have hangovers
· miss a lot of work
· drink during the day, week or month
· drink every day week or month
· look bleary-eyed
· have slurred speech
· stagger
· get unpleasant or belligerent with other people
· drink in the morning
· become physically abusive
· crave a drink
· show up late for work
· have a hangover
· get a DWI/DUI
· ever look drunk
· have blackouts

…the family usually sees the first symptoms, but don’t always know what they mean.

The Functional Alcoholic may have problems with:

· sleeping
· finances
· sex
· thinking

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Denial: Trying to Disguise the Truth

What Cracker?

He who covers his sins will not prosper: but whoever confesses and forsakes them will have mercy. Proverbs 28:13

Denial: it’s a ridiculous looking thing.

I once saw a photograph of a mouse, looking straight at the camera, cheeks puffed out to a Saltine’s square shape. And the tag line attached was “What cracker?”

It made me think of my own erratic disordered eating behaviors, including stealing my roommates’ food and dumpster diving.

“…I thought I was hiding my secret well from the outside world. I replenished the food I’d stolen from my roommates. I played ‘beat the clock’ before they came home to notice…

…It became a regular hide and steal, hide and eat, hide and deny game… I knew their schedules by heart. I’d wait for them to leave for class. I’d hurry home, skipping my own classes to ensure enough time alone… I had to eat as much as I could before they came home…

… I’d be first to volunteer among my roommates to take out the trash, because I knew what ‘goodies’ I’d thrown out…

…Trips to the dumpster at 2:30 a.m. were not unusual… I’d rummage through other people’s trash bags…

…I was caught on more than one occasion. I’d try to play it off, pretending everything was normal as people passed by me scrounging in the dumpster. As I became more desperate, however, I began going to the dumpster frequently in broad daylight while other students were coming and going from class… I tried to convince myself I could ‘just act natural’ and disguise the truth…”

I was asking, “What Cracker?”

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Do You Love an Alcoholic? Setting Boundaries

Loving an alcoholic is not about taking care of them, but about taking care of you. You have a responsibility to protect yourself from any of the alcoholic’s negative and destructive behavior. Setting boundaries for you is how to become healthy, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. You may have to change a few personal things and schedules around the house a bit to accommodate your boundaries, but this is how you protect yourself from the insidious disease of alcoholism. All the boundaries I suggest are always detaching from the alcoholic in a loving way.

Don’t be around the alcoholic when they are drinking. Does this sound difficult to do. Well it isn’t if you have your own bedroom, or other room, with a television, desk, phone, cell phone, laptop, etc. Be prepared to leave any room the alcoholic is drinking in. When the alcoholic asks you why you are leaving the room, let them know the truth; you are powerless to control their behavior and you do not want to be around them while they are drinking; it’s as simple as that. You are taking care of you!

Don’t argue, plead, or yell at the alcoholic no matter how difficult it gets. This is what the alcoholic wants you to do. If you argue, fuss and fight, it takes the focus off of them and their drinking and on to you. See how that works? This is how the alcoholic drives you into the disease with them. Every time you try and control the alcoholic through words or argument, you actually lose the battle; they won! You stay in control by staying silent. You are in control when the alcoholic wants you to argue with them, but you walk away instead. This is taking care of you!

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Death of an Innocent

I went to a party, Mom. I remembered what you said.
You told me not to drink, Mom, so I drank soda instead.
I really felt proud inside, Mom, the way you said I would.
I didn’t drink and drive, Mom, even though the others said I should.
I know I did the right thing, Mom, I know you are always right.

Now the party is finally ending, Mom, as everyone is driving out of sight.
As I got into my car, Mom, I knew I’d get home in one piece.
Because of the way you raised me, so responsible and sweet.
I started to drive away, Mom, but as I pulled out into the road,
The other car didn’t see me, Mom, and hit me like a load.

As I lay there on the pavement, Mom, I hear the policeman say,
The other guy is drunk, Mom, and now I’m the one who will pay.
I’m lying here dying, Mom. I wish you’d get here soon.
How could this happen to me, Mom? My life just burst like a balloon.

There is blood all around me, Mom, and most of it is mine.
I hear the medic say, Mom, I’ll die in a short time.
I just wanted to tell you, Mom, I swear I didn’t drink.
It was the others, Mom. The others didn’t think.
He was probably at the same party as I.
The only difference is, he drank and I will die…

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