Every family has some level of dysfunction. At the very least, they have a family member that finds their way into trouble. Then, there are the people who enable them.

Acknowledging the Problem

For the Buchman family in Rachel Getting Married, that person is Kym, sister of bride-to-be Rachel Buchman. Let’s say it complicates things when Kym is invited to the wedding.

Kym, unfortunately, suffers from drug addiction. She is hardly alone. The opioid epidemic has swept our country, killing tens of thousands of people every year. Not only does it hurt the person with the addiction but every family member and loved one they have ever known. Take it from me. More than one member of my family has dealt with an addiction of some kind or other.

I remember finding out about my dad’s drug use when I was in grade school. My mother sat the three of us down (my sister, my brother, and I) to tell us that dad would not be home for a while because he was going to rehab. I remember almost everything about that moment, how everything around me froze in time.

That moment was soon followed by the embarrassment that my younger siblings already knew about my dad’s problem. I was the “smart” one, the straight-A student, but apparently, I could not put two and two together or did not want to. Denial is a powerful thing and the stigma was even worse.

Enabling the Problem

When you love someone who has an addiction, your instinct is to help. You do not want to see them suffer. The question is what is helping them or simply enabling their behavior to continue.

Someone who has an addiction will have highs and lows and those lows can be extremely painful for everyone around them. In Kym’s case, her younger brother died in a car accident when she was drunk driving. Rachel could not accept that it was her fault. She tried to push the blame onto anyone but herself.

A helper would find ways to let Kym come to terms with her actions and encourage her recovery. Someone enabling her might see that as too painful. They may worry that talking about it could spin Kym out of control and cause even more problems. Avoiding confrontation seems the easier, safer way to go. Except that it’s not.

Enabling is a way to bail people out — monetarily at times but more often emotionally — from the consequences of their actions. Enablers often feel guilted into “doing the right thing” for someone who seems incapable of doing the right thing themselves. They avoid conflict to “keep the peace”, they offer “one more chance”, they provide a “safety net”, and/or they come to the defense of their loved one even when they know they’re wrong. In the end, enablers end up taking on much of the burden themselves and the cycle of abuse keeps right on turning.

Setting Boundaries

It can be hard to know when you’ve moved from helping to enabling. Once you see it, it’s time to set boundaries.

That stint in rehab my dad did back when I was in grade school? A friend of the family signed him out early. As an adult, I enabled my dad a number of times too. I paid more than a few mortgage payments. If I didn’t do it, not only would my dad suffer but my mom would too. Why should she have no place to live because my dad made a mistake? Feeling guilty, I complied. It took too long to see that I was only called upon when he needed something. I eventually set boundaries to protect my well-being and that of my family.

Setting boundaries can feel cruel. It can feel as if you are rejecting your loved one or somehow punishing them. That’s not it at all. It certainly doesn’t mean you stop loving them. It allows them to stand on their own two feet, to take responsibility for their actions. If anything, it’s an act of love because it gives them an opportunity to get sober. Until they come to terms with the harms of their addiction, until they are willing to make a change, they will not get better.

How to Help Your Loved One

To help, tell them how you feel. Do not go on the attack or coerce them to do what you want them to do. Simply and calmly explain how their behaviors affect you personally and explain why you need to step back. Do this in a safe place when they are sober, so you can both be engaged in the conversation. Explaining why you are setting boundaries can go a long way in preserving the relationship. They may get defensive at first and may even guilt you for “abandoning” them, but hopefully, in time, they will come to see your intentions were good.

You can also help by providing them links to helpful resources, rehabilitation programs, and support groups like Alcoholics Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous. Make it clear that you cannot condone any behaviors that would support their addiction. That may mean not bailing them out of jail or loaning them money. It may mean not giving them a place to stay or covering for them in other ways.

Let them know you care about them and that you are there to support them. At the same time, make it clear that they will need to do their adulting on their own.

How to Help Yourself

Watching a family member struggle through addiction can be heart-wrenching. Your instinct may be to jump in and fix things, to make it go away. Unfortunately, that’s not how it works. You cannot change someone’s behavior. They have to want to change for themselves.

Still, it wears on you. Don’t forget to take care of yourself. If you need help coping through these difficult times, you may consider counseling for yourself or joining a support group like Al-Anon or Nar-Anon.

Unfortunately, not everyone will have a happy ending. Kym went back to rehab but we eventually lost my dad to an overdose. There were some enablers among us, some helpers too, and though he had many ups and downs, we all loved him dearly. We obviously wished for things to turn out differently. The best we can do now is to share the lessons we learned along the way. Knowing the difference between helping and enabling is a good place to start.