By Janice Blair
You’d have to have ice running through your veins if you didn’t cry when Leonardo DiCaprio died in Kate Winslet’s arms at the end of Titanic. I curse screenwriter James Cameron for what he did to them. Every time I watch it, I secretly pray that this time Jack and Rose somehow survive and we all get the happy ending that was coming to us.
I want you to imagine that things did go a different way after disaster struck. The Titanic does not sink but is teetering on the crest of the iceberg, ready to go down at any moment. Jack, Rose and her family make it safely to the lifeboat. Rose, despite her im-passioned love for Jack, is inexplicably drawn to the ill-fated ship and, amidst heart-wrenching pleas from her family, leaps back onto the promenade deck and begins to set up camp.
Jack and the family plunge into a painstaking operation to get her back, attempting everything from woebegone laments to logic to threats and intimidation. They can’t help but sympathize with her grievances about the dire conditions aboard the ship, so they execute a water-bailing strategy and send up blankets, medical supplies and their own personal food rations, all the while tirelessly pleading with her to come to her senses.
Jack leads a number of attempts to take her by force, a few times even succeeding in getting her into the lifeboat, only to have his hopes dashed as she finds her way back to the ship. As exhaustion and resentment mount aboard the lifeboat, Rose plots to split the family to more easily target the most self-sacrificing member. This escalates the fighting and finger pointing among the family members as they become increasingly depleted from neglecting their own needs. The wear and tear is too much for some, and they shut Rose out completely. The others pick up the slack and soldier on.
Sound familiar?
If you have an addict in your life, you no doubt recognize that the well-meaning family is “enabling” Rose. Enabling is, in a nutshell, helping. Jack and the family are enabling Rose to stay aboard the Titanic. I hope to shed some light on why they continue to do that as well as healthier and more effective alternatives.
In the addiction field, to enable means to help sustain the dysfunction in another, thereby encouraging and reinforcing the dysfunction. If you have done your share of bailing water, this will feel a bit pejorative, but the fact is we all do it and most of us do it unwittingly. So if you’re going to read on, you must be willing to cut yourself some serious slack. Recovery isn’t about blame; it is about throwing our energy and intelligence at the solution rather than the problem. It is our personal responsibility to examine whether we are adding fuel to the fire and take the necessary steps to stop it.
First and foremost: the lifeboat remains anchored next to the Titanic while there are people still on it. It is critical that the family gets – and remains – committed. The reason for this is simple although largely misunderstood: addiction is a brain disease that strips the addict of the ability to help himself. Recent advances in neuroscience have generated new understandings in the addiction field like nothing we’ve seen before. Neuroimaging is revealing the inside of the addict’s brain under all sorts of conditions, and what we see is tantamount to a neurophysiological pinball game that has left him with only a smattering of clear-thinking moments. This makes it an absolute necessity for someone else to be in the driver’s seat if he is to survive. While this news is usually very well received by the “Chief Enabler,” who immediately homes in on the driver’s seat like a heat-seeking missile, it is the trained addiction professional who should be rele-gated as both driver and navigator. The family will take the passenger seats, and if you can get the addict in the trunk for the time being, so much the better.
To buy into this seating arrangement you, the passengers, must know what you’re up against. You need to know what science knows about the changes that have occurred in the brain of the addict if you are to respond effectively. We’ve come a long way from shock treatments and lobotomies when it comes to the brain. As a recovering alcoholic, I am deeply appreciative of the scientific explanations for what can only be described as un-fathomable behavior during my drinking years. Take heart: everything you need to know about the addict’s brain can be summed up in one paragraph.
An addicted brain
We know that different parts of the brain handle different functions. We know that two of them, the neocortex and the limbic system, account for most of the addict’s insanity. Our neocortex, especially the prefrontal cortex, is the reasoning, moral, law-abiding, free will, good judgment part of the brain. This is the home of our personality, the things we dream about and love; there’s even a little section in charge of weighing future consequences against short-term gain. Then there’s a much older, deeper part of the brain; the mid-brain or limbic system – we call it the “reptilian” brain because it is so primal that all those beings from reptiles up the ladder rely on it for minute to minute survival. It is a very automatic, unconscious and instinctual part of the brain, the part that evokes the fight or flight response, for example.
In a healthy brain, the cortex listens to what the midbrain has to say, makes a split-second decision, and then tells the body what to do. In a healthy brain then, the reason-ing cortex overrides the instinctual midbrain. However, an unfortunate roll of the genetic dice, coupled with early childhood stress added to adolescent risk factors and thrown into a pitcher of any mind-altering substance, will very likely produce a drug addict, irrespective of whether the drug is alcohol, prescription pills or crystal meth. And be-cause all drugs work solely within the reward center of the limbic system, they “trick” the brain into misperceiving that the addict needs the drug to survive. I’m skipping heaps of research here to get you to the bottom line: addiction breaks the prefrontal cortex and the midbrain in such a way that the reasoning, moral brain is at the mercy of the primal, survival brain. The survival brain of the addict has become an omnipotent dictator whose singular mission is to keep taking drugs at any cost.
Animal Planet can always be counted on to provide the perfect metaphor. What happens to the brain of an addict is nicely illustrated by a species of parasite that lives in the stomach lining of the estuarine snail. For survival’s sake, these snails burrow into the ground so as not to stand out and make themselves easy prey. This living arrangement suits them both until it’s time for the parasite to reproduce. It turns out that to reproduce the parasite requires an environment only found within the belly of a particular species of bird (Mother Nature is nothing if not quirky). When the parasite is ready to pass on its genetic material, then, it makes its way into the brain of the snail and “makes” the snail “feel like” coming out of the shadows and into the sun. This is where nature really deals the snail a blow — once out in the open, the hapless snail sprouts orange antennae. In the bird world, this is tantamount to wearing a flashing light on top of your head; the bird eats the snail and the parasite is now
in the belly of the bird ready to mix it up. My point: just as the parasite hijacks the brain of the snail, the biological effect of addiction hijacks the frontal cortex. We could blame the snail for being stupid and causing his own demise, but, to be fair, how much choice did he have once the parasite took over his brain?
Addiction is a parasite, a cunning predator that seeks to come up from behind and strike while you are facing the other way. This makes it vital for us to heed whatever wake-up call comes our way and stay mindful about our choices. Just as families and friends of the addict did not cause the addiction, there is nothing we can do to cure or even control it.
Nonetheless, the addictive family system is always a co-creation. Consciously or un-consciously, there is often much the family is doing to perpetuate the dysfunction, typi-cally some form of caretaking or controlling. We lose way too many people due to a very understandable error: in an effort to do something, we focus on the short-term goal of putting out a fire or making the addict more comfortable instead of keeping our eyes on the long term goal of healthy recovery. It is very rare that an action achieves both. We cannot please the addict and move toward a healthy resolution at the same time. This is in keeping with the paradigm of operant conditioning that we know to be true: we should be rewarding only those behaviors that we want to see repeated. If we’re financing, rescuing, cleaning up after, accepting excuses or allowing ourselves to be bullied off our mark, we are reinforcing what they just did to get them into the trouble in the first place; what feels like helping has actually strengthened the addiction and the problem behavior. Notwithstanding our feelings of love, it is a mistake to think that letting addicts dictate the rules or preventing them from experiencing pain, hurt, frustration and even danger is an act of love. We can, as they say, kill them with kindness.
Along these lines, some of us are made to feel as though we’re in a court of law with the burden of proof on us. Addicts would make excellent litigators if only they would use their power for good. Let’s be clear about this because I hear it a lot: you are under no obligation to provide evidence when it comes to drinking or drug use. The fact is, close family members have the instincts of a nocturnal moth (the male nocturnal moth can tell at an astonishing distance whether another moth is female and the current phase of her cycle; this would be like Neil Armstrong standing on the moon intuiting where Mrs. Armstrong is and whether she is experiencing PMS). It is not all that unusual for an addict to fool a urine analysis; not once, however, have I seen an addict fool the instincts of a parent or spouse.
Why we do it
See if these common reasons for enabling feel familiar.
We don’t see ourselves doing it. It is not uncommon to see one parent over-controlling the 
addict’s affairs while admonishing the other for over-caretaking. Enabling behaviors can feel right because they do solve the problem du jour and, in fact, they might well be appropriate if they weren’t being done for an addict.
We are protecting ourselves from our own feelings. Fear, sadness, grief and anxiety come with the territory so they should be felt, but we often attempt to outrun them with problem-solving, busy work and the illusion of control.
We are unwilling to deal with the addict’s reactions. And who can blame us? As an interventionist, I can attest to the fact that antagonizing an addict is on par with poking a hornet’s nest. This is particularly hard on conflict-avoiders.
We are uninformed. Historically, addiction has been steeped in commonplace misconceptions and fallacies that drive our actions and block any possibility of recovery: you can’t help an addict until they want help; there’s nothing we can do; if I just solve this one last problem things will be OK; it’s just a phase.
We want assurance that non-enabling will work before we relinquish our old ways. The risk feels too high; “what if” paralyzes parents. There are no guarantees, because inherent in life is risk for ourselves or our children. There are, however, exhaustive clinical data documenting predictable outcomes for anything ever tried on the addict. For the most part, we know what does and doesn’t work.
We are acting on what we were taught to do as kids. Keep a peaceful and stable home and, if that’s no longer possible, keep up the image of a peaceful and stable home; put up a brave front; don’t air your dirty laundry in public; don’t let them see you cry.
We don’t grasp, or perhaps trust, that our ability to effect a solution is based entirely on those things we can control. Rather than sticking to healthy boundaries and inspiring the addict to seek help, we wear ourselves out by focusing on what we cannot con-trol and working harder than they at their life.
We are receiving some form of secondary gain. Conserving energy by taking the path of least resistance, feeling needed, gaining the acclaim of others who may see us as heroic, being in a perceived control position all reinforce our enabling.
We don’t know how to stop and/or we don’t have our own support system in place, which, in my experience, is a critical foundational piece.
Sow, seed, water, wait
If you are a gardener, you don’t plant a tree and then watch it around the clock, micro-manage its growth, try to talk some sense into it, plead with it or nag it if it’s not growing fast enough. Most of us don’t use force on our flowers. We care for the soil with water and fertilizer, make sure the sunshine is plentiful and it’s protected from the stresses of the environment while it develops its root system. We have the power to influence and mediate its growth, but we don’t have control. A very unnerving paradox for the family is the more we try to control the addict’s behaviors, the less successful we are.
The following questions help us gauge whether our next action supports the lifeboat or the Titanic, and I encourage you to laminate the list and refer to it before doing anything for the addict (or anyone else for that matter). We’re aiming for what I think of as filtered help, a hand out not a handout. Professional guidance is instrumental in navigating the nuances and exceptions of this list because, and this one’s from the Dalai Lama who knew a thing or two about peaceful resistance, “one must learn the rules well in order to know how to break them properly.”
Was I asked? Many of us are adept at solving the addict’s problems before they even ap-pear on his radar screen. Unless we are asked, particularly when it comes to advice giving, we are interfering and our motives can likely be traced back to our own fears and needs.
Am I suffering as a result? Is this taking time, money, energy that I don’t want to give? Is this taking away from my other relationships?
What are my feelings? Resentment, anger, feeling taken advantage of, victimized, unappreciated, used, over-extended or exhausted all indicate enabling. When you swallow these feelings, you can count on seeing them again in the form of depression, anxiety and physical illness.
Is this something a (insert age)-year-old person should be able to do for himself? This is a “whose responsibility is it?” question. Even though we’re often asked to help, when we pick up after or take over for the addict they receive this message: “You can’t do this for yourself because you are lazy, irresponsible and/or incompetent and you can’t be trusted to run your own life.” The addict’s eroding self-worth goes from bad to worse, causing a physiological domino effect that mobilizes craving and compels the addict to drink/use. If you’re a parent, ask yourself whether you would do his homework for him. Because that is an exact analogy. The class is Life 101.
Have similar responses on my part proven successful in the past? Look at the evidence: is the addict one inch closer to recovery or has it been one step forward, two back? If nothing changes, nothing changes.
Am I allowing the addict to fully experience all the consequences of his own choices? You are not causing a problem for the addict; you are simply not interrupting the natural effect of a problem they caused. Interrupting any natural or logical consequence includes any form of fixing, financing, solving a problem they made, helping to solve a problem they made, being overly-responsible, protecting them from reality and truth, trying to spare them suffering.
Despite the 28 years between me and my last drink, I recall with absolute clarity the heart-sinking laments of my family, the loss of job after job, my failed marriage, numerous emergency rooms, the inside of a jail cell and life at the Salvation Army homeless shelter. It all felt like a slap on the wrist compared to the searing agony of my cravings. Every recovering person will tell you the same thing: I didn’t stop until the pain was big enough. Only by experiencing hurt, frustration, loneliness and fear can the addict reach his personal “bottom,” which is essentially a pain threshold. Allowing addicts to take responsibility for themselves is not the same as blaming or punishing them.
There is a difference between fault and responsibility. They’re bound to be disagreeable about this so I like to blame Isaac Newton and his First Law of Motion: for every action there is a re-action equal in magnitude but opposite in direction. If you rob them of their reaction, you are robbing them of the opportunity to grow. They don’t need lec-turing, nagging, scolding or threatening. They do need to know:
a) There is a problem.
b) It’s MY problem.
c) I can handle my problem. For the recovering addict, this is critical to the development of coping skills, strength and emotional maturity as well as self-confidence and self-worth (the operative word here is self, which implies that we don’t get these things when others step in for us).
Letting go, letting God
The beauty of this age-old saying is that it doesn’t matter if my God is the Divine Rhythm of the Cosmos or a Benevolent Father or the Buddha or, a particular favorite of Star Wars fans, The Force. To let go does not mean to turn away or to stop caring or to cut myself off. It means I must make my peace with the reality that I can’t do it for someone else no matter how much I want to, and the outcome is not in my hands. Then it becomes a matter of trust between my God and me. It works best for me if I think of let-ting go in order to let God.
How you address addiction in your family is just as important as doing it. I’m borrowing from a person who made it much higher on the evolutionary ladder than I. During an interview with a Phoenix radio station, Mother Teresa was asked by a caller, “What can I do to help others?” Her response has stayed with me over the years. “It is not a ques-tion of what – there are opportunities everywhere you look. “ How,” she said, “that is the trick.” I believe she meant that any hand extended must be extended in grace. As you make your way up to the summit of this, or any other, personal Everest, my hope is that you gain a deep knowing that anything is possible in the presence of grace. And a Sherpa.
Janice Blair received her PhD in clinical psychology from Arizona State University and is trained and experienced in the assessment and treatment of psychiatric disorders, with a specialty in addiction. She is in private practice in Scottsdale, Arizona, offering individual, family and group counseling as well as intervention services. For more details: visit www.drjaniceblair.com.
