Enable

The dictionary defines the word "enable" as "provide with the means to do something" or "to make possible". Lately it seems as though I'm hearing the words "enabler" and "enabling" rather frequently. These are good words in and of themselves. The problem seems to be in the application of these words. (see last weeks post 'AA doesn't work'.) As usual, when I start developing negative feelings about a word, I look it up in the dictionary to make sure that I understand its meaning.

When I was still a member of Alcoholics Conspicuous, if I wanted alcohol, I got alcohol. I would use any means or anyone to assist me in obtaining my goal because getting alcohol was the only thing that mattered. If one plan didn't get me what I wanted, well then, I tried another. And I kept trying different plans until the goal was achieved. Where, who or how did not matter. I used every method at my disposal. Active alcoholics, and drug addicts for that matter, are like that. Ugly, but it is what it is.

Experience has taught me that we alcoholics and drug addicts love to blame other people for our own behaviors. So do lots of 'normal' people, but I'm just talking about alkies and addicts here. This is really kind of funny when you think about it since most of us are also control freaks that hate being told what to do. But in recovery, we learn to take responsibility for our own thoughts and actions. Nobody can make another person 'do' anything. The choice is always our own.

Which is why the current tendency to call our loved ones enablers is so puzzling to me. "My wife was my biggest enabler." "My parents enabled me to keep drinking for much longer than they should have." "For years, my sister let me stay at her house and get drunk every day which allowed me to stay sick." Isn't this really just another way for us to dodge full responsibility for the damage we caused? Another attempt to heap guilt onto others for trying to help in the only way they knew how?

There were times that my spouse bought alcohol and brought it home specifically for me to get drunk. Today, that would be called enabling. But the truth is that I made her life so miserable with my belligerent and/or abusive behavior that she did it for self defense. And who can blame her? She was holding things together the best way she knew how. She said to me once, "At least, when you were drunk, eventually you passed out!" But, instead of being grateful she put up with that until I decided to sober up, I tell her it was her own fault it took me so long to do so. Gee, there's gratitude for you. In all honesty, I'd have found a way to drink with or without her buying it for me.

In order to recover, I must face the truth and the truth is this. When I was an active alcoholic, there were many people who provided me with the means, thus enabled me, to do the next right thing. And I never once took them up on it. What does that mean? Well, it means the choices that I make and the actions that I take are (and always have been) a reflection on me. And no one else.

Have a good and sober day.