From Healing Within Our Alcoholic Relationships, CAL, p. 9-10
“Ceasing to Enable
Our constant protective watchfulness of the alcoholics in our lives makes it easy for them to continue drinking and delay getting help. As long as we convince ourselves that we are doing our very best for them, they may have no incentive to get sober. Until we learn, as we do in Al-Anon, that shielding alcoholics from the consequences of their drinking only prolongs the course of the disease, the situation isn’t likely to improve.”
It took me years to really believe this and stop “helping” my daughter. At the time, the consequences looked unbearable to me: living on the street, going to prison, etc.
Out of my own sense of guilt, since I’m a double winner, I felt that she got it from me, that it was my fault. Over time I finally accepted that my daughter’s illness was not my fault. Period. And any attempt to carry the responsibility for her disease was terribly misguided. When I brought this new attitude into my belief system, I felt free for the first time in years. I cannot save Annie from substance use disorder, but I gratefully and gracefully have learned to save myself.
Because I’m worth it.