Enablers

[Lanolin]

Can someone explain to me what an enabler is, or give an example?
I think I know, kind of, but I want to know what your experience may have been.
Is it sort of similar to being a criminal accomplice?
Or is it someone who covers for someone else when they can't function. Or is it someone who looks the other way? Any of the above or all three?

What does the Bible say about enablers?

 

[seoulsearch]

Can someone explain to me what an enabler is, or give an example?
I think I know, kind of, but I want to know what your experience may have been.
Is it sort of similar to being a criminal accomplice?
Or is it someone who covers for someone else when they can't function. Or is it someone who looks the other way? Any of the above or all three?

What does the Bible say about enablers?

Hi Lanolin!

Great question!

Google gave me this definition:

An "enabler" is someone or something that makes a particular thing possible to happen. In a psychological context, it refers to a person whose misguided support or well-intentioned actions inadvertently allow a loved one to continue self-destructive behaviors, such as substance abuse or avoiding responsibilities.


Here in the USA, a common example is when a grown adult lives with their parents and is able to work but refuses (often spending their days watching TV, playing games, or being online.) If no demands or contingencies are being enforced, this is enabling the person to continue wasting their life away.

It can be a very complicated situation though.

I've written about this in other posts, but I had a 3-year relationship with an alcoholic. I didn't realize how bad his condition was at first. When I met him, he was working full-time and providing for his 2 young kids. I tried to help where I could. I think Christians get pulled into enabling a lot because not only does the Bible tell us to help, but when we're born again, helping people becomes part of our nature.

But over that time, he cut back to only working part-time, then not working at all -- because his days would consist of waking up and drinking himself back to sleep -- then rinse and repeat, every single day. I had originally thought he was just stressed and would get better if I tried to help, but the things I was doing was just enabling him to find more ways to drink.

By the end, I was paying for a good number of their expenses, including court cases, as his drinking was getting him into legal trouble. He and his kids were surviving on government assistance and living with his Mom. I eventually left the situation, and he lost custody of his kids (they went to their maternal family, as their mother had tragically passed away long before I was ever in the picture.)

It was hard to know how much to help (or not) though because the situation involved young children. I would not have been able to walk away if the kids wouldn't have had other family as a safety net. I had basically become a part-time single parent to them, and there was no way I could have left them uncared for or lost in the foster system. At one point I had considered fighting to adopt them on my own. But God worked it out, and I am very thankful for that.

The father also did not accept my breaking up with him. He was calling constantly and showing up at my work place to the point where I was very close to trying to get a restraining order. But praise God that He worked that out as well.


I also had another situation with a co-worker who was telling me about her drug-addicted friend. Now, I'm not saying any of these things in judgment, because I know people have hard lives and addiction is a terrible battle for anyone. But my co-worker was a single mom who was having hard times herself and I had thought about offering to pay a bill for her. (I never made that much money, I just choose to live as frugally as I can to have some on hand to help when needed.)

But I believe God told me clearly, "If you help her, she's going to give the extra money to (her drug-addicted) friend."

In this case, God was telling me no, don't step in, because you will be indirectly supporting this other person, and they don't need that.


For me, I've found that it can be very tricky to know when to help and when not to.

But I've learned a lot of hard lessons, and it's only by the grace of God that I haven't gone broke myself.

Thanks for asking this very important question!

 

[Lanolin]

mmm
I don't know about the first example, (grown up child staying at home) as I think enabling is more of an AA term.

Grown up child at home would probably be just arrested development or it could be a college graduate who actually can't find a decent job and is depressed.
However parents don't want to be cruel and kick them out, on the street or be homeless.
It is a real cause of suicide amongst the young.

 

[Lanolin]

As for alcholics, yes sorry to hear that. Alcoholics can be high functioning but if they keep drinking they eventually will lose it all.
Did your ex go to rehab?

Drug addicts can be hard to spot at first. Eventually their habits will catch up with them too. And they will steal from you to fund their habit as its very hard to break. I mean substance abuse is all the same thing, alcohol being a readily available drug.

 

[seoulsearch]

mmm
I don't know about the first example, (grown up child staying at home) as I think enabling is more of an AA term.

Grown up child at home would probably be just arrested development or it could be a college graduate who actually can't find a decent job and is depressed.
However parents don't want to be cruel and kick them out, on the street or be homeless.
It is a real cause of suicide amongst the young.

If it's something like a young person out of college trying to find a job, then yes, of course that's understandable.

I don't know what things are like in New Zealand, but here in the USA there are a lot of people in their 30's and older moving back in with parents or family because they've lost their jobs. Some become depressed, some try to make careers out of social media or day trading and fail, and some just give up looking for work.

In that case, living at home can become a comfortable safety net and they stop trying at life.


In Japan, there is a cultural phenomenon called hikikomori" -- defined as people who completely withdraw from society for more than 6 months. Most live at home with parents, spending all their time online. They refuse to find work or integrate into normal society. And once they settle into this lifestyle, they find it very easy to continue.

I've watched several documentaries on this, as I find it to be fascinating (but in a depressing sort of way.)

It's estimated to affect about 1.5 million people in Japan, is evenly split between men and women, and was once brushed off as a "young people's condition."

But modern research shows the majority of these people are in their 40's and 50's. Some have lived this way for years. Their parents are despondent, not knowing how to get their middle-aged children to live adult lives.

And these people are now finding themselves in a new crisis, because many of these people's parents are now old and dying -- and when their parents die, they truly have no way of supporting themselves.

They don't work, so they can't pay the bills to keep their parent's houses, putting themselves on a path to homelessness.

 

[passion84god]

An "enabler" is someone or something that makes a particular thing possible to happen. In a psychological context, it refers to a person whose misguided support or well-intentioned actions inadvertently allow a loved one to continue self-destructive behaviors, such as substance abuse or avoiding responsibilities.

I probably shouldn't be posting today, but I believe that I have been guilty of enabling people many times in my life when it comes to me greatly accentuating the positives in their lives while not saying a word about the potential dangers of the negatives in their lives.​

Proverbs 27:5-6​

5 Open rebuke is better than secret love.

6 Faithful are the wounds of a friend; but the kisses of an enemy are deceitful.

If we truly love people, then we are going to have to tell them things at times that they might not want to hear. It could cost us a friendship, but were we really their friends if we neglected to faithfully wound them when it was called for due to some sort of self-destructive behavior on their parts? According to this portion of scripture, we were their deceitful enemies because we withheld necessary truths from them, and not their friends. This has historically been an area of weakness for me, but I am getting better at saying the things that need to be said, regardless of the loss of relationships that often follows.​

 

[Lanolin]

yea the hikomori or 'hermit' of Japan
The alternative is to become a workaholic salary man who sleeps in a cubicle and then goes to work everyday because having a home is too far away and expensive. And land is in short supply in Japan.

 

[Lanolin]

It is also the land of Video game culture. They are the ones who invented Nintendo, Sega, Pokemon, Super Mario Brothers, and everything else that can give you epilepsy.
Apparently, it's so addictive that people will stay up all night gaming.

 

[Lynx]

If it's something like a young person out of college trying to find a job, then yes, of course that's understandable.

I don't know what things are like in New Zealand, but here in the USA there are a lot of people in their 30's and older moving back in with parents or family because they've lost their jobs. Some become depressed, some try to make careers out of social media or day trading and fail, and some just give up looking for work.

In that case, living at home can become a comfortable safety net and they stop trying at life.


In Japan, there is a cultural phenomenon called hikikomori" -- defined as people who completely withdraw from society for more than 6 months. Most live at home with parents, spending all their time online. They refuse to find work or integrate into normal society. And once they settle into this lifestyle, they find it very easy to continue.

I've watched several documentaries on this, as I find it to be fascinating (but in a depressing sort of way.)

It's estimated to affect about 1.5 million people in Japan, is evenly split between men and women, and was once brushed off as a "young people's condition."

But modern research shows the majority of these people are in their 40's and 50's. Some have lived this way for years. Their parents are despondent, not knowing how to get their middle-aged children to live adult lives.

And these people are now finding themselves in a new crisis, because many of these people's parents are now old and dying -- and when their parents die, they truly have no way of supporting themselves.

They don't work, so they can't pay the bills to keep their parent's houses, putting themselves on a path to homelessness.

Hmm, yes. The 2008 Kasuya closet case.

 

[Lanolin]

I probably shouldn't be posting today, but I believe that I have been guilty of enabling people many times in my life when it comes to me greatly accentuating the positives in their lives while not saying a word about the potential dangers of the negatives in their lives.​

Proverbs 27:5-6​

5 Open rebuke is better than secret love.

6 Faithful are the wounds of a friend; but the kisses of an enemy are deceitful.

If we truly love people, then we are going to have to tell them things at times that they might not want to hear. It could cost us a friendship, but were we really their friends if we neglected to faithfully wound them when it was called for due to some sort of self-destructive behavior on their parts? According to this portion of scripture, we were their deceitful enemies because we withheld necessary truths from them, and not their friends. This has historically been an area of weakness for me, but I am getting better at saying the things that need to be said, regardless of the loss of relationships that often follows.​

Yep
Sometimes you have to tell your friends off. Don't do that. I'm not going to hang around you if you keep on doing that thing that's going to kill you. I'd hate to be the one going to your funeral if you don't stop.

 

[seoulsearch]

Hmm, yes. The 2008 Kasuya closet case.

I have to admit, I had to look this one up

Wow.

For those unfamiliar with the case, a Japanese man started noticing food was disappearing from his fridge, so he set up cameras.

Turns out, a 58-year old homeless woman had secretly made a dwelling in a compartment above his closet. She would come down and help herself to his facilities when he was gone.

And she had been living there for nearly a year before she was caught.

 

[Lanolin]

Um ok
What about the Grey Gardens, Jackie Kennedys' relatives the Bouviers where the mother and daughter were living together with the raccoons in their rundown Hampton mansion.

Or ...hoarders.