When Helping Hurts: Understanding Enabling and the Codependency Trap

Strong for everyone...at the expense of oneself

Written by Laurél Kimpton, MPS, LADC

You know that friend who keeps bailing out their perpetually "broke" roommate? Or maybe you're the person who can't say no to your sibling's endless requests for "just one more favor"? Welcome to the complicated, exhausting, and surprisingly common world of enabling and codependency—where good intentions pave the road to emotional burnout.

Let's be real: nobody wakes up one morning and thinks, "Today, I'm going to become an enabler!" It sneaks up on you, disguised as love, loyalty, or just being a decent human being. But here's the plot twist—sometimes the most caring thing you can do is actually the thing that feels the least caring in the moment. Mind-bending, right?

What Is Enabling, Anyway?

Enabling is essentially doing for others what they should be doing for themselves. It's the art of removing natural consequences from someone's choices, usually with the best intentions. You're not trying to make things worse—you genuinely want to help. The problem? You're actually preventing the person from learning, growing, or facing the reality of their situation.

Think of it like this: if you keep catching someone every time they stumble, they never learn to watch where they're walking. Eventually, they don't even try to maintain their balance because they know you'll be there. And you? You're developing chronic back problems from all that catching.

Enabling shows up in countless ways, and it becomes particularly destructive when addiction is involved—whether that's alcohol, drugs, gambling, sex, food, gaming, social media scrolling, or any other compulsive behavior. Maybe you're calling in sick for your partner who's hungover (again). Perhaps you're paying bills for someone who gambled away their paycheck. Or you might be making excuses for why your loved one missed another family event because they were binge-watching YouTube for twelve hours straight. You could be buying junk food for someone trying to overcome binge eating because you "don't want them to feel deprived," or you're helping hide evidence of drug use from other family members to "keep the peace."

When addiction enters the picture, enabling takes on an even more urgent dimension. You're not just preventing growth—you're potentially helping someone maintain a pattern that could be life-threatening or severely damaging to their health, relationships, and future. These actions might feel helpful, but they're actually fuel for the addiction cycle.

The tricky part is that enabling often feels like love. It feels like being supportive, understanding, and compassionate. When someone you care about is struggling with addiction—whether they're scrolling TikTok for six hours while their responsibilities pile up, drinking themselves into oblivion, spending grocery money at online casinos, or using drugs—your instinct is to help. You don't want them to lose their job, damage relationships, or hit rock bottom. So you step in. You cover for them, clean up their messes, provide financial bailouts, make excuses to others, or minimize the severity of the problem.

But here's what's actually happening: every time you shield someone from the consequences of their addiction, you're removing the very discomfort that might motivate them to change. You're extending the timeline of their suffering by making it more bearable. The person with the addiction learns, unconsciously, that they can continue their behavior because you'll catch them before they fall too far. Society even rewards this behavior with labels like "selfless" and "dedicated," especially when you're "standing by" someone through their addiction.

Here's what makes enabling so insidious: it works in the short term. The immediate crisis is averted. Everyone's relieved. The tension dissipates. Your loved one didn't lose their apartment, didn't get fired, didn't face the embarrassment of their behavior being exposed. But you've just taught everyone involved—including yourself—that this pattern works. The person with the addiction learns they can continue using, gambling, binging, or scrolling because you'll manage the fallout. So, it repeats. And repeats. And then you wonder why you're exhausted, why the addiction seems to be getting worse despite all your help, and why nothing ever actually changes.

Enter Codependency: Enabling's Complicated Cousin

If enabling is the action, codependency is the underlying relationship dynamic that fuels it. Codependency is like being emotionally velcroed to another person—their moods become your moods, their problems become your problems, and their needs consistently overshadow your own.

When addiction is part of the equation, codependency becomes particularly intense and damaging. You might find yourself obsessively monitoring the person's behavior—checking their browser history for evidence of porn or gaming binges, smelling their breath for alcohol, searching their room for drugs or hidden food wrappers, tracking their phone location, or monitoring their bank statements for gambling transactions. Your entire emotional state depends on whether they used today or stayed "clean." If they relapse, you feel like a failure. If they have a good day, you finally breathe.

In codependent relationships, there's typically an imbalance where one person is the "giver" (that's probably you) and the other is the "taker." The giver derives their sense of worth from being needed, while the taker—often someone with an addiction—becomes increasingly dependent on the giver's support to continue functioning despite their addiction. It's a dance where both partners know the steps so well they don't even realize they're dancing anymore, even as the addiction progressively worsens.

Codependency isn't exclusive to romantic relationships—it shows up between parents and children, friends, siblings, coworkers, and even in therapeutic relationships. Anywhere there's an emotional connection, codependency can take root if the conditions are right.

What makes codependency particularly sticky is that it often starts with genuine care. You love this person. You want to help them overcome their addiction. But somewhere along the line, helping became your entire identity. Your sense of self-worth became tied to how much you could do to keep them afloat. You stopped asking what you needed because you were too busy managing their addiction, covering their tracks, and trying to control an uncontrollable situation.

The connection between enabling and codependency is this: enabling is often how codependency expresses itself behaviorally, especially in the context of addiction. The codependent person enables because they've learned that their value comes from being indispensable. They fear that if they stop helping, if they stop being the one who "understands" and "supports," the relationship will end—and with it, their sense of purpose. There's also often a deep-seated belief that if they just try hard enough, love enough, sacrifice enough, they can make the person stop using, drinking, gambling, binging, or whatever the addictive behavior is. This is a devastating illusion that keeps both people trapped.

Why Do We Fall Into This Trap?

Understanding why people develop enabling and codependent behaviors isn't about assigning blame—it's about recognizing patterns so we can break them. Most people who struggle with these dynamics didn't choose them consciously; they learned them, often in childhood.

Family of origin plays a huge role. If you grew up in a household where you had to be the responsible one—maybe you had a parent with addiction issues, mental health challenges, or were just plain unreliable—you learned early that your job was to hold everything together. Children in these environments become experts at reading the room, managing emotions, and putting out fires. These skills helped you survive then, but they're sabotaging your adult relationships now.

Low self-esteem is another major factor. When you don't believe you're inherently valuable, you try to earn your worth through usefulness. You become the person who always says yes, who's always available, who sacrifices without hesitation. It feels safer to be needed than to risk being wanted just for who you are.

Fear of abandonment drives a lot of codependent behavior. On some level, you believe that if you stop being helpful, people will leave. So, you keep giving, keep sacrificing, keep enabling—not realizing that you're actually preventing genuine intimacy. Real relationships are built on mutual respect and authenticity, not on one person's endless self-sacrifice.

Control issues (yes, even though you don't think of yourself as controlling) also play a role. When you're managing someone else's life—especially someone with an addiction—you feel like you have some control over the outcome. If you can just monitor them close enough, help them enough, prevent enough triggers, remove enough temptations, fix enough problems—maybe they'll finally stop using, drinking, gambling, or engaging in whatever behavior is destroying their life. But here's the uncomfortable truth: you can't control other people's choices, including their choice to continue an addiction, and trying to do so through enabling just keeps everyone stuck. The addiction continues, and you're exhausted from trying to control the uncontrollable.

Cultural and social conditioning shouldn't be overlooked either. Many of us—especially women—are socialized to be caregivers, to put others first, to be accommodating and selfless. These messages are so deeply ingrained that we don't even question them. We think we're just being "good" people when we're actually neglecting our own needs and enabling unhealthy dynamics.

The Real Damage of Enabling and Codependency

Let's talk about what this pattern actually costs—because it's more than just feeling tired, especially when addiction is involved.

For the enabler/codependent person: You're depleting yourself. Physically, you might experience chronic stress, fatigue, headaches, digestive issues, or other stress-related health problems from the constant anxiety of monitoring someone's addiction. Emotionally, you're probably dealing with resentment (even if you don't admit it), anxiety, depression, fear, and a growing sense that your life isn't your own. Your relationships become lopsided, your boundaries become nonexistent, and your sense of self becomes blurry. Who are you apart from managing someone else's addiction? That question might feel genuinely hard to answer.

You also rob yourself of authentic relationships. When your entire identity revolves around being the person who "handles" the addict in the family, who covers for them, who cleans up their messes—that's not a real relationship. That's a caretaker-patient dynamic, and it's exhausting and lonely, even when you're surrounded by people who "need" you.

For the person with the addiction: The consequences are equally serious, and in many cases, life-threatening. They don't develop the motivation to change because the pain of their addiction is constantly being cushioned by your interventions. They miss out on the rock bottom moment that often catalyzes recovery. Their addiction progresses because there aren't enough consequences to interrupt it.

Being enabled allows someone to maintain their addiction longer and dig themselves deeper. It can create learned helplessness—they stop believing they can manage their own life because you've taken over so many functions. But it also paradoxically creates resentment. People being enabled often feel angry at their enablers, even as they depend on them. They know, on some level, that the enabling is preventing them from getting better, but they're not ready or willing to face that truth.

Perhaps most critically, enabling in addiction delays or prevents treatment. Why would someone seek help for their gambling problem if you keep providing money? Why would someone address their alcoholism if you keep calling them in sick? Why would someone confront their internet addiction if you keep making excuses for their isolation? Your help, however well-intentioned, is keeping them sick.

For the relationship itself: The dynamic becomes toxic. There's no equality, no mutual respect, no real intimacy. The relationship exists to serve a dysfunction—in this case, the addiction—rather than to enrich both people's lives. Trust erodes because the addiction involves lying, hiding, and manipulation, and you're often participating in these patterns by covering for the person or keeping secrets from other family members.

The relationship becomes organized around the addiction. Everything—plans, moods, finances, social activities—gets filtered through the lens of whether it will trigger use or how to manage the aftermath of use. There's no room for genuine connection because the addiction and the enabling dynamic take up all the oxygen in the relationship.

These patterns also tend to be replicated. Children who grow up watching a parent enable an addicted parent often repeat these patterns in their own relationships—either by becoming enablers themselves or by developing their own addictions. The cycle continues until someone decides to break it—and that decision is rarely easy or comfortable.

The Foundation for Change: Setting Boundaries

If enabling and codependency are about having no boundaries (or very porous ones), then recovery starts with learning to establish and maintain healthy boundaries. This might sound simple, but for people used to putting everyone else first, it can feel terrifying.

Boundaries aren't walls; they're guidelines. They define where you end and another person begins. They're how you communicate what's acceptable and what isn't in your relationships. Healthy boundaries protect your time, energy, emotional well-being, and values.

Setting boundaries often brings up guilt—that awful feeling that you're being selfish, mean, or uncaring. But here's a reframe: boundaries are actually a sign of respect. You're respecting yourself enough to honor your limits, and you're respecting others enough to let them handle their own responsibilities.

Start with self-awareness. Where do you feel most drained? Where do you say yes when you mean no? What patterns keep repeating? These trouble spots are where boundaries are most needed. You might notice you always answer calls from a certain person at 11 PM even though it ruins your sleep. Or you consistently let deadlines slide for a particular coworker. These are boundary issues.

Communicate clearly and calmly. Boundaries work best when they're stated plainly: "I'm not available for calls after 9 PM," or "I can't lend money anymore," or "I need you to handle this on your own." You don't need to justify, argue, or over-explain. Simple, firm, and kind is the goal.

Expect pushback. People who benefit from your lack of boundaries will often react negatively when you start setting them—and this is especially true with addiction. The person may escalate their behavior, make threats, express anger, or try to manipulate you emotionally. They might accuse you of being selfish, cruel, or "abandoning them when they need you most." This is actually proof that boundaries are necessary. Healthy people respect boundaries; addictions and unhealthy dynamics resist them fiercely. Remember: their reaction to your boundary is information, not instruction. You don't have to change your boundary just because someone doesn't like it.

Enforce your boundaries consistently. This is the hardest part. Setting a boundary but not maintaining it teaches people that your boundaries are negotiable. If you say you won't lend money but then do it "just this once," you've communicated that persistence pays off. Consistency is what makes boundaries effective.

Remember, boundaries can be flexible—you're allowed to say yes sometimes when you have the capacity. But they shouldn't be flexible just because someone applies pressure or makes you feel guilty.

Breaking the Cycle: Small Steps Toward Freedom

Breaking free from enabling and codependent patterns isn't about a dramatic overnight transformation. It's about small, consistent choices that gradually shift the dynamic.

Recognize the pattern. You can't change what you don't acknowledge. Start noticing when you're enabling. Pay attention to your internal dialogue when someone asks for help. Are you responding from genuine willingness or from fear, guilt, or obligation? That distinction matters.

Practice the pause. Before automatically saying yes, pause. Even a simple "Let me think about it and get back to you" creates space for you to assess whether helping is actually helpful. You'd be surprised how many requests either get solved without you or turn out to be not that urgent.

Let natural consequences happen. This is uncomfortable, particularly when addiction is involved. Watching someone you care about struggle when you could "fix" it feels terrible. You might be terrified they'll lose their job, their housing, or even their life. But natural consequences are how people learn, and they're often the only thing that motivates someone with an addiction to seek help. If your adult child gets evicted because they spent rent money on drugs, the discomfort and fear they experience might finally be the catalyst for entering treatment. If your partner faces DUI charges instead of you driving them everywhere after they've been drinking, they might finally acknowledge they have a problem. Your intervention prevents that crucial moment of clarity. This doesn't mean abandoning someone in life-threatening situations, but it does mean not cushioning every fall.

Redirect your helping energy. Instead of doing things for people or shielding them from consequences, offer support that doesn't enable the addiction. "I can't give you money, but I'll help you research treatment programs," or "I can't lie to your boss for you, but I'll sit with you while you make the call to explain your absence," or "I won't clear your browser history, but I'll drive you to your first support group meeting." This maintains connection without enabling the addictive behavior.

Seek support for yourself. Therapy, particularly approaches like Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) or therapists who specialize in codependency and families affected by addiction, can be incredibly helpful. Support groups like Co-Dependents Anonymous (CoDA), Al-Anon (for families affected by someone's alcohol use), Nar-Anon (for families affected by someone's substance use), and Gam-Anon (for families affected by someone's gambling) provide community with others who understand these struggles. These groups teach you how to detach with love—maintaining your care for the person while detaching from the chaos of their addiction. You don't have to do this alone, and ironically, asking for help when you need it is excellent boundary practice.

Accept that relationships might change. Some people will adjust to your new boundaries, and the relationship will become healthier. They might even seek treatment for their addiction once you stop enabling them. Others won't. Some relationships might end, and while that's painful, it's also informative. Relationships that only work when you're self-sacrificing and managing someone's addiction aren't truly mutual relationships. Sometimes, the most loving thing you can do is step back and let the person face the full reality of their situation, even if that means they choose the addiction over the relationship.

Celebrate small victories. Every time you maintain a boundary, every time you let someone handle their own problem, every time you prioritize your own needs, every time you don't give money to someone with a gambling addiction, every time you don't cover for someone's drug use—that's progress. Change is incremental, and you deserve to acknowledge each step, especially when facing the fear and guilt that comes with not enabling an addiction.

The Importance of Self-Care: Rebuilding Your Sense of Self

When you've spent years, maybe decades, defining yourself through what you do for others—especially managing someone else's addiction—self-care isn't just bubble baths and face masks (though those are nice!). It's the radical act of remembering that you matter too. It's rebuilding a relationship with yourself that got lost in the chaos of trying to control someone else's uncontrollable behavior.

Self-care in the context of recovering from codependency with someone who has an addiction is about reconnecting with who you are beyond your role as caretaker, fixer, or manager of someone's addiction. It's about filling your own cup instead of constantly pouring from an empty one while someone else's addiction drains every resource you have. It's about learning to be as compassionate with yourself as you've been with the person struggling with addiction—which, let's be honest, you've probably never even considered before.

Five Self-Care Rituals to Reclaim Your Sense of Self

1. Establish a Morning Routine That's Just for You

Before you check your phone, before you respond to anyone's needs, spend 15-30 minutes doing something that nourishes you. This might be prayer, reading your Bible, talking with God, meditation, journaling, stretching, or simply sitting with coffee in silence. The point is that you start your day grounded and connected—whether to God, to acknowledging you as a more than capable, loveable and valued individual—rather than immediately plugged into everyone else's agenda. Starting your morning spiritually centered or in quiet reflection sets a tone of intentionality and self-prioritization that carries through the rest of your day

2. Practice the Art of "Pleasurable Solitude"

Codependent people often feel anxious or guilty when alone, especially when they're used to constantly monitoring someone's addiction. They immediately worry about what the addicted person is doing, whether they're using, whether they're safe. Counteract this by deliberately scheduling alone time for activities you enjoy. Take yourself to a movie, go for a solo hike, visit a museum, or simply spend an afternoon reading in a park. Turn off your phone if possible, or at least silence notifications. Learn that your own company is valuable and that you don't need to be constantly available or vigilant to deserve rest and enjoyment. The person with the addiction will survive your absence—and if they don't make good choices during that time, those are consequences they need to experience, not problems you need to prevent.

3. Create a "No" Practice

Start saying no to small, low-stakes requests, just to exercise that muscle. Say no to an optional meeting, no to picking up extra shifts, no to baking cookies for the school event. Notice the feelings that come up—guilt, anxiety, fear—and sit with them without giving in. Each small "no" builds your capacity for bigger, more important boundaries. Keep a "no journal" where you record each no and how you felt. Over time, you'll see that the world doesn't end when you prioritize yourself.

4. Engage in Mindful Check-Ins

Set alarms on your phone for three times during the day. When the alarm goes off, stop and ask yourself: "How am I feeling right now? What do I need in this moment?" This practice interrupts the pattern of ignoring your own needs. You might realize you're hungry, exhausted, overwhelmed, need a movement break, or just need five minutes of quiet. The goal is to rebuild the connection between your body and mind, which codependence often severs.

5. Develop a Creative or Physical Practice

Find something that's just yours—not something you do to help others or that others can evaluate. This could be painting, dancing, gardening, woodworking, rock climbing, or learning an instrument. The activity itself matters less than the fact that you're doing it for the pure joy or challenge of it. This helps rebuild your sense of identity beyond being a helper or fixer. You're not just someone's partner, parent, friend, or employee—you're also someone who creates, moves, grows, and explores.

The common thread in all these practices is intentionality. You're making conscious choices to prioritize yourself, which directly challenges the unconscious patterns of codependency and enabling. At first, these practices might feel selfish or indulgent—especially if you've been conditioned to believe that you're responsible for preventing someone's addiction from destroying their life. That discomfort is actually a sign that you're doing something important—you're teaching yourself that your needs matter, even when someone else is struggling with addiction. You're learning that you can't pour from an empty cup, and you certainly can't save someone from addiction by sacrificing yourself.

Key Takeaways

Let's break this down into some core truths you can carry with you:

• Enabling helps in the moment but harms in the long run. By preventing natural consequences, you're preventing growth—both yours and theirs. In the context of addiction, enabling can literally prevent someone from seeking the help that could save their life.

• Codependency isn't love; its fear dressed up as devotion. Real love includes healthy boundaries and allows people to face the consequences of their choices, including their addiction. Sometimes the most loving thing you can do is step back.

• Your worth isn't determined by your usefulness or your ability to manage someone else's addiction. You are inherently valuable, not because of what you do, but because of who you are.

• Boundaries are an act of self-respect and the respect for others. They're how healthy relationships function. In addiction dynamics, boundaries are essential—both for your wellbeing and for giving the person the best chance of recovery.

• Change is uncomfortable, but staying stuck is more painful. Short-term discomfort from setting boundaries beats long-term resentment, depletion, and watching addiction progressively destroy someone you love while you enable it.

• You can't save anyone from addiction. Each person is responsible for their own recovery journey. Your job is to live your own life well, not to manage theirs. You didn't cause the addiction, you can't control it, and you can't cure it—the three C's that Al-Anon teaches.

• Self-care isn't selfish; it's essential. You can't pour from an empty cup, and you teach people how to treat you by how you treat yourself.

• Recovery is a process, not an event. You'll have setbacks. You'll slip into old patterns, especially during crises or when the person with the addiction is particularly struggling. That's normal and okay. What matters is that you keep choosing differently.

• You deserve relationships where you're valued for who you are, not what you provide or how well you manage someone's addiction. Anything less isn't a real relationship—it's a transaction built around dysfunction.

• Asking for help is a strength, not a weakness. Whether it's therapy, Al-Anon, Nar-Anon, CoDA, or trusted friends who understand addiction, you don't have to figure this out alone. In fact, trying to handle it alone is just another form of the isolation that codependence creates.

  
  

Further Reading: Books to Support Your Journey

If this article resonated with you, these books offer deeper exploration and practical guidance:

"Codependent No More" by Melody Beattie — The classic text on codependency. Beattie writes from personal experience and offers practical advice for recognizing and changing codependent patterns. It's compassionate, straightforward, and has helped millions of people.

"The New Codependency" by Melody Beattie — A more recent follow-up that addresses how codependency shows up in modern life, including in our digital relationships and with ourselves.

"Boundaries: When to Say Yes, How to Say No to Take Control of Your Life" by Dr. Henry Cloud and Dr. John Townsend — A comprehensive guide to understanding and implementing healthy boundaries in all areas of life. Includes practical scenarios and clear strategies.

"Women Who Love Too Much" by Robin Norwood — While focused on romantic relationships, the insights about how women often lose themselves in relationships with addicted or troubled partners are invaluable. It's particularly useful if you find yourself repeatedly attracted to people who need "fixing."

"The Language of Letting Go" by Melody Beattie — A daily meditation book with short, powerful entries perfect for ongoing support and reflection as you work on changing patterns.

"Facing Codependence" by Pia Mellody — A deeper dive into the childhood origins of codependency and how early experiences shape our adult relationships. Particularly useful if you're working with a therapist.

"Getting Them Sober" by Toby Rice Drews — While focused on alcoholism, the principles apply to all addictions. This book offers practical strategies for families dealing with addiction and provides a clear-eyed look at how enabling prevents recovery.

Breaking free from enabling and codependency isn't about becoming cold, selfish, or uncaring—especially when someone you love is struggling with addiction. It's about learning to care in ways that are actually healthy, for everyone involved. It's about recognizing that the most loving thing you can do is allow people to face the consequences of their choices, even when that's terrifying and heartbreaking. And it's about finally giving yourself the same compassion and consideration you've been giving to everyone else.

You've spent enough time trying to manage the unmanageable. You've spent enough energy trying to control someone else's addiction. Maybe it's time to redirect that energy toward yourself. Not because the person with the addiction is less important, but because you matter too. That's not selfish—that's the truth you've been avoiding for far too long, and it's the truth that might actually create space for real change.

The journey from enabling to empowerment, from codependency to healthy interdependence, is one of the most challenging and rewarding paths you can take, particularly when addiction is involved. It won't be easy, and it won't be quick. You'll be terrified at times. You'll question whether you're doing the right thing. You'll feel guilty. But every step you take toward honoring yourself, setting boundaries, and allowing others to be responsible for their own recovery is a step toward freedom—for both of you.

You deserve relationships where you're valued, not just needed. You deserve to know who you are beyond the role of manager, fixer, or safety net for someone's addiction. You deserve to rest without guilt and to take up space without apologizing. You deserve a life that isn't organized entirely around someone else's destructive behavior. That's not too much to ask—it's the bare minimum of a life well-lived.

Start small. Start today. Start with one boundary, one "no," one moment of putting yourself first. Stop giving money for gambling. Stop calling in sick for hangovers. Stop hiding evidence of drug use. Stop making excuses for gaming binges. Whatever the enabling behavior is, start there. And then do it again tomorrow. Your future self—rested, boundaried, and authentically connected—will thank you. And who knows? Removing the safety net, you've provided might finally be what allows the person with the addiction to fall enough to reach for help.

Laurél Kimpton, MPS, LADC, is the founder of Indigo Recovery LLC, an independent addiction counseling practice in Minnesota. With over five years of experience in addiction treatment and nearly two decades as an Integrative Wellness Specialist and Coach since 2008, Laurél brings a holistic approach to recovery. Her work is driven by a deep passion for integrative health and genuine compassion for those on their healing journey.