^{Photo by Wil Stewart on Unsplash}

When people encounter trouble, family is the first to offer their shoulders for one to cry on, their hands to pull themselves up. But is there a point when love is detrimental?

A family’s love is unmatched.

It’s among those connections people have that can move mountains and build bridges to be around each other and ensure everyone is safe, happy, and thriving. If there’s anything families are to be associated with, these are emotional support and unconditional love. As people’s immediate and direct companions, families are usually the first to respond whenever trouble arises. They’re always there to ease people’s pain and alleviate inconveniences without asking for anything in return.

They want nothing but to see each other succeed and have meaningful lives, always readying themselves to push others forward and overcome obstacles hindering their growth.

A family’s love is wholehearted and unreserved. But often, their love may be too much, too blind, that it becomes detrimental more than beneficial. They tirelessly seek any means to alleviate trouble from one another, but often, their efforts wind up with the opposite and contradictory results. This is primarily a common occurrence (and mishap) when they’re faced with substance abuse and addiction.

Operating from a place of loyalty and love, families are likelier to enable these circumstances than help cure or pull victims away. Although they do it with pure intentions and intimate motivations, this concern and behavior still lead to wronging the victim and worsening their condition.

Hindering addiction leads to withdrawals; this is a situation where victims fall into despair and a temporary painful sequence of symptoms before they’re given an out from addiction.

However, loving as they are, families often fail to see the bigger picture. They don’t consider what happens after but only look and worry about their family members’ current struggles. They see withdrawals not as a journey, the last stop toward becoming better. Instead, they see it as a life-or-death situation veering towards the latter as the victim becomes extremely disturbed. And with this, families most likely fail to support them throughout this endeavor and end up enabling their previous behaviors.

How families withstand challenges surrounding alcohol abuse is discussed in My Alcoholic, My Love, a book about alcoholic family help. The story revolves around the author’s family, riddled with struggles that come with seeing a member fall victim to dependency.

She bears the uncertainty and hesitation she faced upon deciding whether to leave or stay with her alcoholic husband. Every page of the book calls for a decision, a bargain between love and safety, a better life, or a complete family. As the author finds herself torn between fulfilling the vows she once shared with her husband and honoring her role as a mother protecting her children, readers get to place themselves in her shoes and imagine a life bearing the same problem.

My Alcoholic, My Love is a book that draws out a choice in everyone; a moral debacle of what they’ll do if they’re in such a position. Having responsibility over substance-dependent individuals can be likened to hell on earth; as one feels the desire and is compelled to help the victim, they’re also in a tight spot with how limited and restricted their assistance can be.

From an outsider’s perspective, it may feel as light as a breeze imagining how to help the individual overcome their addiction. It’s easy. Take away the stimulants and enroll them into a recovery program. Without the direct connection and without directly seeing the debilitating consequences of addiction, relaying these insights and advice can be easy. But when experiencing and seeing how challenging getting over an addiction is, it can also be easy to give in and act on opposing behaviors.

Often, families don’t even realize they’re enabling the behavior.

Sometimes, all they see is the relief the victim receives after they’ve done what they think is right. When offering them assistance that provides temporary relief but a long-term debilitating effect, families believe they’re only helping their loved one meet their needs, thus alleviating their struggles.

Enabling hides in spaces, families may not be looking. Often, they can hide in activities that don’t pose detrimental consequences, those that feel like they’re helping, but in actuality, they’re only pushing the victim down toward their rock bottom.

Hence, to avoid confusion, enabling can be put as allowing the addicted individual to do what they’ve been doing and indulge in their dependencies without consequences. This goes beyond the behavior of using and activities that branch out and lead to it.

A family’s love is unconditional.

It’s a powerful emotion that seeks to ease and constantly help each other. Their purpose is set to allow each other to live a comfortable and peaceful life, which makes it easy to fall trapped into enabling patterns.