20h • General discussion
When Does Helping Becoming Enabling?
⚠️ Fair warning: apparently, I woke up and chose a slightly deeper conversation today.
I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the difference between enabling someone and advocating for them.
Addiction is one obvious place this shows up, but honestly, I think it applies to so much more — a serious health diagnosis, aging parents, adult children struggling, mental health, finances… or even something as ordinary as a teenager dealing with school, responsibilities and the consequences of their own choices.
When you’re standing close to someone you love, “helping” can get incredibly complicated.
The distinction I keep coming back to is:
Enabling helps someone avoid what they need to face.
Advocating helps someone access what they need to move forward.
Advocacy might look like researching treatment, asking questions at a doctor’s appointment, helping navigate resources, making the right phone call, tutoring your kid or helping them make a plan.
Enabling might look like constantly rescuing, financing, covering, fixing — or removing every uncomfortable consequence before they ever have to experience it.
And then there’s that giant gray area in the middle where I suspect most of us have lived at one point or another.
Maybe the question isn’t simply, “Am I helping?”
Maybe it’s:
What belongs to me to help carry — and what belongs to them?
Because sometimes helping means stepping in.
And sometimes helping means letting the 17-year-old learn that if he bails on something, there are consequences.
❓So, I’m curious: How do you know when you’re supporting someone versus carrying something they need to carry themselves? ❓
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When Does Helping Becoming Enabling?
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