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Enabling & Co-Dependence: Disrupting The Cycle Of Relapse

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What Are The Benefits Of Healthy Boundaries?

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Support For Recovery

Boundaries encourage addicted individuals to accept responsibility for their actions and seek help for their addiction. By not enabling or rescuing them from the consequences of their behavior, family members motivate them to seek recovery.

Improved Communication

Clear boundaries foster open and honest communication between family members and the addicted individual. This can lead to healthier relationships and an improved understanding of each other’s needs and expectations.

Establishing Personal Responsibility

Boundaries help the addicted individual understand that they are responsible for their actions and the consequences of their addiction. This leads to increased accountability and a much greater likelihood of recovery.

Reducing Codependency

Boundaries encourage addicted individuals to accept responsibility for their actions and seek help for their addiction. By not enabling or rescuing them from the consequences of their behavior, family members motivate them to seek recovery.

Emotional Stability

Boundaries help reduce emotional turmoil for the addicted individual and family members alike. By establishing healthy limits, family members maintain emotional stability and avoid being consumed by the behaviors of the addicted loved one.

Promoting Healthy Relationships

Clear boundaries support the development of healthier relationships, both within the family system and with the addicted individual. Over time, this leads to increased trust, understanding, and empathy.

What Are The Harms Caused by Enabling?

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Enabling shields the addicted loved one from the consequences of their actions, perpetuating avoidance of responsibility. This hinders their willingness to confront their addiction and take steps toward recovery.

Enabling removes the need for the addicted loved one to face the full impact of their actions, leading to a lack of motivation for change and perpetuating their addictive behaviors.

Enabling fosters a victim mentality in the addicted loved one, allowing them to avoid accepting responsibility for their actions. This victim mindset hinders personal growth and self-awareness and leads to more relapse. 

Enabling perpetuates substance abuse by removing the natural consequences of addiction. This behavior inadvertently supports their destructive habits, hindering their path to recovery and healing.

What Are The Consequences of Not Following Through With Established Boundaries?

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Enabling the Addiction: By not enforcing boundaries, the loved one’s addiction is enabled, making it easier for them to continue their harmful behavior without facing the necessary consequences to support change.

Loss of Trust: Not following through on established boundaries results in a loss of trust between the addicted person and their family members. This makes it much harder for the addicted person to seek help, thus promoting relapse.

Hindered Recovery: Failing to enforce boundaries significantly impedes the addicted person’s recovery process, as they never benefit from the full impact of their actions and the attendant need to change.

Codependency: Not following through with boundaries fosters unhealthy codependent relationships, where family members feel responsible for the addicted person’s well-being, leading to worsening stages of relapse.

What Do Healthy Boundaries Lead To?

Boundaries promote self-responsibility, empowering the loved one to take charge of their actions and choices.

Healthy boundaries encourage the loved one to seek help and embark on recovery.

Open discussions about boundaries foster better communication and understanding between family members.

Boundaries allow time for self-reflection, helping the loved one to gain insights into their addictive behaviors.

Breaking enabling patterns liberates the loved one from the burden of codependent relationships.

By navigating boundaries, loved ones learn to process emotions and cope with stress more healthily.

Healthy boundaries rebuild trust among family members, strengthening the support system.

Embracing and respecting boundaries paves the way for sustainable recovery and a brighter future.

By setting healthy boundaries, family members contribute to the addicted loved one’s growth, recovery, and overall well-being, leading to positive changes for everyone involved.

Fast Facts about Burning Tree Ranch

Established in 1999 as the Nation’s Only Long-Term, Progress-Based Mental Health and Chronic Relapse Addiction Treatment Program.

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Learn more about enabling & dependency

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Enabling and Codependency: Influencing Relapse

Our program is committed to addressing the complex needs of individuals who find themselves caught in the cycle of relapse. Through this work, we’ve identified a critical factor that often influences the success or setback of a patient’s recovery journey: the role of family dynamics, specifically enabling and codependency.

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Enabling & Codependency
KRISTINA ROBERTSON, LMSW, LCDC

KRISTINA ROBERTSON

LMSW, LCDC | Counselor
Kristina Robertson serves as Counselor at Burning Tree Ranch. Holding both a Bachelors and Masters Degree in Social Work, Kristina’s greatest joy is “watching our clients learn to love themselves again.” An avid equestrian, mother to twenty-one horses, and all-around animal lover, Kristina serves as a bright shining example of long-term recovery in action. Her commitment to whole person health: mental, physical, emotional and spiritual makes her an invaluable member of the Burning Tree Ranch clinical team. As a distinguished Phi Theta Kappa and Alpha Zeta member, Kristina believes deeply in each client’s pursuit of becoming their best selves.

"who is a burning tree client?"

Beth Legacki, Burning Tree Ranch Alumni