Nobody sets out to enable their child's addiction.
Nobody sits down one morning and thinks: today I am going to do something that makes this worse. Nobody makes that choice. What they do, over and over, in a thousand small moments across months and years, is choose love. Or what love looks like from inside the chaos of it. And sometimes — often — those two things are not the same.
This is week two of our series following Susan Laing's journey through The Devil: Diary of an Addict, the book she wrote alongside her son Gavin Dixon. Last week we talked about the early stage — the knowing before you know, the isolation of seeing something that nobody else is ready to name. This week we are going deeper into the part of the story that Susan tells with extraordinary honesty: the middle.
The part where the love starts to look like enabling.
And where you cannot see it from the inside.
The Mechanics of Enabling — From the Inside
I want to try to describe how enabling actually feels from the mother's perspective. Not from the clinical outside — the textbook definition, the checklist of behaviours — but from the inside. Because if you are in it, or if you have been in it, you know that it does not feel like a mistake. It feels like the only possible response to an impossible situation.
Your child is in pain. You can see the pain. You have a way to relieve the pain right now. The action you are about to take — giving the money, making the call, smoothing the situation over — will stop the pain for now.
So you do it.
And you do it again the next time. And the time after that. Because every time you do not, the pain gets worse before it gets better, and you are not sure it is actually going to get better, and the risk of being wrong in that direction — the risk of withholding when withholding is the wrong call — feels catastrophic.
What Susan shows us in the book is that this is not weakness. This is love operating in a context it was not designed for. Love in ordinary circumstances says: relieve the pain. And love is usually right. But in the context of addiction, relieving the pain is sometimes the most effective way to ensure the pain continues.
The Moment the Cycle Becomes Visible
There is a shift that parents in this situation often describe. A moment — or more often a slow dawning — where they begin to see the pattern from the outside, even while they are still inside it.
They notice that the situation they just resolved is identical to the situation they resolved three weeks ago. They notice that their child is not, by any visible measure, moving toward getting better. They notice that they are more exhausted than ever, that the relief of fixing things lasts less and less time before the next crisis arrives.
Susan describes this recognition with a kind of terrible clarity. She could see what was happening. She could name it. And she still could not immediately stop, because the behaviour was not driven by logic — it was driven by love. And love is not a switch you turn off because someone shows you a diagram.
π Enabling is not a character flaw. It is love that has not yet learned the right expression for this particular situation. You cannot shame your way out of it. You have to understand your way out of it — slowly, with support, and without self-hatred.
What Susan Had to Learn About Herself
One of the most remarkable things about Susan's section of the book is her willingness to look honestly at her own emotional needs — not just her son's. Because enabling, if we are really honest, is not only about the child. It is also about the parent.
Watching your child suffer is not a passive experience. It activates something primal and fierce. The need to fix it is partly about your child's pain and partly about your own inability to tolerate their pain. And when those two things are tangled together, it becomes very difficult to make clear-eyed decisions about what actually helps.
Susan had to learn — and it took time, and it was not linear — to sit with her own discomfort instead of immediately acting to relieve it. She had to learn that her discomfort at her son's suffering was not a reliable guide to good action. And she had to learn that her own needs — her health, her stability, her life — were not irrelevant luxuries in the middle of her son's crisis.
None of that is easy. All of it is necessary.
The Two Things That Can Coexist
Here is what this part of Susan's story illuminates that I think is deeply important for any mother in this situation:
You can love your child completely AND stop doing the things that are making it worse. These are not opposites. They feel like opposites. They are not.
You can refuse to bail your child out of a consequence AND remain entirely, unconditionally present for them emotionally. The love does not have to go away. The expression of the love has to change.
You can draw a line AND still be the person your child calls when things fall apart. Having limits does not mean slamming the door. It means keeping the door open on terms that do not destroy you both.
π Detachment with love is not a technique. It is a long, difficult process of learning to love differently. Susan did not figure it out overnight. You do not have to either. But you do have to start.
This Week's Invitation
If you are somewhere in the enabling cycle — whether you can see it clearly or only sense it around the edges — here is what I want you to sit with this week:
One question:
When I do the thing I always do — give the money, make the call, smooth it over — am I relieving my child's discomfort, or am I relieving mine?
One resource:
Al-Anon (al-anon.ca) and Nar-Anon (nar-anon.ca) exist specifically for families in this situation. They are not therapy. They are other mothers who have been exactly where you are. Go.
One book:
The Devil: Diary of an Addict by Gavin Dixon and Susan Laing is available now on Amazon. This is Part One — the descent. Part Two is coming.
Next week: the part nobody talks about. What happens to the mother when her child hits rock bottom — and how she survives it, or tries to.
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Let's Talk
When have you caught yourself "saving" when you knew, somewhere underneath, that saving was not the right word? What does that moment feel like from the inside? Share as much or as little as you like.
Disclaimer: Thrive Momma Coaching provides general education and coaching, not therapy, medical, or legal advice. If you or your child is in crisis, please contact a crisis line or emergency services. In Canada: Crisis Services Canada 1-833-456-4566 | ConnexOntario 1-866-531-2600.
