I was married for many years without realizing I was married to an addict. Once I got into program, I learned that addiction has many forms.

I continued to enable addicted friends and family while learning to distinguish between enabling and helping. The simplest rule being that if I am doing for the other person what they can do for themselves, then I am enabling.

Recently I was verbally assaulted by a “friend” I had been “helping.”

Once the pain and shock wore off, I was able to look at the situation from the other person’s perspective. I realize she had an expectation that I would always “help.” That expectation was crushed when I said “no.”

Years of effort in this program give me perspective. I know that my anger is linked to my resentments. I know that my resentments stem from my expectations.

If every time I enable a friend, I actually disappoint their expectations, then over time my friends will each have a boat load of resentments. Inevitably there will be a time when my enabling falters and all those resentments come pouring out.

I need to work my program every day, every hour, and every minute. I work hard to release all my resentments. I try to avoid expectations. Going forward, I am also going to put more effort into examining my actions. I learned to stop enabling my spouse. I learned to minimize how much I enable addicted friends and family. Now I need to learn how to avoid enabling my clean and sober friends even within this program.