You more than likely enable out of your own low self-esteem. You haven't gained the ability to say no, without fear of losing the love or caring of that other person. People who learn tough love have to learn that their former behaviors have been enabling and that to continue in them would represent allowing the other person's pattern of behavior to continue and to worsen.

It is difficult to stop enabling if you’re trying to do it with all authority. And it's not easy until you know you deserve to stop. Until you know that you are endearing regardless of what the person you've previously enabled says to the contrary and until you raise your own self-esteem enough to be that strong. You may think it's the other person who needs all of the help, in truth, you both do. 

Stanley Binion is the author of the recently released Stan’s Story. Stanley Binion is President/Owner of With Sinc Public & Community Housing Services F.R.D.T. Programs & Ranch’s Inc., a nonprofit organization committed to helping people understand the psychological damage caused to children who are raised in homes with domestic violence. Our goal is to help adolescents, young adults and parents understand and avoid the pain and costly price of addiction. We are also a Feed The Children Partner Agency. For more information visit www.stanleybinion.com.