the.com/enabler
The friend who hands you a shovel and calls it support while you dig.
means Someone who makes it easier for another person to keep doing something harmful, often by removing consequences or supplying excuses.
from Built from 'enable' — Latin 'habilis' meaning able or fit for a task, plus 'en-' to put into a state. Originally neutral, simply meaning to make something possible. The therapy and addiction-recovery world of the mid-20th century gave 'enabler' its darker twist, applying it to family members whose help quietly kept a dependency alive — and that clinical sense is the one that stuck.
- origin
- Term exploded via addiction-recovery language in the 1980s
- disguise
- Often looks exactly like love or loyalty
- tell
- Keeps the peace today, guarantees the crisis tomorrow
- irony
- Believes they are the only one holding things together