Candace, my parents and me went through a bit of counselling years ago for my brother's drug addiction. That is when the term "enabling" was the new concept. Each of us in the family were assigned our "roles" as to how we were enablers. That is also when we first heard the term "tough love". My parents began practicing that and it was very difficult. As it turned out for my brother, he never got clean. He ended up in a pharmacy late at night trying to get more medication, had a seizure from withdrawals, fell on the concrete floor, fractured his skull and was brain dead. My parents had to make the difficult decision to remove his life support. He was in Florida at the time, probably just moved there for the easy access to drugs. Anyway, his body was flown back to TN for his funeral.

Tough love is very difficult to practice, and the fear of my tough love resulting in my daughter's death is always something playing in the back of my mind. Although I know it wouldn't technically be my fault, it would be very hard not to feel that I somehow let her down.

I appreciate your posting this thread. It is a good reminder.

Kim