The art of enabling. It is something that I know first-hand. My younger brother sunk into drug addiction in his later teenage years. He had two major enablers - my grandmother and mother. Though she will deny it, my mother is just as guilty. My grandmother did it because she was in denial of his drug problem and figured she had the money to spare and it was HER money to do as she pleases. The money from my mother, however, was technically my father's (and he soon put a stop to this on both parts). No drug addict will ever recover if they have someone constantly providing them with money - they need that safety net. Even if they claim the money is for something else - a car payment, bills, etc. - that could still be a lie. Or they are behind on payments because of their drug use. As long as they have somewhere to softly land, a drug addict will never get better. They need to hit their rock bottom. My brother, I hope, has finally hit his own personal rock bottom as he spends the next five to seven years in state prison.

BM had a few enablers, but it was mostly her mother. DH would take away the keys so BM could not leave the house to go out and get drugs and her mother would let her use her own car. He would lock up the money or hide it so she could not buy any drugs and her mother would give her money, no questions asked. She kept insisting that DH needed to keep BM in the house for the children. She used the children as pawns. When BM was living with DH, she never had an issue watching them while DH was at work. Whenever he kicked BM out of the house or he wouldn't bail BM out of jail, her mother would claim she "didn't have time" to watch the children for him. Her story would change as soon as he allowed BM back into the house or she was released from jail. It went on and on like this. Her mother was BM's soft place to land, her own personal safety net. Around four years, her mother passed away. I told DH that this would be the opportunity for BM to hit her rock bottom, now that her biggest enabler was no longer with us. Without fail, she was again arrested and went back to jail (less than a month after her mother's death). She had no one to bail her out, no one to visit her, send her money to buy things. At this point and time, she was utterly and completely alone. I thought that once she got out, without her mother, she might actually turn herself around. But alas - less than a year after her release, she was back in jail. 

The enabling has passed on from BM's mother to her older sister. She will loan her money, not even asking what it is for. She denies there is any type of drug problem still (even though SS has told us a different story). She sold BM her house when she moved away. She even pays for the plane tickets to have BM come visit her and allows her to babysit her small child. The enabling is still continuing and that is why I know that she will never truly recover or get better.