Abstract
The present study examined changes in enabling and coping among 32 family members who attended a 6-week community-based educational and support group designed for family members of substance abusers. Participants completed the Enabling Behaviors subscale of the Behavior Enabling Scale (Rotunda & Doman, Citation2001) and the 8 subscales from the Brief COPE Inventory (Carver, Citation1997) at pretreatment, posttreatment, and 30-day posttreatment follow-up. Participants reported significantly less enabling behavior from pretreatment to posttreatment and from pretreatment to 30-day follow-up, and significant improvements in active coping (i.e., Positive Reframing, Use of Instrumental Support, and Behavioral Disengagement), but no reduction in emotion-oriented coping.
Acknowledgments
We would like to thank Nora Hamel and Dr. Jeffrey Sheldon at the participating community services board, and Gabrielle M. D’Lima, Robert Milletich, and Matthew R. Pearson for their comments on an earlier version of this article.