So What Is Codependency?
So what is codependency? This is a question often asked and often passed over as not applicable to me. It certainly was a very difficult concept for me to grasp. And for the longest time (like almost 4 decades at the time), I didn’t even try because I didn’t think it had anything to do with me. But for those of you who’ve read my book and “met” Alex, you know it was Alex’s admittance to a residential alcohol treatment program that turned my life upside down (or more accurately, right side up!).
You can imagine my reaction when the family therapist at the treatment center suggested I get help. “Me? Why me? He’s the alcoholic!” I’d argue. She explained that my getting help would not only help me, but it would also help him. While I wanted to help him, I didn’t have time, I complained. I was already juggling life “outside” while he was in residential treatment. The last thing I wanted was to have to do one more thing to help him. I’d been doing that for years!
I continued to resist her gentle suggestions for weeks, until desperate, I finally took her advice and started attending Al-Anon meetings. I doubled my weekly individual counseling sessions with my therapist and forced myself to find time to attend additional family group sessions at the treatment center. And, as a writer and researcher, I buried myself in books, conversations with others in my situation and websites addressing alcoholism, alcohol abuse (excessive drinking) and addiction. It was during this search that I learned the name of my “condition” — a condition commonly referred to as “codependency.”
It may be hard for you to accept this right now, but I can tell you that coming to grips with codependency gave me back my life. And believe me, I completely understand if the very thought of labeling yourself “codependent” makes you want to close this page and never return to the website. I didn’t like the word “codependent,” either. And know there is no need to label yourself or put yourself down for something called codependency, especially if you are in the middle of an entanglement with an alcoholic or alcohol abuser; it’s how you’ve survived. At the same time, if you want to unravel that entanglement and take steps to move forward in your life, the information shared on this website can help.
Here is some of what I’ve learned.
- Alcoholism or alcohol abuse don’t just strike one day, like waking up with the flu. Instead, they eke and creep and slowly crawl forward. In order to accommodate and survive the progression of the alcoholic’s disease or a loved one’s excessive drinking (alcohol abuse), the people who love him (or her) have had to adapt and change their thinking and behaviors and join in the denial protecting the drinking. In other words, they’ve had to adopt their own version of denial.
- Through all of this adapting and accommodating of the alcoholic’s and/or alcohol abuser’s drinking behaviors, family members unconsciously collude to make the unacceptable acceptable. (1) Just as the alcoholic or alcohol abuser is focused (dependent) on alcohol, the family members’ lives are focused (dependent) on the alcoholic/alcohol abuser — they are “co” – “dependent” with the alcoholic/alcohol abuser on his or her addiction to or excessive drinking of alcohol.
- This is why alcoholism is often referred to as a “family disease”(2) and codependents are often referred to as “enablers.” It’s also why a codependent’s denial-type behaviors are often called “enabling” (enabling the alcoholic/alcohol abuser to continue the denial that protects their drinking).
- Compounding the problem for everyone concerned is society’s inaccurate view of alcoholism as a problem that results from a shameful lack of willpower. This assumption — which is wrong — drives the alcoholic and his or her loved ones to continue making one Herculean attempt after another to battle the disease in isolation. And it drives the alcohol abuser and his or her loved ones to find ways to excuse the abuse for fear it might be labeled “alcoholism.”
- Additionally, society is even more silent about what life is like for the family and friends who love the alcoholic or alcohol abuser, and presumes that if the individual stops drinking, then all should be well with them, too. This is another gravely destructive assumption. As I’ve mentioned, I had been living with alcoholics, alcohol abusers and the family disease of alcoholism for decades by the time I finally admitted, “I need help!” It wasn’t until the course of my recovery work that I finally admitted how many intimate relationships in my life included alcoholics/alcohol abusers — talk about DENIAL!
I think this is enough for now, but please share your thoughts and comments about what you think codependency is or is not. I’ll be back in a few days to give you the more official definition, as well.
(1) Brown, Stephanie, Ph.D. and Virginia M. Lewis, Ph.D., with Andrew Liotta, The Family Recovery Guide, A Map for Healthy Growth, Oakland, CA: New Harbinger Publications, Inc., 2000, p. 3.
(2) Ibid.
Lisa Frederiksen
Latest posts by Lisa Frederiksen (see all)
- Does a Loved One Have to Hit Bottom? - November 20, 2022
- Resources for Parents of Children with Substance Use and Mental Disorders - October 18, 2022
- 4 Things to Support Brain Health and Function for Recovery - August 30, 2022
I wanted to comment on what you said about co-dependency.
I think most of us who love an addicted person are co-dependent to one extent or another. Also a lot of us are enablers.
I am embarrassed to admit that I was so co-dependent while my son was struggling with his disease and yes, we did enable him, that I was almost as sick as he was, perhaps more. Enablers enable usually out of much love for the addicted person and the belief that they will save the person by enabling, whether this is calling in sick for them at work, or giving them money and paying their bills, or whatever. My co-author in my first book I Am Your Disease is Heiko Ganzer LCSW, CASAC and he offers enormous insight into enabling on this book and also Slaying the Addiction Monster.
I only wish I had truly known all about addiction, co-dependency and enabling while my own son was struggling. Could I have saved him? Probably not, but I would have had a better understanding of the torment that he was going through.
While my son was struggling to beat the addiction, we had many fights. Mind you, my son and I had an extremely close bond. He always told people that I was his best friend. But the addiction got in the way of our loving relationship many times. I was devastated by his drug use and lived in constant fear that I would lose him. Frustrated, he would say “Mom this is not about YOU. It’s about ME. I’m a drug addict and will have to fight this for the rest of my life.” I would tell him “No, no Scott. You’re smart, you can beat this. You are not an addict.”
I was in such denial. I just could not accept that my son suffered from something that he could not control. My every waking moment was spent worrying about him, waiting for his phone calls, worrying when the phone would ring, worrying when the phone would not ring. I was Queen of the Co-Dependents. It was my life. It was my sickness. But it was a sickness borne out of love for my son. I could not, and would not, give up on him.
It’s very easy to admonish people not to be co-dependent. Would that it were that easy to stop being co-dependent. As moms we are nurturers. It’s our instinct to do all that we can to save our child. Sometimes in trying to save them, we just add more fuel to the fire. Although we may realize this on some intellectual level, it’s the emotional level that does us in. In our own misguided way we will do whatever we can, whatever it takes to try to save our child.
Ultimately, the only thing that stopped my co-dependency, was the unbearable loss of my son at age 31. His suffering has ended. Ours endures.
Thank you again for speaking out about the disease of addiction.
Dear Sherry,
I am so terribly sorry for your loss — as a mother, I can only imagine the heart-breaking pain you must feel.
Thank you for sharing your thoughts on codependency so that others may see the importance of understanding the condition of codependency (and the disease of addiction) and what they must do to help themselves, which in turn, allows them to be more effectively helpful to their loved ones.
I think what you are doing to share your experiences, strength and hope so that others may not know your kind of pain is truly courageous.
Thank you.
Lisa
[…] sight and control of our own. Here are some previous posts to get you started: About Letting Go…, So What is Codependency?, Codependents Have a “Brain Thing” Going On, […]
[…] sight and control of our own. Here are some previous posts to get you started: About Letting Go…, So What is Codependency?, Codependents Have a “Brain Thing” Going On, […]