When Caring Too Much is Bad | Darlene Lancer

Caring too much? Is it even possible when worried about a loved one’s drinking or drug use and what that loved one is doing to themselves and others? Here to help us understand this dynamic and what to do about it is Darlene Lancer, author of Codependency for Dummies and Conquering Shame and Codependency: 8 Steps to Freeing the…

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Toxic Shame | Guest Author Darlene Lancer

Toxic shame – sometimes called Internalized Shame – is typically at the root of codependency or addiction. Here to help us understand this dynamic and what to do about it is Darlene Lancer, author of Codependency for Dummies and Conquering Shame and Codependency: 8 Steps to Freeing the True You. Darlene’s latest eBook is titled, Spiritual Transformation in the Twelve…

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Setting Boundaries YOU Can Live With

Last week I wrote a post on setting boundaries with addicted family members and touched on why we keep moving our boundaries and what a person can do to prepare themselves to set and stick to the boundaries they need/want to set. (To re-read that post, click here). This post goes further to give you tools on how…

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Master of Manipulation – the Disease of Addiction

If you live with and/or love a person with the brain disease of addiction, you can probably relate to this poem I wrote several years ago. I know that until I finally understood addiction for what it is – a chronic, often relapsing brain disease, I never saw the real puppeteer pulling all of our strings…

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How to Spot Manipulation – Darlene Lancer

Darlene Lancer on Shame

How to spot manipulation can be a key to one’s recovery from the affects of growing up or living with untreated alcoholism or addiction. Author of Codependency for Dummies and Conquering Shame and Codependency: 8 Steps to Freeing the True You, Darlene Lancer explains how to spot manipulation in today’s guest post…always a pleasure to share Darlene’s work! How to Spot…

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Darlene Lancer Shares Her Thoughts on People-Pleasers

Darlene Lancer on Shame

Author of Codependency for Dummies and Conquering Shame and Codependency: 8 Steps to Freeing the True You, Darlene Lancer shares her thoughts on people-pleasers … Are You a People-Pleaser?  Do you ever feel trapped? When you want to say no, you feel guilty, but sometimes feel resentful when you say yes – damned if you do and damned…

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Betrayal – An Assault on One’s Ability to Trust

Darlene Lancer on Shame

Betrayal comes in many forms and is certainly a huge part of the relationship dynamics in families with untreated addiction or substance abuse, as family members jockey to accommodate, forgive, deflect or disbelieve the substance misuser’s promises to stop or cut down. In the following guest post, Darlene Lancer, JD, MFT, and author of Codependency…

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Reframing Codependency as Secondhand Drinking

Reframing codependency as secondhand drinking (or drugging) – for heavens sake, why? and why would it even matter? In the world of addiction treatment and recovery, we often refer to family members and friends of addicts | alcoholics as “enablers” or “co-dependents.” Their “condition” is called codependency, and they’re encouraged to get help. But to…

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