Are You Codependent: Do You Have Enough Distance
The word co-dependent is thrown around all the time. It is frustrating to a loved one of a drug abuser or alcoholic to watch things go on the same way. Someone who is codependent somehow needs to be needed and this can get in the way of both the person’s recovery as well as your own well-being. Sometimes codendency means that you love someone so much you deny or overlook their issues.
Look at your own motives. Do you block out the problem? Or do you notice it but get very soft when it comes down to any discipline that is required by your partner or family member? For instance do you unconsciously support his or her weakness whenever he gives in to a social gathering and ends up drinking or doing drugs?
Another phrase used is enabling. Enabling is some way that you may be mothering the person too much or making their life easy so that they don’t have to face themselves. This doesn’t mean you have to be blunt or too direct. But it does mean your focus should be firm and to keep your eye on the fact that the person needs to make healthy choices in relation to treatment and addiction recovery. If you keep picking up the pieces, this pattern won’t stop. You know that in your heart of hearts. Babying someone can keep them in the addictive pattern behavior and it’s hard to see someone face a struggle but soothing it for them all the time won’t ever get them to reach the point of a true change of life. No one wants to change but staying in the same pattern is very deadening and on some level you know you are hiding when you do that.