10/02/2018
CODEPENDENCY
Like enabling, the term co-dependency refers to being over-involved in another person's life, having a preoccupation with other people's behavior and a sense of guilt when not tending to the other person's needs. Melodie Beattie, in her book Codependent No More: How to Stop Controlling Others and Start Caring for Yourself, describes the "rules of codependency" as the following:
It's not OK for me to feel, or, my feelings aren’t useful/important in the situation.
It's not OK for me to have problems, I should be quiet about it if I do.
It's not OK for me to have fun, I have to take care of everyone.
I'm not lovable, it would draw attention to me, and I’m not important.
I'm not good enough, but everyone takes advantage of me and I resent it.
If people act bad or crazy, I'm responsible.
Experts encourage codependent family members concerned about a loved one to remind themselves regularly (perhaps several times a day): "I did not cause the problem. I cannot cure the problem. I cannot control the problem”. I can offer assistance, but the person with the addiction or behavior disorder must take responsibility for it and must be the primary person responsible for getting help."
Experts also urge all family members to take care of themselves by getting enough sleep, eating right, and having time for themselves. Family members living with users/abusers often neglect their own care because they become preoccupied with caring for the other person.
A relationship where codependency occurs is enabling addiction. A person who is codependent may have a lot of characteristics and personality traits which tend to enable the addict to maintain their addiction, or the abuser/engager to engage in the wrong behavior. Codependency is often defined as taking care of another person in a way that is not healthy to either that person or themselves, or both.
This is caring for the person as they consider themselves to be inferior, submissive, or patronizing in the way that they believe “they can’t get along without me”. A codependent person derives their self-esteem from “doing” for another, not themselves. They are overly involved and immersed in the person's life. They can feel guilty if they do not “go along” with the other person, and even putting themselves in an abusive or controlling situation. Their guilt can lead to acts that "enable" the addict/engager to continue.
Enabling behaviors are acts by those surrounding the addict/engager which contribute towards the maintenance of the behavior. This may be through providing money, making excuses for them, bailing them out of jail, drinking and drugging with them to bond or deepen the relationship, helping them to buy more drugs or alcohol or which help them to avoid the negative consequences of their behavior, or covering up what they have done by rationalizing to themselves and others.
Both are self-destructive and harbor a significant amount of denial about how the addiction and self-destructive behaviors are affecting their health status. The codependent person often has a greater incidence of stress-related illnesses which typically accompany the codependent personality traits. This may include heart disease, high blood pressure, ulcers, insomnia, and, due to the extreme anxiety, depression, tension, and other destructive habits.
The enabler may themselves be addicted to non-chemical substances such as food, ci******es, etc., family, financial, and work situations. These patterns of the codependent person will usually help both the codependent person and the addict to continue to spiral into self-destruction. Codependency and addiction/dysfunction go hand in hand.
Codependency and Enabling
How much a family is affected by either an active addiction problem, or the practice of dysfunction depends on how long they have lived with it, how advanced it is, how much shame and secrecy surround it, and the roles and responsibilities of the people in it as individuals. If the problem is severe and left untreated, family members will also develop destructive behaviors, such as addiction, denial, enabling, and triangulating.
Because certain behaviors become routine, they may have trouble seeing how unhealthy they are as a family, and how each person contributes to the problem. It may have become “normalized”in their lives.
DENIAL
Denial occurs when family members do not recognize, or refuse to admit, that addiction or dysfunction is causing serious health, work, school, relationship, or financial problems. Family members are prone to denial about how serious the problems are, how it has spread through the family affecting everyone, family relationships, and how they themselves may contribute to the problem. As the problems progress the family becomes more severely affected, and the family's denial may also, until the truth becomes so obvious and the crises so dramatic that denial doesn't work anymore.
ENABLING
Enabling includes behaviors by family members that allow the problematic behaviors to continue, and helps them to avoid the negative consequences of their actions. It can include many things, such as:
collecting money from family and friends to pay the person's bills.
repeatedly covering up for someone at work, calling in “sick” for them
moving someone when they pass out in the living room, cleaning up vomit.
staying silent in the face of repeated inappropriate or destructive behavior.
Enabling can be done by parents, siblings, co-workers, supervisors, neighbors, friends, teachers, doctors, or therapists. Although enabling begins as a way to protect the person from harm, the enabler eventually becomes part of the problem.
