Codependency
by Dr. Daniel A. Bochner
Codependency is the human complement to addiction. Where there is
an addict, there tends to be at least one codependent to the addict.
Codependents are sometimes thought to be weak by those who really don't
understand the issue. How could someone not force the addict to quit?
How could they put up with the addict's chaotic style of living? How could
someone let someone else treat them that way? Most people who haven't
dealt much with addictions do not understand how someone could love an
addict. They also don't see how the codependent's behavior is an expression
of the codependent's own needs, and how their relationship with the addict is
instrumental in how they define themselves.
In essence, the codependent, although they might not realize it,
understands their life's purpose in relation to the addict. Every codependent
needs someone to need them. They sometimes want to be useful.
Sometimes they want to be the catalyst for change. Sometimes they need
someone to treat them like crap. Sometimes they need someone to look to
them for strength. There are different kinds of addicts, but whichever addict
the codependent chooses, that person will fulfill the needs of the
codependent beautifully. Instrumental to the needs of the codependent,
however, and unfortunately, is that the addict remain an addict. Even where
the addict gets into recovery from the addiction, if the codependent does not
get into their own recovery, continued relationship with the codependent will
push the addict into addict behavior, if not a wholesale return to use of their
drug.
Now this issue, the needs of the codependent, couldn't be any more
complicated. There are codependents who actually take part in the creation
of the addict's personality. These are usually the parents, but can be long
time companions or spouses. And there are codependents who merely help
to maintain the negative behaviors of the addict. Either way, by definition, if
the codependent continues to be codependent, they are not helping the addict
no matter how many helpful things they might do, and no matter how much
they believe they are doing the right thing.
Some cases of codependency are easy to identify. The group is
typically defined by the codependent who allows the addict to use their drug,
makes excuses for the addict, and/or keeps understanding the addict and
giving the addict breaks. There are, however, some people who are
codependent in much more subtle ways. In all cases of addiction and
codependency, the use of substances and/or the general behavior of the
addict need to be confronted. Any communication with the addict that is not
confrontational, even if in only very small ways, has relatively little use in
disrupting the addictive process (except perhaps in forging trust with the
addict so that confrontation will be more successful later). But I have seen
numerous situations in which the codependent is apparently doing lots of
confronting and criticizing, and yet they do not see that their behaviors are,
nevertheless, codependent.
Whether a person is confronting or aiding the addict, it is the level at
which they need the addict to continue behaving in their basic addict role,
with or without their drug, that makes that person more or less
codependent. The codependent can need the addict to remain “sick” where
the codependent is “healthy,” “mean” where the codpendent is “nice,”
“weak” vs “strong,” “irresponsible” vs. “trustworthy,” “smart” vs.
“foolish”...etc. On the other hand, the codependent may well need the
addict to be “tough” where they are “vulnerable,” “confident” where they
are “diffident,” “witty” where they feel “dull,” or “exciting” where they feel
“boring.” There are an endless number of combinations of these traits that
can constitute the bond between the codependent and the addict. This
relationship is often completely unconscious and the codependent truly
believes they want the addict to get better. Nevertheless, if the addict getting
better means the codependent will no longer be able to define themselves in
distinct contrast to the addict's behaviors, the relationship between the addict
and codependent can get quite dicey.
When the codependent expects the addict to stop using, but to continue
to be the same person they have always known, it can prove practically
impossible. Without the substance, the addict often cannot engender the trait
that is needed by the codependent. Even worse, often the very traits the
codependent has said are unforgivable, and must be changed, are the traits
the codependent needs to see in order to continue defining themselves in the
contrasting, positive way to which they have become accustomed. Without
the addict being a “loser,” they cannot feel like a “winner.” If the addict
starts to give them respect, they will have to explain why they so frequently
criticize. When the addicted spouse is expected to loosen things up at a
party, but now without their drug remains restrained, remote and shy, the
other spouse will now feel embarrassed that the addict isn't active enough.
In these situations, the codependent's behavior will induce pressure on the
addict to use. The “winner” will compete with the addict until they win so
the addict will feel like a using “loser.” The addict being criticized will get
depressed, give up, and turn to their drug to avoid the codependent's wrath,
and for solace. The embarrassed spouse may well hand the addict a drink to
douse their own embarrassment, still expecting the addict to have just one.
The more diffident codependent may feel completely lost without the clearly
dominant addict, who has always bolstered their confidence with the use of a
substance. The codependent rarely sees the significance of their own needs
or just how badly they need things to stay as they are. Nevertheless, when
the addict stops using, to whatever extent the codependent really needs to
see themselves in a particular way, they will be impelled to act in accordance
with the old patterns that will likely once again bring about addict behavior in
the addict.
So, how, you might ask, does a person become a codependent?
Again, there are more and less obvious paths to codependent behavior. The
most obvious paths are those in which the codependent has grown up in the
home of an addicted parent (really these patterns develop quite similarly
around major mood disorders, but it's amazing how often substances are
related to such mood disorders, and it's amazing how often the drug involved
takes on a separate and defining meaning from moods). In the home of
addiction everyone develops patterns in relation to the addicted person. The
literature on this topic is immense, so the details will not be described here,
but the primary patterns involve helping the addict and avoiding the addict's
or the codependent's wrath as well as figuring out where one is positioned
with respect to dominance within the family hierarchy (please see article,
The Power and Control Addiction, which can apply to either the addict or
the codependent depending on the particular family).
While everyone must attempt to help the addict or avoid the addict's
wrath in the family where a parent is addicted, they will choose very
different paths with respect to dominance. Some members of the family will
identify with what they perceive to be strength in the addict, and others will
choose to identify with what they perceive to be strength in the codependent
spouse. Sometimes the spouse of the addict is the dominant personality, in
which case their wrath must be avoided, and other family members feel
sorry for, and protect, the addicted spouse. Sometimes, although the addict
has the dominant personality, the children perceive the helping of the spouse
as the real strength in the family, since the codependent helper often keeps
everything going in a positive direction. Often kids in a family will line up on
the side of having behavior problems, possibly in imitation of the
behaviorally dominant spouse, because the anger they experience within
themselves, and the level to which they feel cheated by their situation, makes
them especially sensitive to slights and makes them need to be dominant (in
all situations that do not include the dominant parent). Often other kids
within the family will line up on the side of the parent who is less dominant
because they cannot tolerate how the dominant parent makes them feel, and
they never want to engage in those behaviors themselves. These patterns
can be intricately complex and confounding. For example, a child can be
protected from the wrath of the dominant parent, but thus be allowed to get
away with everything, which eventually results in a lack of responsible
thinking, a need to be dominant due to vulnerable feelings that develop from
accomplishing nothing, and very likely addict-like or codependent qualities.
Whether a child in the home of the addict identifies with dominance or
not, they have an increased likelihood of becoming an addict or codependent
merely from being exposed to the chaos that often develops around the use
of substances. In many families, because there is so much potential for
things getting out of control, or for getting ones feelings hurt when
vulnerable, children of addicts cling desperately to the roles they have carved
for themselves. Those roles have become so familiar to them that, truly,
they only feel comfortable with other people who seem to have similar
values. They think of those who feel familiar to them (as in, almost like
family) as the “normal” people. These familiar people are those most likely
to develop complementary roles to the roles chosen by the child from a
home of addiction or compulsion. If a person has identified with the
dominant parent, they quite likely will later be a substance abuser or a
codependent who looks for someone over whom to be dominant, which thus
helps soothe them and makes them feel less chaotic. On the other hand, if a
person identifies with the non-dominant parent, they could later be a
substance abuser or codependent who looks for someone to dominate them
and treat them like their pathetic.
There is also a subset of codependents that differ quite significantly
from the rest in terms of their psychological health. When a person grows
up in a positive and supportive family where very few problems have
occurred, codependency can develop out of naivete and guilt, even when
there has been very little contact with addictive behaviors. Some people
grow up without an accurate understanding of human behavior. Because
they've been treated so well, they see the best in everyone and discount the
negative behaviors of others as though those behaviors do not reflect the
others' true spirit. If this were the only problem, these “positive home”
codependents would soon grow out of their naïve ways as their experience
with a recalcitrant addict would lead to ever-increasing upset, anger and
disappointment. However, quite often these individuals also develop
massive guilt over having been so lucky. They feel they have not truly
deserved their good fortunes or that they must be especially kind and loving
because they have been given so much. Thus, these individuals are
particularly prone to a codependency in which they continuously put their
own feelings off and see the best in the addict. They will maintain that view,
and engage in codependent behaviors, even when there is little evidence of
change, or even effort at change, in the addict, because they continue to feel
guilty and do not want to confront the addict, or anyone else, for fear of
being selfish.
These particular codependents do get something out of their
relationship with the addict in that, because of their relationship with the
addict, they are now able to feel like they are experiencing their fair share of
problems. They are also the type of codependent who is most likely to
recover from their codependency. This type of codependent sometimes
manages to separate from the addict because they do truly possess adequate
self-esteem, and they eventually feel that they have had enough. Unlike
most codependents, this type does not generally enter a relationship with the
addict based on their own past pathology, but rather simply due to being so
naïve. When they do finally feel they have had enough, this type of
codependent stops feeling sorry for the addict, and the addict must either
change or truly face losing them completely.
Finally, it is important to say that, of course, no one starts out seeking a
partner who abuses substances or aims to be a substance abuser. And no
potential addict looks for someone to need them in a codependent way.
However, it is so typical for a person to think substances are okay when
they've been raised in a substance abusing family that behaviors that start out
as “fun” can often end up involving substance dependence and the
codependency that comes with it. People are quite responsive to the
behaviors of others. If a person who was “fun” in spite of their partner's use
of substances, starts to judge that person for their substance related
behavior, abuse of the substance can actually get reinforced because the
substance begins to become the only thing that makes the addict feel free of
their partner's judgment. On the other hand, if a person acts wild and ugly
when they use a substance, but only “fun” behavior had initially been
associated with that person's use of substances, the partner may well feel
they must judge the behavior because the substance now causes so many
problems.
Codependency is such a complicated issue because it involves doing
what comes naturally. The fact of the matter is, people are attracted to
others who are familiar to them. Those are the people who treat them in a
way that makes sense to them, given the fact that they have always been
treated in similar ways within their own families. Codependents don't look
for addicts. They look for familiar types with whom they can behave in
familiar patterns. The same is true for addicts. They don't look for
codependents. They look for those with whom they feel familiar, and those
familiar people respond to their addict behavior in ways that are very similar
to the the actions seen and experienced in their families when they were
growing up. The codependent wants to care for loved ones and feel good
because they are caring. Unfortunately, their role can often slip into being
controlling and perhaps superior, on one hand, or on the other hand, pathetic
and abused. The essential and core issue in codependency is that regardless
of the codependent's actions, whether they seem helpful or confrontational,
somehow those actions lead to more and more bad behavior in the addict,
without what should be the natural consequence for the addict - losing their
relationship with the codependent. The cure to codependency is the addict's
knowledge that the codependent will leave if the behavior continues.
Leaving does not always cure the addict. However, if the codependent has
healthy self-esteem, the addict's behavior will not be acceptable enough to
continue in the relationship, no matter what the relationship was in the past.
Even the parent of an addict will not put up with addict behavior unless the
parent is a codependent. If a person leaves, they are no longer codependent
in that relationship. Thus leaving does cure the codependent, at least
temporarily, even if it does not cure the addict. True willingness and
determination to leave if things remain the same, but not leaving, can also
free a person from codependency. That is, when the addict really knows
that abandonment will be faced if their behavior continues, they do
sometimes change. Thus, fortunately, sometimes the mere willingness to
really and truly leave does lead to recovery for the entire family. In the end,
it is ones confidence to stand alone and be independent, if necessary, that
can truly free them from codependency.