Hi everyone, my name is Dr. Dan Bochner. I'm a psychologist and author of two books, one published 10 years ago entitled The Therapist's Use of Self in Family Therapy. The second I have called The Emotional Toolbox: A Manual for Mental Health and have posted in its entirety on my website, DrBochner dot com. The following article is an excerpt from that book. I hope you like it.
Codependency
by Dr. Dan 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 one's 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 one's 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 one's confidence to stand alone and be independent, if necessary, that can truly free them from codependency.
