What is codependency addiction?

 ADDICTION BLOG    By Lisa Espich

What Does Codependency Mean?

Are you wondering, “Am I codependent in a relationship?” Simply put, codependency is an emotional and behavioral condition that results in unhealthy relationships. Some of the negative patterns that develop include enabling, denial, low self-esteem, and control issues. Codependency is also sometimes called “relationship addiction.”

In families that are dealing with an addicted member, codependency is a common problem. It is difficult to be in a relationship with an addict and not fall into codependent behaviors. While these patterns don’t happen overnight, most people who live with an addict for a sustained period of time eventually take on codependent tendencies.  How to stop a codependent relationship takes time, awareness, and effort.

What Are Codependent Behaviors?

So what do codependents do? What typically happens is, as the addict gets worse, the family members become mentally and physically unhealthy as well. They spend sleepless nights worrying, suffer from stress-related illness, lie to avoid shame or embarrassment, become financially strained, and grow increasingly resentful toward the addict. This is why addiction is often called a family disease.

While there are many destructive patterns involved with codependency, two of the most common are enabling and denial. Let’s take a closer look at these two behaviors:

1. What Are Enabling Behaviors?

When somebody you care about is suffering with an illness or a disease you naturally want to help. As a result, loved ones often step in to save the addict from the devastating consequences of their actions. This is called enabling. It is difficult to be in a relationship with an addict and not get sucked into enabling behavior.

Family members believe they are doing the right things when they help to save the addict’sjob, help him or her to stay out of jail, help to pay their overdue bills, or save them from whatever horrific thing is getting ready to happen. But, in most cases, it’s not helping. Instead it is making it easier for the addict to continue drinking or using drugs because the consequences aren’t bad enough to convince him or her to stop.

If loved ones can learn to let the crisis happen for the addict, the consequences could be enough to convince the addict to accept help. So how can somebody love an addict without stepping in and enabling the addiction? You do this by treating the addict with respect (expecting him or her to handle their own responsibilities), getting educated to understandaddiction, and offering hope and words of encouragement.

2. How Is Denial A Drug?

Along with enabling comes the behavior of denial. The addict denies his or her problem, the family denies how bad things have gotten, and emotional or psychological abuse is often denied as well.

When family members refuse to admit that the addiction is causing serious health, relationship, and financial problems – this is called denial. Denial is a defense mechanism. Sometimes we are faced with something that is too uncomfortable to accept, so we reject it, insisting that it is not true despite evidence.

As addiction becomes more severe, the family’s denial may get worse as well, until the problems become so obvious that denial is no longer possible.

Help Getting Over Codependency

If you have a loved one struggling with addiction, and you have fallen into these codependent patterns, now is the time to reach out for help. If you can’t find the courage to do that, then how can you expect the addict in your life to find the courage? Set the example and lead the way to positive change.

Family support groups, such as Al-Anon, are one of the best forms of support available. Through these groups you will learn how to handle the challenges of living with an addict, learn to set healthy boundaries, and discover how to create an environment that encourages recovery.

Recovery Connections: PAIN KILLER DEATHS TRIPLED IN TEN YEARS

Recovery Connections: PAIN KILLER DEATHS TRIPLED IN TEN YEARS: By Will Godfrey   THE FIX According to a new government report, an epidemic of prescription painkiller abuse is causing more fatalitie...

PAIN KILLER DEATHS TRIPLED IN TEN YEARS

By Will Godfrey  THE FIX

According to a new government report, an epidemic of prescription painkiller abuse is causing more fatalities than heroin and cocaine combined.

Just in case anyone still doubted the extent of the prescription drug epidemic gripping the US, along comes a report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention detailing a huge surge in painkiller abuse and overdose deaths—which have tripled in the past ten years. In 1999, 4,000 people died from painkiller ODs. By 2008, that had risen to 14,800 attributed fatalities—Heath Ledger was the most famous of them—or 4.8 per 100,000 population. And with 12 million Americans—5% of those aged 12 and over—using these drugs unprescribed in 2010, mortality rates are unlikely to have dropped since, as the report notes. Death is typically caused by respiratory depression, which stops you breathing. Sales to pharmacies, hospitals and doctors' offices of opiod painkillers like OxyContin and Vicodin have quadrupledsince 1999. In 2010, enough opiod painkillers were sold to give every single American adult a 5mg dose of hydrocodone every four hours for a whole month.

Painkiller abuse is highest among white and Native American populations, in rural and poor areas, among men and among middle-aged people. Many get hooked on legitimately prescribed drugs, quickly building up a tolerance. In some areas, many of these addicts move onto use heroin—although to describe this as an escalation of the problem is perhaps missing the point, when prescription pain pills themselves now kill more US citizens than heroin and cocaine put together. What's more, these stark stats actually underestimate the lethal impact of painkillers, because many death certificates fail to specify the drug responsible. So where's the hope here? Well, the government can hardly ignore numbers like these; a federal prescription tracking program has been approved by every state except Missouri and New Hampshire this year. And the nature of supply is more concentrated, and so perhaps more easily targeted, than the countless street-level dealers of previous illegal drug epidemics: one study showed that just 3% of doctors account for 62% of all the opiod painkillers prescribed in the US, and they can now expect to find themselves under more scrutiny than ever. "It is an epidemic but it can be stopped," says CDC Director Thomas Frieden"

The United State of AA

By Susan Cheever   THE FIX

After hundreds of meetings in almost as many places, our intrepid columnist discovers the one thing, despite the diversity and differences, they all they all have in common: a state of mind.


I went to my first Alcoholics Anonymous meeting long before I was an alcoholic. On a summer evening, when I was in my 30s, after dinner with my parents at their house in Westchester, my father suggested that I keep him company at one of the meetings he was going to every night. He had been sober a few months after spending 28 days at Smithers, a New York City rehab.

In that short time our family had come alive again. There were no more drunken fights and taunts, no more Daddy passed out in the living room, no more delirium tremens, and no more scary late-night racing to the local hospital ER. (My brothers and I were stealing the signs in the hospital parking lot, expressing our grief as larceny; we agreed that when he died we would steal the largest one—the big red-and-white “One Way” arrow.)

The AA meeting that summer night was at a long wooden table under high windows in the parish house of the local Presbyterian church. As the last daylight faded, I listened to people I had never seen in my life talk with startling honesty about their problems and their feelings. One handsome man in a suit and tie confessed that he was afraid of what his son might be up to at college; another man was worried about his marriage because his wife had gotten a job and seemed to have lost interest in the household. The woman next to him talked about her anger at her boss. My father confessed his fear that he might drink on an upcoming trip to Russia.


I have found the same connection among strangers at Jitters, the Log Cabin, the Dry Dock, Morning Glories and the Shoes That Fit.

Somehow, I felt at home at that long table in a room that smelled of furniture polish and coffee. I raised my hand and thanked them all for helping my father. Even though I was not an alcoholic, I said, I had really enjoyed the meeting. The handsome man in the suit smiled in unconditional welcome. “Keep coming back,” he said.

That same sense of connection was present in the meetings I went to with my father in the ’70s, in the meetings I went to when I first got sober in the ’80s and in the meetings I have been going to since 1992 when I had what I pray was my last drink. I have been to meetings in Vermont and California, Florida and New York City. Alcoholics often name meetings, and I have been to Jitters in Minneapolis, the Log Cabin in Los Angeles, the Dry Dock in San Francisco, Morning Glories in Cambridge, Mass., and the Shoes That Fit in Saratoga Springs.

In Vermont AA members complain about snow removal, tree problems and balky oil burners. In Los Angeles they complain about the movie industry. In New York they complain about real estate.

Alcoholism and recovery are great levelers, and meetings often include Harvard grads, high school janitors and homeless men, famous actors and half-recovered alcoholics with uncontrollable tics, rich people who complain that AA won’t accept their money (there is a limit of $3,000 on annual giving) and people who are hoping that the meeting will end with someone paying for their dinner (it very often does). Many meetings are held in grotty basements where cockroaches roam and fluorescent lighting shows worn linoleum. It doesn’t matter at all. That sense of belonging with strangers that I first felt in the Presbyterian church parish house almost always hits me within a few minutes of walking through the rusty door. It’s more than the psychology of the group, and it has a power beyond what I feel in church on Sunday.

“The feeling of having shared in a common peril is one element of the powerful cement that binds us,” the book Alcoholics Anonymous explains in chapter 2, titled "There is a Solution." “But that in itself would never have held us together as we are now joined.” The joining feels like magic. And this particular magic, this freedom from anxiety, this temporary peace and feeling of belonging, is almost exactly what I looked for in the bottle when I was drinking. A drink could calm my mind and shift improve my perspective. A drink could make me feel at home in the world. In a dark bar I had what I thought was a deep and meaningful connection with the other drinkers—that is, I had it until the lights went on after last call and I wondered if I looked as drunk and shabby as they did.


This particular magic is almost exactly what I looked for in the bottle when I was drinking.

The great psychologist Carl Jung famously explained to Bill Wilson that the only cure for alcoholism—the disease of drinking spirits—is spirituality. Only the spirit (spiritus) can conquer the spirits (spiritum). “You see, ‘alcohol’ in Latin is ‘spiritus’ and you use the same word for the highest religious experience as well as for the most depraving poison,” Jung wrote Wilson in 1961. “The helpful formula therefore is: spiritus contra spiritum.”

What creates this magical experience, this powerful, healing spirit, these “vital spiritual experiences” and “huge emotional displacements and rearrangements” that Jung described.

Clearly, it is not necessary to think you are an alcoholic in order to have this feeling of belonging in a meeting. Is it the spirituality of the group, the common prayers and litany, the shared relief of finding a way to stay sober? Is it the power of men and women with similar experience? Our stories are often very different, but we have all faced the same kind of despair.

It is all that and something more. As Bill Wilson wrote, “We have found much of heaven and we have been rocketed into a fourth dimension of existence of which we had not even dreamed.” AA meetings are where we find that fourth dimension of existence.

Susan Cheever, a regular columnist for The Fix, is the author of many books, including the memoirs Home Before Dark and Note Found in a Bottle, and the biography My Name Is Bill: Bill Wilson—His Life and the Creation of Alcoholics Anonymous.

Talking Urinal Cakes Fight Drunk Driving

Authorities in Michigan plan to deliver PSAs to a captive male audience. You can hear them here.

If you've ever thought, “Gee whiz, there should be more ways to deliver anti-drunk driving PSAs,” you're in luck. Michigan officials have come up with a radical idea to interact with drinkers: talking urinal cakes. Motion-activated, the talking cakes will shower captive audiences with some golden advice: shake off any notion of driving drunk. Authorities plan to deliver 400 of the devices to 200 locations in time for July 4. “Listen up. That’s right, I’m talking to you," the talking urinal cakes begin, in a warm, mellow woman's voice. "Had a few drinks? Maybe a few too many? Then do yourself and everyone else a favor: call a sober friend or a cab. Oh, and don’t forget to wash your hands.” The cakes are made by Wizmark, and the Maryland-based company claims to manufacture the first and only interactive items of their kind: some sing and flash lights, others help keep the streets clear of drunk drivers. Authorities aim to drive home their message by making it part of the inevitable final bathroom break that men take right before they leave the bar. The talking urinal cakes also take advantage of bathroom “guy rules,” as the Detroit News points out—by which it's socially mandated that men must only look straight forward or down while at the urinal, never talking or making eye-contact with neighbors. The only sound remaining—almost—will be the speaking urinal cakes. Listen up to a couple of the prototype messages:



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Recovery Weekend XXVII NEW JERSEY

Posts in category Capital Area Events

EARLY MORNING RECOVERY 21ST GROUP CELEBRATION
MAY21
2012LEAVE A COMMENTWRITTEN BY ADMIN


EARLY MORNING RECOVERY
21ST GROUP CELEBRATION

50 ESCHER STREET
(BASEMENT) REAR
TRENTON, NJ

JUNE 16, 2012
8:30 – 11:00 AM
FOOD, FUN, & FELLOWSHIP

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Recovery Weekend XXVII Speakers Wanted!!!
MAY21
2012LEAVE A COMMENTWRITTEN BY ADMIN


Speakers Wanted!!!
Do you have experience and a working knowledge of the Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions?

Would you like to share the experience, strength, and hope of your journey through the Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions?
Sign up today and join us at

Recovery Weekend XXVII
Sept. 28 through Sept. 30, 2012

Contact:
Michele S. (609) 731-5192
Ted T. (609) 647-8174

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Recovery Weekend XXVII
MAY21
2012LEAVE A COMMENTWRITTEN BY ADMIN


Recovery Weekend XXVII
Sept. 28 through Sept. 30, 2012
YMCA Camp Ralph S. Mason
23 Birch Ridge Road Hardwick, N.J. 07825
$ 115 per person early bird
Free t-shirt included
$ 120 per person after August 30th
(No personal checks accepted after August 30, 2012)
There is a charge for day visits. Please call for info
Lodging, meals, canoeing, boating, fishing, archery, riflery, nature walk,
NA MEETINGS, and new this year “Zip Line”
Please bring with you: bedding or sleeping bag, pillow, clothing, toiletries.
Optional: flashlight, folding chairs, fishing gear, etc.
We are staying in SPRUCE LODGE again this year.
Make check or money order payable to CAASC
Mail to: Capital Area Recovery Weekend
P.O. Box 649
Trenton, N.J. 08605
Contacts: Michele S. (609) 731-5192
Ted T. (609) 585-8055

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