Every September, SAMHSA sponsors Recovery Month to increase awareness, understanding of mental, and substance use disorders, and celebrate the people who recover. The 2019 theme is Join the Voices for Recovery: Together We Are Stronger.
This, the 30th Anniversary of National Recovery Month, proves recovery is not winding down—it is stepping up to a growing understanding that addiction is a disease.
Hmm, I wonder, does that include the co-addict, the codependent, the enabler whose obsession it is to cure, change, and control the addict.
Until we take the first step and admit we are powerless—that it is our lives that have become unmanageable—we will pass this dysfunctional behavior on to our children.
Our children’s children.
And their children.
I think you get the picture.
Following are two definitions of how enabling is not in anyone’s best interest.
Co-dependency is a learned behavior that can be passed down from one generation to another. It is an emotional and behavioral condition that affects an individual’s ability to have a healthy, mutually satisfying relationship (emphasis added). . . . people with codependency often form or maintain relationships that are one-sided, emotionally destructive and/or abusive. . . . Co-dependent behavior is learned by watching and imitating other family members who display this type of behavior. http://www.mentalhealthamerica.net/co-dependency
“In a codependent relationship, there is usually one person who is more passive and can’t make decisions for themselves, and a more dominant personality who gets some reward and satisfaction from controlling the other person and making decisions about how they will live (emphasis added).” By Beth Gilbert Medically Reviewed by Judy Mouchawar, MD, MSPH https://www.everydayhealth.com/emotional-health/do-you-have-a-codependent-personality.aspx
If you’re the dominant decision-making partner in your relationship, tell me, how’s that working out for you?
Hot-tempered people must pay the penalty. If you rescue them once, you will have to do it again (Proverbs 19:19 NLT).
