Welcome to the TRN Co-Dependency Addiction home page. From here you can access the Co-Dependency chat room and forums, read articles on education or relapse prevention and check for any Co-Dependency specific TRN Events.
Codependency is a term used to describe unhealthy and destructive patterns of relating to others and ourselves. It was first used in the 1970s by Alcoholics Anonymous to describe people in relationships with alcoholics, who became obsessed with trying to ‘fix’ or control the alcoholic’s behaviour. Now it applies to anyone who sacrifices his or her own needs in a relationship to care for, or attempt to control, someone else.
On the one hand we put other people’s needs before our own, going out of our way to please and serve in the hope of gaining validation, self esteem; and on the other hand, we try to manipulate these same people into meeting our own expectations of them. When our efforts go unrewarded, we experience intense, often disproportionate, disappointment and anger, and feel victimised.
At the root of codependency is a lack of self-esteem, a feeling that we are not good enough, and that only other people can give us the validation that we so desperately seek. We also have indistinct and muddled boundaries, an inability or reluctance to define our parameters in relation to others. Distinguished from interdependence, which is when two people or more relate as equals in a mature, open ‘give-and-take’ way, the ever-anxious codependent feels compelled to put others first, at the expense of his/her needs and identity.
Codependence is usually founded on learned and maladaptive strategies that we fostered as children in an attempt to have needs met, and which are subsequently carried, unchallenged, into adult relationships.
When a child is growing up, when he or she looks up and sees adoring, non judgemental eyes of mum or dad looking back, the child will experience a healthy attachment to the parents. Conversely, when a child sees critical eyes or no eyes at all looking back, he or she will feel, at an unconscious level, bad and wrong and believe that it is something they are doing, not the parent. An anxious attachment is born in this way. Onwards from this coping mechanisms evolve, one of which may be co-dependency.
If you feel that you may be codependent, help is at hand. For as soon as we can recognise codependent patterns of behaviour within ourselves, there are measures we can take to get back to a healthy and self-nurturing way of being.
Co-dependency is a pattern of habitual self-defeating coping mechanisms. Co-dependency is usually a result of living in a home with someone who suffers from drug addiction, alcoholism, or other addictive behaviours such as food addiction, sex addiction, and gambling. It can also present where a child has experienced a trauma or unhealthy or poor attachment to a parent or parents. It also spans generations, so people carry it into their new families from their family of origin.
In these dysfunctional homes, there are three messages that are not explicitly stated but nonetheless, are reinforced everyday by unhealthy behaviours, actions, and beliefs.
These three messages are:
In healthy, functional families, all members feel free to express their emotions, talk to one another, trust one another, and they fell free to tell the truth. Living in an unhealthy environment where family members feel as if they have to continuously "walk on egg shells," however, leads to anxiety and tension. In fact, stress levels and feelings of anxiety increase in such dysfunctional homes due to the rigid and inflexible rules, norms, and beliefs that are imposed on family members who are, in many respects, "held hostage" in the current family arrangement.
In many situations characterized by these dysfunctional living conditions, the result is that the co-dependent person or persons develop habitual self-defeating ways of coping in order to survive. If this vicious cycle is not broken, the co-dependents eventually become out-of-touch with their own emotions.
Ironically, the co-dependent person also becomes "addicted." In this instance, however, it is not an addiction to a harmful substance, but rather to a destructive pattern of relating to other people in the dysfunctional household.
Due to the fact that the co-dependent eventually loses touch with his or her emotions, the co-dependent bases his or her self-worth and behaviours, not on his or her own feelings and actions, but rather on the opinions, needs, moods, and actions of the person who is an alcoholic or chemically dependent.
Ironically, these harmful relationship patterns, in many instances, are perpetuated even after the alcoholic or chemically addicted person becomes sober or "clean." Certainly, when viewed from the outside, sobriety in the household would seem to lead to a less chaotic domestic situation. When viewed from the inside, however, the co-dependents may be more depressed and unhappy than ever because the earlier balance, no matter how damaging or detrimental, has been upset.
The following is a list of the coping mechanisms typically used by co-dependents. Under each method of coping, examples are provided.
Co-dependency is a pattern of habitual self-defeating coping mechanisms that is typically the result of living in a home with a person who is an alcoholic, or suffers from an eating disorder, gambles, is a sex addict, or a drug addict. In these dysfunctional homes, there are three messages that are not explicitly stated but nevertheless, reinforced everyday by unhealthy behaviours, beliefs, and actions: don't feel, don't talk, and don't trust. Denial, low self esteem, control, and compliance are the usual coping mechanisms of co-dependents of alcohol addiction.
If you feel that you fit these presentations in any way, go into the next page and complete the self assessment questionnaire. Help is available in the form of the chat room forum, ask the expert, and 12 Step Fellowships.
