In taking another 5th step, I realized that I had recreated the home of my childhood.  I had the good mommy role and my husband was the bad daddy. As I stated there, he acted out his misery by having an affair and leaving me.

This experience has led me on the path of healing my childhood wounds. I was the oldest child–or rather, I was the youngest parent in that home. I took my duties so seriously that I taught myself to deny pleasure. In return, the power connected to this role of being the boss was my first addiction. One that I am only now giving up.

I believe those of us growing up in violent homes suffer from PTSD. I was particularly drawn to the definition of PTSD. Wikipedia defines it as “Posttraumatic stress disorder^[1][2] (commonly referred to by its acronym, PTSD) is a severe anxiety disorder that can develop after exposure to any event which results in psychological trauma.^[3] This event may involve the threat of death to oneself or to someone else, or to one’s own or someone else’s physical, sexual, or psychological integrity,^[1] overwhelming the individual’s psychological defenses.”

In reading about Iraq veterans and PTSD, I identified immediately with the social isolation. I have done this all my life. Although I am a loner and am suspicious of anyone not content being alone, isolation leads me to paranoia and discontent. I am learning a balance finally because I am now free to talk about all my feelings.

I have also identified the brain chemistry associated with my codependency. So I have begun learning how to reparent myself.

So, you can imagine my delight to read this post: What causes addiction? by Jann Gumbiner. Over my 33 years in addiction recovery, I have read many articles and books about the origins of addiction. I was thrilled to find in this article a mention of Dennis Thombs’s book, Introduction to Addictive Behaviors. What I identified with was his belief that we used our addictions to combat feelings of anxiety (fear) that we never learned to process.

My comment to this post:

“After 33 years of recovery from alcoholism, I am so grateful for your mention of Dennis Thombs’s Introduction to Addictive Behaviors”. It so resonates with my experience. My reaction the first time I drank was akin to finding the Holy Grail. I only ever had the same experience when I had been in labor for 33 hours with a double footling breech delivery. I remember gulping down the pain killer that they could only give me as she was through the birth canal.”

I will continue researching PTSD, codependency and addiction as I know that my addiction began when as a child, I didn’t l know how to deal with anxiety and fear. Instead I used these feelings of power over people to feel better myself.

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Addiction is not difficult to understand. Accepting we or a loved one is an addict is difficult. The only reason that people use a substance or a position (power) or food is to change their feelings.

Often the addict has a large reserve of hurt moments or experiences which s/he uses to prove why her/his life is so tragic.

I know this because during my addiction to alcohol I had saved up every hurt feeling or experience and I remember consciously choosing which feelings to use where. This all gets tremendously labor-intensive if the same people are seen very often as new abuses have to be “used”. So the ever resourceful addict creates sad, bad, horrible experiences that never happened. I think this behavior could safely be called “crazy”.

This behavior is what mental health professionals use to “prove” the mental illness. The problem is no one has been able to prove the medical model of the disease theory. So, as far as I am concerned, the disease theory is a theory.

Instead, I believe, that when we are under the control of an addiction, we make increasingly bad and hurtful choices. Remember, the addict is living in his/her head in a world of their own creation. Pile those crazy choices on top of the fantasy in one’s head and the addict is miserable. The misery is self-inflicted and he/she is the only one who can choose to leave that miserable state.

I believe mental health to be fluid and we are each in and out of it several times a day. I know I am healthy when I know I am crazy because I didn’t used to know the difference. Today, I have the choice to abandon my crazy behavior.

Addiction is very prevalent in our world. Changemaker defines addiction as any behavior that is chosen to enable a person to live a fantasy. Addicts don’t live in reality. They live in a mental world of their own creation. What an addict uses to control his/her feelings and thoughts is not important. Rather it be alcohol, food, religion, other drugs, power, money, etc., the addict is using the addiction for only one reason–to change how they feel. It is said that there are a million excuses for using the addiction but only one reason. And that reason is to change how he/she feels. When someone is living in his/her head, reality rears its ugly head in feelings. So those feelings have to go away—this is what the addiction provides. It takes the feelings away.

We believe that many of us use something from time to time to change how we feel. The addict is the person who uses the addiction on a regular basis to avoid the reality of life around them. For example, alcoholics may be daily drinkers (3-4 days weekly) or weekend alcoholics (mainly drink on the weekends), or periodic alcoholics (drink for 2-3 days in a row but do the drinking at different periods of time–also may go long periods of time (even years)–without alcohol.).
Substance addicts are easy to spot. But many more people are addicted to power (codependency), money, material possessions (living in homes/having automobiles they can barely afford), work (they will say that they have to work because they need the money–often married to poor money managers), sex, etc.

Many people are addicted to feeling bad (the victim role). Remember how we feel is our choice. It is very hard for the martyr to give up that “poor me” behavior but until both people in a relationship are free to give and receive without guilt trips, the relationship is not a positive experience for either.

The disease model of addiction has helped add to the confusion about addiction. Addicts live in a self-induced delusion. The delusion is that the world revolves around them. In reality, the world doesn’t revolve around any individual.

As John Powell has written, we each need a Copernican moment when we realize the world doesn’t revolve around us. Remember Copernius went against all other thinkers to say that the Sun didn’t revolve around Earth, but that Earth revolved around the Sun.

In other words, some of the main issues in addiction treatment are maturity issues. The age at which a person started drinking, using, eating, buying, being overpowering to others, using sex, etc. is the emotional age he/she still is. If he/she started at age 15, which is pretty normal, then he/she is age 14 emotionally.

So recovery is generally about growing up. Another main issue of why people are addictive is to continue to live life in their head or in their imagination. No one knows reality–we only have a perception of reality. But living in our head is not being free and open to life.

As the hero in 10 Million Ways to Die says, “I never knew that I lived in a world that I hadn’t created.”  That is why the addict experiences such anger at having to give up the addiction. It seems to the addict that his/her use can only be pertaining to him/her. In reality, the addiction is affecting everyone in the addict’s life.

Read more here.

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In the process of recovery, I learned that I was a “top-dog” in the relationship power position in the codependent role I learned as a child. If one looks at any family, some family members will be the “boss” or top-dog and some, for lack of a better word, will be the “slaves”or underdog. This arrangement teaches each of us who we “are” in the family of origin.

Being the eldest in my family of origin meant that I was the first to test the arrangement and to try to move into the boss role. Needless to say, much conflict with my parents occurred. A general “who do you think you are” was the assessment of my leadership ability. Because my parents never resolved the power between themselves, I was elected “it”. Then they were each free to find fault with my solutions.

This was not a family with peace as the main objective of family life. During my early recovery, I studied much about codependency. I was fortunate to find the books by Melodie Beatty which helped to give up the old roles in power plays. In learning what later became the Changemaker roles, I found that I have a high amount of logic energy so problem-solving is easy for me.

I also learned during this period that I had to step back emotionally from my parents and any relationships that I was playing “top-dog” in. Eventually my parents joined me in learning better ways to relate. My five years living in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba during my early recovery made it easier for me to try new ways of relating.

Today, after 32 years of continual recovery from alcoholism, I find myself in another codependent relationship. How do I know it is codependent? When I am the main, and sometimes only giver, then the relationship is the old power play.

If the relationship between another adult and me is about what I can do for the other, then I can’t emotionally afford that person. If the giving is a one-way street, then I am hooked again. If the other person is too “busy”, “weak”, “sick” to ever find ways to please me, then I have jumped on my white horse again.

The problem with this balance of power is that the “giver” feels used and abused and unappreciated. Bring me flowers or clean my house or invite me out to lunch or take me for a ride to the ocean–all things that I enjoy– to show me that you appreciate me. This balance of power “game” is owned by the “taker” or “slave”. And, if and when, the “giver” gives up the relationship, the “taker” turns to another sucker on their wide list of “givers”.

I can see it happening all around me. In any game of power, the winner is the one who is most getting everything s/he wants. My wonderful mother who is waiting for me in Heaven used to call me long-distance to tell me what she had done and ask if I thought that this was co-dependent behavior.  I used to laugh and tell her that she wouldn’t have called to ask if she didn’t already know the answer.

It isn’t always easy to give up power to get peace. Peace should never be a substitute for self-esteem. Keeping your mouth shut all the time means that you are stuffing your feelings. But I am finally learning that being happy is more important than being “right”.

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Anyone who has worked in a workplace with a “good daddy/mommy” or a “bad daddy/mommy” knows this experience also. I have trouble with rage addicts because I grew up with a father addicted to rage–he was a rageaholic. So I have to keep a close check on my codependency around them as I have a basic desire to kick them in the behind–in a ladylike way, of course. But judgment hurts me as well as the other so I try to remember to pray for tolerance when in the company of someone who wants to control me with his/her anger.

The following sites have good references to the ACOA characteristics. Don’t be surprised if you identify with a few of them.

(1) Codependents Anonymous is the coda site. This site includes a great list of characteristics centering around denial (“perceive myself as being completely unselfish and dedicated to the well being of others”), low self esteem pattern (“I do not ask others to meet my needs or desires”), compliance (“I am extremely loyal, remaining in harmful situations too long) and control (“I have to be “needed” in order to have a relationship with others.

(2) Mental Health Issues includes this:” There are identifiable core issues that ACOA’s experience. Control is one such issue. The fear of loss of control is a dominant theme in their lives. Control dominates the interactions of an ACOA with themselves as well as the people in their lives. Fear of loss of control, whether it be over one’s emotions, thoughts, feelings, will, actions, or relationships is pervasive. ACOA’s rely upon defenses mechanisms such as denial, suppression in order to control their internal world of thoughts and feelings as well as the outward manifestation of those thoughts, feelings, and behaviors”.

(3) The Dr. Janet Woititz site has resources including a video for ACOA. The site refers visitors to AA Family Meetings. The 13 characteristics are listed on Dr. Jan’s site.

A current blog post about why some ACOA’s thrive in the addiction and the characteristics they learned from being in the addiction.  Great article and I recognized why creativity has been my salvation.

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The following excerpts are from the blogs I read in my Google Reader (the world’s best RSS reader).

1.  On My Mind (Christine Stapleton): “Depression, Codependency and My Cape”:

“I am codependent. I do not know where I stop and you begin. Your problems are mine. I will rescue you. I will say “Yes” when I really want to say “No.” I will carry ALL your baggage. I will ping-pong between being a martyr and a field marshall. I will get so caught up in you that I forget about me. I am enmeshed. I have no identity without you and your problems.”

“This is my codependency. It is the fuel for my depression and alcoholism. I believe it will kill me before my depression and/or alcoholism. I resent you for getting yourself into these jams. I resent myself for getting myself worked up about you getting yourself into your jams.”

“If you are an alcoholic, like me, codependency is like a bad, itchy rash on your trigger finger. It gives you a reason to drink for someone, at someone and to someone – even yourself.”

“My codependency is so crippling that I went to treatment for it after my last major depression. It helped and I am better. At least now I recognize when I am in the throes of a codependent crisis – which actually kind of makes it more frustrating because I still don’t know what to do.”

2.  I’m Just F.I.N.E.-Recovery in Al-Anon: “Distorted thinking”:

“I think that co-dependency is something that starts at a very young age.  It probably starts with repression of feelings in which a child has to “walk on egg shells” around a dysfunctional family member.  For me, that was my dad.  My mother covered up and denied there was anything wrong. So there was really not much honesty in feelings or trust within the family.  Everything seemed to be “swept under the rug.”

“Consequently, the stress mounts and the child learns to be anxious.  And along with the stress and anxiety, some unhealthy ways of survival are learned.  One of those ways to survive is to deny one’s own feelings.  So instead of basing self-worth on my own feelings and actions, I began to base my self-worth on the opinions, needs, and moods of the person I wanted to please.  In my case, it was my father.”

3. A Room of Mama’s Own: “What is Codependence?”

“But codependence (or codependency) is harder to define and to recognize. After all, codependents can seem, to themselves and others, like hapless victims, in the wrong place at the wrong time. Or they can be perceived (especially by the codependent) as doing good work rather than harm, because the harm they are doing is largely to themselves. But if addiction is an unhealthy attempt to escape trauma, codependence is an unhealthy attempt at damage control.’

“At its heart, codependence is a distorted way of seeing oneself and one’s relationship to the world, which results in unhealthy (sometimes self-destructive) behaviors in relation to other people. Codependence is viewing the world in a fun house mirror and reacting as if you had a huge head and the people around you had huge asses, or vice versa. Codependents want to put the world right, but can’t because they are reacting to a distortion.”

“Generally, codependent beliefs and responses are the result of growing up in a dysfunctional family where at least one member had a (usually unacknowledged, active and untreated) addiction or mental illness. Neglect, abandonment or verbal, emotional, physical or sexual abuse may have been present as well. This background skews the codependent’s sense of “normal.”

“Codependence can span a wide variety of behaviors: from highly controlling and demanding of others to overly compliant and lacking in assertiveness, from extremely self-reliant to extremely needy, from distrustful and fearful of intimacy to naive and overly trusting, and sometimes a mixture of all of the above. Someone who is codependent may seem like “the nicest, most easygoing person ever” or “the biggest control freak ever.” (Personally, I’m a little bit of both.)”

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1.  I’m Just F.I.N.E.–Recovery in Al-Anon: “Distorted thinking”:

“I seem to be posting a lot of heavy stuff this week.  I do plan to lighten up for the weekend. Yesterday’s post brought about some good comments.  I want to address one by Mary LA who wrote: “But what about the distorted thinking and voice of the codependent who is obsessed with that alcoholism? That makes me equally chilled. Those who don’t want the alcoholic/addict to get better.”

“I think that co-dependency is something that starts at a very young age.  It probably starts with repression of feelings in which a child has to “walk on egg shells” around a dysfunctional family member.  For me, that was my dad.  My mother covered up and denied there was anything wrong. So there was really not much honesty in feelings or trust within the family.  Everything seemed to be “swept under the rug.”

“Consequently, the stress mounts and the child learns to be anxious.  And along with the stress and anxiety, some unhealthy ways of survival are learned.  One of those ways to survive is to deny one’s own feelings.  So instead of basing self-worth on my own feelings and actions, I began to base my self-worth on the opinions, needs, and moods of the person I wanted to please.  In my case, it was my father.”

“As Mary noted in her comment, the co-dependent person may actually feel more depressed and unhappy once the alcoholic is sober.  I think here of Lois who was so angry that Bill W. was attending AA meetings. She finally threw her shoe at him in a fit of rage and yelled, “Damn your old meetings.”

“This type of crazy thinking, fueled by anger, was what got me into Al-Anon.  I knew that I was angry, empty, worn out, and emotionally bankrupt.  I was using very unhealthy thinking to relate to other people.”

2.  Through an Al-Anon Filter: “Two Tiny Steps Forward, One Giant Step Back”

“My sober-for-years-but-not-in-recovery-for-long alcoholic, it seems like the minute I give them any encouragement or support, they take it like a “get out of jail free” card, and start to treat me like crap again. How do I give any positive feedback, when they just use it against me?”

“Oh, have I been in this writer’s place – and it was a mystifying landscape through which to travel. One of my alcoholics is just this way, and I have had to learn that any support or encouragement I give has to be non-personal. If I put anything of myself into it, this person will then see me as vulnerable, and go on the attack. When I’m around this alcoholic, I feel as I might were a tiger in the room with me, waiting for the slightest sign of weakness, always ready to spring. That tiger never sleeps.”

“If this person says, “I have been trying harder,” and I reply, “Yes, I’ve noticed that and I’m very grateful, and you are a good person…” I’ve just bought myself some mistreatment at their hands, because they see that the way a tiger might see me strapping some steaks to myself, and then walking back and forth an inch from its muzzle.”

“Sober is not recovery. Sober is sober, and while I can be grateful for the sobriety, if I see it and recovery as all of a piece/the same thing, I’m going to suffer for that misconception.”

“With this alcoholic, when they say “I have been trying harder,” I have to reply with something along the lines of: “That’s great; working your program will benefit you and those around you,” and leave it at that. I have to keep myself and what I think, completely off the table. They will often try to put me back onto the table with questions like, “You’ve noticed, right, you’ve noticed I’ve been trying harder?”

3. Suicidal no more: “The Weight of the World  (Codependency) and Being Lost”:

“A lot has been going on with my family lately. There is a lot of stress involved. I have this problem: I take on the world’s problems and worry about them incessantly. I have done this my entire life. I was the first child and the first grandchild in my family. They say I always told the younger kids what to do. Once when I was four years old, someone hollered down the basement of a relative’s home and said, “Is anyone down there watching the kids?”. I said, “I am!! Don’t worry!”. And so it began.”

“People don’t want my help all the time, or my advice. But some people do tell me a lot about their problems, and I feel that I need to try to help somehow. It is, in certain occasions, totally useless to do this. In other situations, I do help people in a tangible way. But it’s the thought process that is a problem. It is the amount of time I spend focusing on other people’s problems that is dysfunctional. I’ve been getting sick to my stomach for months worrying about a particular person; my anxiety has been through the roof. I can’t stop worrying, and the worrying eats away at me, makes me miserable, distracts me from the things I need to do to live my own life, and doesn’t change the other person’s situation very much in the long run anyway.”

“One of the things I like about Al-Anon is the idea that you detach with love. That you can’t cure someone’s drinking problem (or other problems), and you didn’t cause the problem, and that’s just how it is. There are a lot of books out there about codependency, and I have looked through some of them, and found that I am described there quite well. I’m not totally codependent, but I have the signs of it. I feel that my family’s well-being is my responsibility, deep-down, and the thing is, my family is never doing well. My family is always caught up in financial problems, mental health problems, drinking problems, life management problems, anger problems, etc. It seems sometimes, that they are never just, plain happy. And neither am I. I’m content sometimes, but I don’t feel much happiness – or, at least not for very long. If this stress was removed from my life, if I didn’t constantly take on the woes of the world, then perhaps there would be space in my life for true happiness.”

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High Bottom Drunk

Some of the personal stories from the website:

I Almost Choked to Death on My Own Vomit
Tim R., Longview, Texas
It takes what it takes.

Something to Live For
Carl A., San Antonio, Texas
Even cold hearts can find warmth.

Sober Since Seventeen
Jan P., Little Rock, Arkansas
You don’t have to be old and ugly to find recovery.

I Drank With the Best of Them
Barbara T., Charlotte, NC
You don’t have to be a big redneck man to drink like one.

You Can Get Off on Any Floor &
Tilex Changed My Life
Vicki M., Daphne, AL
“Accidental” sobriety brings self-awareness and serenity. In this case, Tilex was no ordinary bathtub cleaner.

Sober, Happy, and Free
Rick S.
When you’re no longer afraid to die.

Let Go and Let God
Klara R., Tylertown, MS
God takes care of me when I get out of the way.

A Brother’s Love
Joey (Anonymous)
Short and sweet.

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Anyone growing up in these family conditions will have problems with intimacy, boundaries and difficulty expressing feelings. I believe that the focus on helping others must be in dealing with these three areas. Talking about your past does very little to help with today. The first time anyone talks about an incident in the past is the only valuable disclosure. From this disclosure can come the seeds of today’s solutions.

Living in the here-and-now is the only direction for mental and emotional recovery. Realizing what is beautiful about today and how can anyone can help to make life better will guarantee happiness. If we are living in the past we can’t be in the present. The recovery only works if it is focused on the self and not others.

We are probably all codependent at one time or another. It is only harmful when it is the basic pattern of  relationship choice. It happens sometimes that another person gets more of our attention than we are giving to ourselves. But the codependent uses concern to gain power over others in the classic position of “top-dog”. Codependency is a pattern of loving someone excessively in order to control the other person.

Healthy relationships have shared power. The main reason for conflict in relationships is power and how it is shared. Shared power in relationships is the only ingredient in relationships that determines how healthy the union is. Unfortunately, when a person decides to give up his/her addiction, if he/she is part of a couple, the other partner will also have to change. Without the addiction to feed the addict’s sense of reality, the recovering person is awakened to the reality of the power balance in the relationship.

The addict is addicted to the idea that he/she is “controlling” the addiction (“I can quit any time I want to.”). The codependent is addicted to the belief that he/she is “controlling” the addict (by telling them when to drink/use–how to drink/use–how much to drink/use, etc.). The reality is that the addiction is in control and is controlling both partners.

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