How To Overcome Codependence And Develop Healthy Relationships
Are the feelings of others more important than your own? Do you tend to suppress your feelings? Do you place the unhealthy needs of your alcoholic teen or spouse before your own? You may be subject to the tendency of co-dependence. This informative self-help video gives insight into the symptoms and origins of co dependence and allows you to master it. Let this self-help video be your first step toward better health and wellness!
-
Step 1:
-
The Difficulty For Co-Dependents
-
The difficulty for co-dependents is what they live with is someone in a constant state of having a heart attack. If somebody you are in love with is hurting themselves with alcohol and drugs there is a constant state of crisis and naturally the tendency is to look towards that other person.
-
Step 2:
-
The Psychology Of Co-Dependents
-
The difficulty is then the needs of the individual co-dependent gets lost. Very often what happens is the whole boundaries between the chemically dependant person and the co-dependent gets lost so that the co-dependent believes that it is their fault that somehow they have failed the addict, that they have not fixed them. Or they tend to believe that if the person really loved them they would stop drinking.
-
Step 3:
-
The Logic Of Addiction
-
But addiction has its own rules and its own logic and it is separate from the love of anyone. It is a physical need that comes before the relationship. And when somebody is an addict, at that time, there really is no choice to their situation. It is only when the primary addiction is not active that the person is able to choose not to start again. What I want you to do for a moment is to take a look at what happens with an addict.
-
Step 4:
-
The Psychology Of Addiction
-
At first, when somebody uses, all they want to do is to use because there is benefit to the use. It feels good, the person is social, it helps them relax, they have a good time, and they have a very small amount of cost, if any cost at all, that would make them not want to use the drug.
Most people, luckily, stay at that kind of a level their whole lives, which essentially is social usage. But if the person becomes addicted, what happens is that this desire, the benefit, and the cost essentially become a 50/50 proposition, and once that occurs, there is a tremendous amount of anxiety and a civil war that develops with the person, they want to use and they don’t want to use.
-
Step 5:
-
The Effect Addiction Has On Co-Dependents
-
And actually that is terrific, because if they are doing that, then what’s going to happen is the disease is going to progress, the cost is going to get worse, until at some point in time the person who is using decides to quit, and that’s the way it should be. The problem is the poor co-dependant is out here watching this person kill themselves, and they want to try to help, which is understandable.
