This Is Family Codependency Towards People With Addiction
Addiction is a mental disorder that harms not only the patient, but also his environment, those closest to him, such as his family members.
In situations like this, it is common to observe the appearance of a behavioral pattern based on codependency shown by a close person towards someone who has developed an addiction. Although the intention may be helpful, the behavior ends up being dysfunctional, thus facilitating the appearance of psychopathological behavior and making it chronic. Codependency behavior is characterized by showing dedication and full willingness to provide support, with loss of limits between the needs of oneself and the addicted person, affecting one’s own identity.
In this way, it will be essential to intervene in dependent behavior, since it shows a tendency to generate a vicious circle, thus preventing the addicted subject from being rehabilitated while the mental health of the caregiver decreases.
In this article we will talk about the codependency that arises in families in which one of the members is addicted how this behavior is defined, what it implies, what characteristics are the most representative, how it affects the addicted subject and how to reduce it.
What do we understand by codependency in addictions?
It is known how devastating addictions can be, affecting all areas of the addicted person’s life. We observe the impact on their mental and physical health, in the workplace, as well as social and family health. As expected, the subjects who are part of the addict’s close environment will be seriously affected, since they will perceive the state in which their family member is and the difficulty of improvement that this situation shows.
These individuals who have a closer relationship with the addict may end up developing a codependent relationship. This type of relationship is characterized by a dedication and full concern for the addicted subject that ends up being obsessive. The codependent individual cares more about the other person’s well-being than his or her own and his intense and insistent involvement ends up having an impact both on himself and on the subject he intends to help.
In this way, the codependent individual stops living his or her own life, losing the limits between him and the other subject. He acts as if the failures were also his, becoming frustrated with relapses, ultimately displaying behaviors almost as dysfunctional as those of the addict himself.
Although it may seem that the intention of the codependent individual is to help the addicted patient, his or her way of behaving ends up harming and making it difficult to improve the addiction. That is to say, codependent behavior is pathological. The relationship that will be created between the addict and the dependent will be increasingly dysfunctional, and communication will be affected. Whoever has developed an addiction is trapped in a role of helplessness and denial of his ability to overcome his problem, and this helps the addictive behavior to continue occurring.
Main characteristics of codependency
We therefore understand codependency as a belief and action by and for the other person; The subject will turn to help the addict, believing that without his involvement he will not be able to cure and recover. In this way, he assumes almost full dedication, ceasing to live his own life, even losing his own identity, since at all times his thoughts are focused on the other.
For this reason, due to excessive attachment and dedication, In the most extreme cases, a contradictory feeling may appear regarding the improvement and healing of the addicted subject, because although codependent people want their loved one to get better, if they manage to recover, the reason why they fight ceases to be important, and with it their role as support. Thus, as the addiction improves, the person with codependency may feel abandoned.
Dependent subjects show distinctive characteristics that indicate the presence of this alteration. It will be necessary to identify it in order to intervene psychologically, since appropriate behavior on the part of family members will be essential both to provide the necessary support to the addicted person and to not give rise to problematic relationship patterns.
1. Tendency to seek to please other people
People with codependency will place the well-being of others, in this case of the addicted subject, ahead of their own well-being. This way, Your happiness will depend on the happiness of the other and they will be fine if the person on whom they are dependent is. This behavior is no longer functional; one’s own health and even that of the other individual may be affected.
As we have already seen, his full dedication to the other and the way of living his life based on the existence of the other person, leads to the codependent individual’s improvement or if he decides to distance himself. you feel abandoned, empty and with a loss of your own meaning in life.
3. Low self-esteem
Dependence on the other person and little self-regard, have an impact on one’s self-esteem and self-esteem. The conception they have of themselves will depend on how they are valued and the approval they feel from the people around them. Any negative comment about your performance or inadequate treatment will cause damage to your self-esteem. We must keep in mind that the situation of the addict, of the subject on whom they feel dependent, is complicated, a fact that will make the relationship difficult, facilitating arguments and bad words.
4. Not knowing how to say no
Another notable characteristic of codependent subjects is that they do not know how to say no; Their desire to please the other person will make them carry out any activity they ask of them, even if they don’t want to do it. In this way, the other individual’s preferences will come before his own, although it is true that, as we have already pointed out, his greatest desire or preference is to dedicate himself fully to the other.
5. Tendency to show blurred boundaries between oneself and the other person
The intense and constant concern they feel for the subject on whom they depend makes their state subject to the well-being of the other. That is, they are very empathetic individuals who will experience the discomfort of others as their own discomfort. This way of experiencing the emotions of others as one’s own is related to the diffusion or loss of limits, of the distinction between different subjects, thus resulting in a loss of identity and tendency to live based on the existence of the other.
Dedication to the other person and experience from the other, produce in the codependent subject a need to control the life of the addicted subject, since he lives it as his own. This control is mainly related to a need to know what the other subject is doing, where and with whom they are going, as well as advising what actions they believe are best and appropriate to carry out. This control exerted over the addict helps him feel safer and more involved in the situation.
7. Impossibility of breaking a relationship
The need and dependence they feel on the other person makes it impossible for them to end a relationship; they will continue with a person even if the bond is not healthy and they do not feel happy with it. Just thinking about being alone and losing a support figure generates such intense discomfort in codependent subjects that they do not even consider this possibility; they would prefer to maintain a toxic and stormy relationship than separate.
How to reduce codependent behavior
It will be just as important to work with the addicted patient as with family members who may show codependency, since if we do not treat this type of behavior we will not be able to improve the addiction.
Different have been tested strategies to reduce dependency, aimed at both cognition and behavior work. One of the important aspects in which to intervene is to achieve greater independence and build and reinforce your separate identity, as an individual person, with this purpose we will work to improve your self-esteem and self-confidence.
It is essential to encourage the addicted person to go to therapy, and set limits between what you can do and what you can’t do without assuming that your condition is a justification for not even having to consider following certain healthy rules and routines.
On the other hand, we will also try to modify dysfunctional beliefs about their role or relationship with the addicted subject, helping them to establish realistic expectations of the situation. Learn that their support is important in recovery from addiction, but always maintaining clear limits of who each subject is and what belongs to each one.
