Woman curled up at rainy window contemplating her addiction and family codependency.

Addiction has many issues attached to it that make treating your disease complex. Some of these issues include other people in your life, such as friends or family. Enabling and codependency are two of these issues. You may be codependent and not even realize it.

What is Codependency in Addiction?

Codependency is a personality disorder. It is usually rooted in childhood trauma or experiences, just like drug or alcohol abuse. If you suffer both codependency and addiction, you are stuck in a cycle, stuck in a vacuum. Each of the conditions makes the other worse.

Being codependent means that you need another person to believe yourself worthwhile. These relationships put the other person’s needs first. To outsiders, the relationship appears obsessive. When someone criticizes the relationship that seems devastating.

Wives of alcoholics were the first people psychologists observed as codependent. These relationships were heavy with enabling and other behaviors that helped the husbands to keep drinking. The wives drew their self-worth from their husbands to a point that they appeared addicted to them. After the discovery of the codependent dynamic in alcoholism, the first spouse addiction support groups formed.

Codependence usually begins in youth. The trigger is neglect or abuse, such as emotional, physical or sexual abuse. It may also be born of a childhood with substance-addicted parents.

Someone who is codependent may also engage in substance abuse or suffer addiction. The two people feed off of each other in a cycle of destruction that only ends in tragedy or the realization that they need rehab help.

Codependency skews the addict’s view of their life. They may not see reality as others do and live in denial of the problems around them. Other problems of codependency in addiction are:

  • Low self-esteem
  • Perfectionism
  • Mistrust
  • Controlling
  • No personal boundaries
  • Denial of others’ feelings
  • Guilt for the partner’s problems

How Codependency Is Treated in Rehab

Codependent relationships with addiction are dangerous to both parties. It is very difficult to heal addiction if the loved one is enabling the addiction to continue. For strong recovery, both parties need treatment.

At Beaches Recovery in Jacksonville, Florida, people suffering from addiction receive the treatment they need to stop using drugs or alcohol. At the same time, codependent partners or family members need to relearn how to appropriately value their relationships and even themselves. This treatment takes place in individual counseling and family therapy.

Beaches Recovery provides family or couples therapy to help families rebuild their lives after addiction. After all, addiction affects everyone in the family unit. These sessions treat the codependent relationship or refer the family member to appropriate individual therapy. The outcome is very positive when everyone who needs help gets it, so the family can come back together after rehab in better health.

Family counseling is part of all of Beaches Recovery’s addiction programs, including:

Codependent No More

After rehab, clients go back to their home communities or to sober living arrangements to build up strength and confidence for living independently. Clients gain a referral to aftercare programs that include support group meetings in their hometown. Family members can also take part in support group meetings, such as those developed specifically for loved ones. There are even some groups that focus on overcoming codependency.

Addiction is a family disease. By the time you go to rehab, your whole family feels exhausted, emotionally drained, and hurt. This is why family counseling is an important part of your recovery.

By the time you leave Beaches Recovery, your whole family can be healthier. Everyone can hammer out their issues and learn constructive ways of working past the addiction problems toward better communication, understanding, boundaries, and wellness. Everyone heals, as long as they are willing to participate.

If you or your loved one are suffering in addiction, call Beaches Recovery now at 866.605.0532. This one call gives you access to the healthy support you need. So make this call and start rebuilding your family now.