Co-Dependency Counseling
Perhaps you have been trying to change your loved one’s addictive behavior for some time, perhaps even years.
Perhaps you feel that you haven’t tried hard enough or haven’t tried everything yet...
Five recommendations:
Take an honest look at yourself
What is within your control, and what is not?
Accept that you cannot change another person
If they want to change, they can only do it themselves.
Learn to notice how you may be enabling their addictive behaviors
Taking responsibility for their actions only makes things worse.
Set your boundaries
You decide how you allow yourself to be treated.
How do you get along with yourself, and are you satisfied with that?
Try to understand the patterns that are at work in your relationships.
Find supportive people and therapy
Ask for help for yourself, and allow yourself to receive it.
You may believe that loving someone means not giving up on them, not leaving a person in need alone, and that love requires enduring a great deal.
Being needed may comfort you and give you strength, even when the situation feels very hopeless.
Together, we will find answers to questions such as:
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What are healthy relationships and boundaries, and how can you create them?
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How can you distinguish between helping and enabling?
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How can you take care of yourself without feeling selfish?
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How can you learn to support yourself?
Co-dependency From a Family Therapist's Perspective
Addiction can be seen as a poor solution to a person’s emotional and relationship problems.
Families often use similar coping methods across generations, for example, seeking relief from alcohol or other substances, staying in dysfunctional relationships for years, working too much or exercising too intensely. However, communication between people may remain superficial and shallow, there is a lot of fighting and blaming, and real closeness and warmth are lacking.