If you love an addict who is in active addiction, you are likely experiencing passivity and aggression from them – usually in a back-and-forth manner. They can go from hiding out quietly in their rooms to loudly demanding what they want in an entitled way – and they can make that shift very quickly. If you are codependent with them, giving in so that you can avoid conflict, you may never know when the next shoe will drop – when the next aggressive, entitled demand may come your way. But once … [Read more...] about Dealing with Conflict When You Love an Addict
Addiction and Codependency
A New Way to Understand Addiction
There are many schools of thought about addiction and what it really is. Some people consider it to be a physical disease, while others credit genetic predisposition while also addressing the nature/nurture paradigm. Even if some or all ring true for each of us, what I know to be true—as an addict in recovery for nearly 33 years, as a loved one of addicts, and as a professional addiction therapist for three decades—is that underneath all of this, staying in active addiction is a choice. And … [Read more...] about A New Way to Understand Addiction
Loving Someone with an Addiction: A Life of Chaos
Whether your addicted loved one is a parent, a child, a partner, friend, or colleague, loving someone who is actively engaging in addictive behaviours is one of the most difficult ways to live. This is because addicts who continue to be involved with their own self-destructive patterns typically experience many emotional highs and lows, creating a virtual roller coaster of fantasy followed by severe despondency, remorse, and self-loathing, with every conceivable emotion in between. Addicts … [Read more...] about Loving Someone with an Addiction: A Life of Chaos
Addiction and Codependency: The Top 10 Reasons to Stop Enabling the Addict You Love, Part 2
Continued from article posted February 24th. Click here to read Reasons 10 to 6.#5 – Others around you are watching what you’re doing.When we deal with an addict of any kind, there are always ripple effects that occur—positive or negative.Consider a scenario such as this: Your teen or adult child is actively using drugs or other addictive behaviours. If you are enabling this person and you have other children, they will be watching as you ‘favour’ the addict, even while the others are trying to … [Read more...] about Addiction and Codependency: The Top 10 Reasons to Stop Enabling the Addict You Love, Part 2
Addiction and Codependency: The Top 10 Reasons to Stop Enabling the Addict You Love, Part 1
We all know that addiction is rampant—it’s a horrific problem for far too many people, all over the world. And even though ‘addiction’ can take many forms, from mind-altering substances to mood-altering behaviours, one thing is for sure: Most everyone on the planet today is either affected by addiction—their own or somebody else’s—or they know someone who is.These days, I work primarily with the loved ones of addicts because that is where the changes need to happen first—or at the very least, in … [Read more...] about Addiction and Codependency: The Top 10 Reasons to Stop Enabling the Addict You Love, Part 1
