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Face Addiction
Published in Sandra Rasmussen, Developing Competencies for Recovery, 2023
Enabling and codependency characterize many families with addiction. Enabling includes all actions by family or friends that prevent people who drink, use, or gamble from experiencing the full impact of the negative consequences of their addiction. Enablers protect the addict: e.g., a wife calls in sick for her husband when he is hungover. Although the intention is care, concern, and protection, enabling allows the person to continue in addiction. Codependency describes a pattern of unhealthy behavior family and friends may develop to survive the stress caused by a loved one’s drinking, using, or other addictive behavior. Symptoms of codependency include control, distrust, perfectionism, avoidance of feelings, problems with intimacy, excessive caretaking, hyper-vigilance, physical illness, and even clinical depression. Check out books by Melody Beattie such as Codependent No More.
On Terms Used and Abused
Published in Edith S. Lisansky Gomberg, Current Issues in Alcohol/Drug Studies, 2019
Perhaps the conceptualization and expansion of “codependency” is most understandable in historical perspective. Public interest and governmental interest in alcohol and drug problems have been intensifying for two decades, and in the 1988 election, drug abuse and the call for more treatment resources was a campaign issue. A decade earlier, the competition between “. . . degreed and nondegreed counselors” (Ottenberg, 1974; Valle, 1977) intensified, and while the rivalry and negative feelings of professionally trained and the recovered alcoholic therapists became less with time (or at least less overt), the acceptable standards for a counselor or therapist in substance abuse have been defined only recently and in response to a chaotic situation. Both professionally trained and “nondegreed counselors” required additional training. Inevitably, the demand was met by entrepreneurs who supplied such training and many of them established training businesses, consultantships, and traveling presentations. Jellinek’s idea that a knowledge base about alcohol was useful, even necessary, for the development of treatment skills, went by the board, and the chasm between researchers and scholars on the one hand, and the treatment community on the other, grew larger. Services directed by physicians, usually within hospitals, went their own way. Perhaps inevitably, simplistic concepts like “codependency” expanded to include not only family members but co-workers, friends, any relationships, “workaholics,” dependence on food or religion, “helping professionals,” and so on.
Parental alcoholism
Published in David Morley, Xiaoming Li, Crispin Jenkinson, Children and Young People's Response to Parental Illness, 2016
Peggy S. Keller, Lauren R. Gilbert, Eric A. Haak, Shuang Bi
A popular framework for understanding the problems of CoAs is codependency. This term is defined in various ways, but generally encompasses focusing on the needs and wants of others instead of the self, sacrificing one's needs in favour of the needs of others, belief in one's ability to fix the problems and mental health conditions of others and emotional suppression (Dear et al., 2004). Codependency is a common component of the self-help literature for CoAs, and is frequently utilised by non-academic clinicians (Beattie 2013a, 2013b; Wegscheider-Cruse and Cruse, 2012). However, scientific evidence for the construct validity of codependency is weak. First, there are important questions about whether codependency is better explained by validated mental health conditions such as borderline or dependent personality disorders (Hoenigmann-Lion and Whitehead, 2007). Second, the most validated measure of codependency does not directly coincide with most common definitions of the term (Dear and Roberts, 2005). Third, some studies have found no differences in codependency between CoAs and non-CoAs (Jones et al., 2007). Nevertheless, use of the codependency construct persists in the CoA treatment field.
Unsatisfied treatment needs of people with comorbid alcohol/drug use and gambling disorder
Published in Journal of Substance Use, 2023
Łukasz Wieczorek, Katarzyna Dąbrowska
In the opinion of the professionals, the patient’s family should be involved in their treatment process but only after some time, when the dependent person has already completed the first stage of treatment. Unfortunately, family therapy is not included in therapeutic programs, even though there is a great demand for it. The patient’s family have the opportunity to participate in the therapy of codependency in the form of psychoeducation group meetings with other codependent people, as well as participation in individual sessions with a therapist. There is a lack of therapy in which dependent people and their partners can work on their relationships during the therapeutic sessions: We conduct family therapy additionally, besides the program which is held in the facility. These sessions are not included in the basic treatment program and are not financed. Once, we had possibilities to conduct family sessions which were financed by the city hall. There is great demand among patients for these sessions. (TA2203FWRO)
Mental Disorders and Distress in Marriages with a Problem Drinking Husband
Published in Alcoholism Treatment Quarterly, 2021
Richard D. Ager, Kathryn Betts Adams, Marianne R. Yoshioka
The mental health of spouses of problem drinkers is typically characterized in one of two ways; one has a mental disorder, the other is healthy. The first is associated more with mental illness often labeled “codependent.” O’Brien and Gaborit (1992) define codependency as “an excessive preoccupation with the lives, feelings and problems of others” (p. 129). Presumably, the codependent is drawn to a problem drinker to appease that preoccupation. They are most comfortable when assuming responsibility and control over family issues and responsibilities, which are progressively abandoned by the drinker as the alcohol problem worsens. The codependent additionally is involved in constant efforts to control the drinking, which are ineffective, self-destructive, and often exacerbate the alcohol misuse. The healthy conceptualization of the spouse married to a problem drinker draws from a stress and coping model. Here, the spouse is mentally stable but must cope with a very difficult situation due to the stresses caused by the partner’s drinking and related fallout.
Psychoeducation impact for family members of substance users: An evaluation the workbook “Addiction: A Family Disease”
Published in Journal of Substance Use, 2021
Contents for the book are derived from working experience with the families and theories and evidence of family dynamics and behavioral addiction. Family members are encouraged to attend therapy sessions with the clinicians once their loved ones are admitted into treatment. Objectives of the workbook content include delivering understanding of the (i) addiction itself, primarily on the core beliefs and emotions; (ii) the family’s belief systems, focusing on negative emotions, response system, and change; (iii) roles identified in unhealthy family systems and finally (iv) the concept of codependency (Carnes, 1997). In the workbook, codependency is further explained and supported by theories such as: trauma bonding (Carlson, 2010) and learned helplessness (Beckwith, 2014). The workbook ends with 30 pages of coloring-in mandalas employing the themes core beliefs, triggers, emotional triggers, and denial, as well as introducing new behaviors in recovery. Readers are encouraged to color the mandalas to help them review and recall the contents for better understanding. Beckwith (2014) explained coloring in mandalas reduces anxiety levels by focusing on healthy emotions while improving concentration. The mandalas also help with processing the emotions as clients keep going back to the coloring to reflect what it means to them (Beckwith, 2014).