Dr. Neill Neill
In my previous post, Alcoholism: Addiction with a Twist, I commented on how addiction can lead to addictive or co-dependent relationships. I ended with,
"The benefits to all of overcoming an addiction to the wellbeing of another are far reaching, but as always, the healing process begins with awareness."
Awareness alone doesn't remove the problem, but it may produce a roadmap to wholeness. And with wholeness can come real intimacy.
Codependency is full of opposites
Imagine a husband and wife where the man is addicted to alcohol and the woman is addicted to him and his well-being. She has an intense pull towards her husband. She loses herself in the intensity of the need to care for him. On the other hand she has a strong need to pull away from him and get a life for herself.
We have all seen it: one of them leaves and comes back, and then leaves again and comes back again. There seems to be no middle ground. It's either total enmeshment or complete cut-off.
Filed under Alcoholism and Marriage by Dr. Neill Neill
