Just got around to reading this thread... see what happens when I get into a funk? I ignore the world.
I never really knew what people meant by being codependent. In terms of my own recovery I am winging it, no books (Big or otherwise), no counselors. Just a few dedicated friends who have either been through it or are going through it now... that includes people on SR and "real life" people. So a lot of the terminology escapes me.
That said I think I have a sense of what codependency is now. That's how it started with my ex. At first I noticed he was chronically short on cash (back before I did drugs... had I known then what I know now I would have seen it in neon flashing lights, but I was clueless and he was hiding it from me). So I would get him things like soap, paper towels, etc. Soon he was asking me for odd random things, like "Hey, my friend's car got towed. Can you loan him some money to get it out and he can pay you back in the morning?" I was pretty naive about it so I lent him the money; looking back I know he was using it to buy meth. Eventually I figured it out but I kept letting him use my money for it (he had this way of asking... damn him. He always knew how to get me to hand over my cash even when I didn't want to). I think that is codependency. I felt like I needed him in my life, wanted so desperately to maintain our relationship that I lost who I was and what was important to me. Since quitting meth I have basically decided if I ever start feeling that way about another bf, I'm running the other way and fast. No offense guys, but men are a dime a dozen and none of them are worth getting into that sort of situation. Prior to this I was pretty fiercely independent, and I am slowly getting that back. I still can't figure out for my life why this bf had that affect on me and previous bfs did not. This is the only one I have ever had trouble walking away from.
And the crappy thing was that through my codependency I eventually got talked into doing drugs. I watched my bf, who had just been released from prison when we met, go from being determined to stay out of trouble and be a good person to being a meth addict who would lie, cheat, and steal if he needed to get his fix. The saddest part of the whole thing was watching him go down that slippery slope and being addicted to drugs myself I was powerless to stop it. Maybe if I'd been clean I could not have stopped it anyway, but when I wanted to go buy drugs I couldn't tell him no and it did not do him any favors.
And all this started when we were friends, before we ever started dating, and began drinking together. At first it was once in a while, then progressed until we drank every night. Perhaps we were both codies there? I don't know. I don't think I was a hapless victim of circumstance though. I knew I was making bad choices and I made them anyway.