littlefish

One of my brothers is a paranoid schizophrenic, untreated chronic active alcoholic. My brother who passed away recently was just a garden variety drunk. I am too. As far as I know, I am not mentally ill. I am just an alcoholic. There are quite a few of us. But, I do notice in the rooms that when some people get sober, they discover they were medicating underlying issues like bipolar and clinical depression. They get treated for that with meds and become even better recovered.

But there is also the other large group of poeple sitting in AA meetings who don't suffer from mental illness. They just lost control over their alcohol consumption and became addicted.

I am also codie: guess to who? My alcoholic father and codie mother when they were still alive, then my 3 brothers. My kids, I am codependent to them. My husband is codependent to me.
Wow, sounds like a fun party, huh!!!???

I can't see codependence as a form of mental illness. I learned how to be codependent as the daughter of an alcoholic father and a major codie mother. Plus all alcoholic grandparents. My brother was born with paranoia and schizophrenia: he didn't sign up for that. I am not saying I signed up for being a codie, maybe that is not the right way to say it. I learned to be codie. But I feel I am emotionally healthy if I work the steps, work programs and learn about myself and stay aware of my codie behavior; I am both a recovering alcoholic and a codie.