SomeoneSomwhere

I apologize if this is in the inappropriate forum but I was wondering…can being co-dependent lead to alcoholism?

I have read the thread posted in here about codependency. Almost every single trait it discusses is something I have. Like it was like reading a profile about myself. I am an alcoholic but the reason I started drinking was because my ex boyfriend started pulling away. He just left me for good (because of his own personal problems honestly had nothing to do with me or my alcoholism he hasn’t even been taking to me since I started drinking because he wanted space) but whatever, that’s beside the point, I was just wondering how you deal with a relationship ending when your codependent. I am one week sober right now but I’m having a very difficult time at the thought of him never being in my life again. It feels like I can’t live without him. I held onto a relationship that was over a long time ago because as much pain as I dealt with at his hand my fear of abandonment was SO much worse. So how do you get over a heartbreak (he broke up with me on facebook by changing his status to single he didn’t even car e or respect me enough to call) when you don’t know how to live your life without that person? I’m really miserable and I feel like I’m never going to fall in love again or be happy. I'm only 21 and I know that's young but I honestly have no desire to ever be with anyone else that isn't him despite the fact that he didn't respect or love me and he was emotionally abusive and treated me HORRIBLY.

I gave him EVERYTHING. We were long distance but I'd spend my money to send him things. And I'd always visit him and I'd always be the one waiting for a phone call and I always settled for the smallest things. Like 5 minutes of conversation on AIM because I was in denial about the fact that he didn't want to be with me and being with him even if it meant being ignored for days and not being able to tell him how I felt without him getting mad etc... was better then being without him. And I still think that. I really love him and everyone tells me how much better off I'll be without him and my friends and family care a lot but I just want this guy. He hasn't even cared enough to pick up the phone or send me a text since January and yet I still like... want to be with him so badly

Pelican

What you are experiencing now may be the grieving process. It is a natural process we experience loss of any kind. Loss of a favorite earring, loss of a friendship or the death of a loved one. We will grieve.

The stages of grief are:
Denial
Anger
Bargaining
Depression
Acceptance

They can come in any order, at any time. Sometimes they like to show up in the same dang day! The best advise I ever received on grieving was this:

Get help if I get stuck in one of the stages.

There is a great chapter on grieving written in Melody Beatties book "Codependent No More".

Congratulations on your sobriety. Keep an eagle eye on your HALT triggers:
Hungry
Angry
Lonely
Tired

Anger during the grieving process (or anytime) needs to be expressed in a healthy way that does not harm others. My favorite is getting in my car, turning up the stereo and screaming! Punching the seat helps, but makes my hand sore! Just don't pick up out of anger! Booze will only postpone the emotions. Walk through them - you can come out on the other side stronger!

Bernadette

Well hi! Fellow Sox fan here! Welcome!

Many people are both codependent and alcoholic. We have some very wise people on this board who are in recovery from both.

I'm not sure about codependency causing alcoholism. I mean, I am codependent, but it didn't cause me to become an alcoholic! I've also suffered through having boyfriends leave me etc, and I didn't turn to alcohol. So I guess those questions are better answered by other alcoholics!

This is an interesting statement and might lead more towards an explanation of why you turned to alcohol abuse or codependent behaviors.

I honestly have no desire to ever be with anyone else that isn't him despite the fact that he didn't respect or love me and he was emotionally abusive and treated me HORRIBLY.

Desperately wanting to be with someone who is bad for us or abusive is a pretty telling sign of something not so right within ourselves!

Codependency keeps us from looking at ourselves - especially if we find someone who is really messed up, who has so many obvious problems that we can focus on or try to fix. This kind of martyr-like other-focus can lead us to a lifetime of insane behavior. keeps us from looking at our own problems, our own faults, our own dreams, etc.

What I learned in AlAnon applies to the alcoholics in my life as well as to anyone who has some major problem:

I didn't cause it.
I can't control it.
I can't cure it.

But I do cause the things that happen in my life to happen, and I can control my choices, and I can cure my codependency! It has taken me a lot of AlAnon and therapy to change my bad habits of mind. Have you tried AlAnon or therapy? You have a week sober? (YAY!!) Are you working a program like AA or getting some kind of therapeutic help with that?

peace & go sox - 4 games behind, c'mon team!
b

SomeoneSomwhere

Hi and thank you both for your replies and a fellow Sox fan YAY. (They have been playing very well very happy with the way Big Papi has been swinging and I think Scutoro has done very well as a lead off hitter though I do miss Jacoby)

But back to the drama...I realized after posting this that it sounded bad. I don't blame Ryan for my alcoholism, he caused me a lot of pain but a lot of people deal with pain and most people don't turn to alcohol the fact that I did is my fault and no one else. I am an alcoholic and he didn't cause that but I lack the ability to cope with things and I could not cope with the pain his indifference has caused so I turned to alcohol...I don't know how to put into words but I'm not trying to place blame.

I am in therapy yes. I have been for a while but it was not helping so now I have a new therapist. I like him quite a bit. I just started seeing him but he's better than my old therapist so I am hoping that he is going to be able to help me.

To be honest I've never had much confidence, never been happy and I DEFINITELY e was attracted to Ryan because he'd had a difficult life and lot of problems and had been to Iraq and he told me how much meeting me, talking to me, having me in his life made him so much better, so much more alive the way he put it it was like he was drowning and I saved him.

I have always been attracted to "broken" people. I spent four years in high school in a strange relationship (not romantic... its complicated) with a drug addict. I want to be needed not just wanted but needed, I want the person to be made happy to want to talk to me and I love feeling like I can fix people. My ex has PTSD and Bipolar Disorder and while the initial euphoria that comes with a new relationship made him happy eventually his mental ilnesss overtook him and he is incapable of being with me or anyone else so I just set myself up for pain

More then anything I really do just want to fix him, to make him happy, to feel needed and wanted by him but he doesn't care and I can't help him like I used to. I just miss making him happy. It kills me.

Bernadette

I want to be needed not just wanted but needed, I want the person to be made happy to want to talk to me and I love feeling like I can fix people.

YIKES! Welcome to codependency!!!

I really do just want to fix him, to make him happy, to feel needed and wanted by him but he doesn't care and I can't help him like I used to. I just miss making him happy. It kills me.

Double YIKES!!!

Not being able to help him like you used to.....do you see the resemblance to alcohol there? How alcohol is usually the drinker's best friend and then it just stops working in that way and becomes a problem?!! That's how it is with "helping" for us codies. Becomes a REAL problem.

I am so glad you've found a new therapist and hope that it will lead you down the road to recovery! I know my life is 1,000 times better since I gave up my codie habits. It has not been easy but it has been worth it.

One of the things I had to accept is that I cannot help most people - especially deeply troubled people. I mean, as a codie I can help another codie by sharing my strategies or coping skills, or my experiences.

If I was a recovered addict I guess I could help another addict who wanted help.

If I knew how to tie shoelaces and you didn't, I could help you tie your shoes, but I cannot help alcoholics get sober. I cannot help people with mental illness get better. I cannot change an abusive person into a loving and compassionate soul. It's just out of my scope!!

There is help out there, abundant help, for addicted or mentally ill people, but they have to go and get it - and it's not from me!

Do you have a lot of alcoholics in your family?

peace-
b

SomeoneSomwhere

Well my biological Dad was a drug addict and alcoholic who’s probably in jail somewhere or dead…honesty I never knew him and he left before I was born and as far as I know he’s never tried to get in contact with me… my Mom drinks but is not an alcoholic. Step Dad number 2 was a big drinker, he left when I was 6 or 7. My step dad now, who my Mom has been married to for almost 10 years is also a drinker but not at all in an alcoholic way. My Mom’s father died from liver complications from alcohol…and I have some cousins who drink too much but I’m not sure it’s at the level of being an alcoholic so I guess you could say it runs in my family. My Uncle just passed away and alcohol was involved but not the cause of death but he was quite a big drinker as well… and a lot like a Father to me growing up so I have had that influence for sure.

I know I need to work on making myself happy and doing things for me but I don’t understand the concept of that. Making myself happy doesn’t make me happy. Making the people I love, helping them especially Ryan made me happy, now I don’t know where to go or what to do. It’s been so long since il et myself or my feelings matter that I don’t know how to put myself first and even if I did I’ve never known how to be responsible for my own happiness I’ve always found it in someone else. They say drinking/alcoholism is a selfish disease and it's probably true but I wasn't putting me first with that, I was using the alcohol as a way to numb everything out because I can't handle my own feelings...it wasn't really putting myself first, I don't care about myself enough to care that I was ruining my life with alcohol .Right now I don't really even care about my life at all.

Learn2Live

Wow SomeoneSomewhere, thank you for all your posts. I can't tell you how much you and I are alike. Especially when you said, Honestly, I have got a great life, and I have come a very long way in my Recovery from alcoholism and codependency. I have found my peace and my serenity. I can finally handle my own emotions any my own life and responsibilities (most of the time). But to tell the truth, my happiness comes in very small doses. It is the very simple and very little things that make me happy. And yes, it still makes me happy to help others and bring them happiness. I think that is a very human way to be.

What sounds unhealthy to me in what you are saying, though, is that you think you need THIS person, THIS Ryan to be happy. That you don't know how to put yourself first. That you don't care about yourself or your life at all. I used to be that way too. A long time ago. But I kept going back to my meetings, and just doing those things that other people who appeared to care about me told me to do. And now, I have been sober about 10 years, with a few lapses and a few relapses in between. But now, I AM happy, because I kept working on myself. I kept trying. And I think that's exactly what you should try to do too. You just keep trying, even when you don't think you care. Are you going to A.A.? Are you going to Al-Anon? Please go. It will change your life.

Dee74

Hey SS

I was codependent too but I don't think that made me an alcoholic.

I think I had an inability to cope with things, and I turned to alcohol and drugs to help me cope - and that decision was a major factor in me becoming an alcoholic.

Making myself happy didn’t make me happy either.

Making other people happy made me happy - I thought I was being a good person - helping others you know - but it was all about being validated....all about 'making' people like me....

when I didn't get the love affection or thanks I wanted in return, it made me unhappy and angry.

I had to learn to know myself - I had learn I had a self-value that wasn't dependent on who I was to other people, or what they thought of me.

I had to learn taking care of my needs wasn't selfish - it was necessary.

I found all that out for myself the long hard way - coming out the other side of 20 years of addiction. I wish you an easier time of it, SS.

I know what the first step is tho - keep trying to stay sober - that's the way you actually work through things and grow

D

SomeoneSomwhere

This is what our relationship became and how I acted during it. I just found this message to a friend on FB while I was deleting all the messages I have from him/about him. But it paints a picture of how things have been with us so you can get a better idea of where I'm coming from. I sent this almost a year ago



please dont tell ryan im telling you this please like i'm begging you it will **** him off even more and i don't need that right now so please just please don't tell him things arent good with us. they havent been great this summer. we hardly talk anymore. he never seems to want to call, hes rarely online, at first i thought it was just because he was busy but even now that he's not we still hadly talk. he never responds to the massages on FB i send him saying i love him and never seems to want to talk on the phone... so i'm already nervous that i'm losing him ... and i have been all summer so we've gotten into fights about that because i get insecure and worried about him not talking to me as much and he gets angry and defensive when i tell him how i feel so we've been arguing about that for the past month... and then last week he told me to go to bed and i didn't want to so i said no and i was being kind of bitchy toward him and then the next morning i tried to apologize and he said whatever he didn't even care and that he was done trying to tell me what to do... so i figured i should just let it go even though i was still upset but even though he claimed to be fine things obviously weren't because he wouldn't talk to me like everything he said was something along the lines of "okay" or whatever" and then i asked him to call me because i really just wanted to try and fix things and he said his roommate was on the phone and i said i missed the days where we used to talk on the phone for hours and he said "whatever' again so i was obviously upset because that wasnt how i expected him to respond so i asked him about it and he said "oh sorry what i meant to say was it hurts oh so much not to spend 27 hours a day talking" and so i told him "that really hurt me, thanks for that" and he said "no problem" and i figured he really needed time to cool off so i said i was going to bed and the whole next day we hardly talked and i couldn't take it anymore so i just tried to fix things but he kept insisting everything was fine despite the fact that we were hardly talking about then i finally got him to say what was on his mind which was the he didn't care anymore that he still loved me and he didn't want to break up but he didnt care and i asked him what that meant, and stuff and he said he didnt know i needed to stop freaking out and then he went to classs... the night things were okay again and it was like that had never happened so i just forgot about it. since then thinsg have been okay, not great but he hasnt seemed pissed, and things were the best they've been in a whole this morning until i told him the i smoked last night and he said "that's supet" and i said i was sorry and was never going to do it again and he said "whatever i dont give a ****" and then he had to go to class again so i just called him to apologize and he said "i told you i dont ******* give a **** do whatever the hell you want" and then he just signed online so i tried to talk to him again because i dont want this to turn into what it was last week

Him(8:19:03 PM): hey
Me (8:19:59 PM): i'm upset and thats unreasonable but i am. and i wish i wasn't like this i really do but i am and i'm sorry
Him(8:20:07 PM): ok
Me (8:20:15 PM): i dont want this to turn into what it was last week
him (8:20:26 PM): ok

and just on top of everything else i'm scared he doesnt want to be with me anymore because he muswt know he's hurting me but he doesnt even care...he said so himself "i still love you but i dont care" and i dont knwo what to do because this keeps happening he's always pissed off abouts something and instead of trying to find a way to fix whatever it wrong he just claims everything is fine and treats me like **** and it's killing me but i dont think it even hurts him at all

again please dont tell ryan i'm talking to you about this, i dont need to give him anymore of a reason to be pissed off at me

(I'm pretty sure I was drunk when I wrote this message but I'm too lazy to go fix it now I think you can all get the gist)


So yeah that's how I felt throughout the entire past year and yet it all ended anyway despite my best efforts to hold onto it. But it was like that every day for the past year I felt unloved and uncared for because I was and yet I still held onto the tiny little things because my fear of being alone was so much worse.

I will never be as happy as I was with him, that's impossible but maybe someday no longer having that happiness and no longer having him in my life won't hurt so much and then maybe I can figure out how to make myself happy

Dee74

Seems to be a bit of a gap there SS.

Maybe, like I was, your problem is really this?

I worked through it so I know you can too
D

Bernadette

Well the gist of your msg to your friend seems to be that things were bad between you and R but still you had intense fear about losing him.... It's kind of a lose-lose situation dontcha think? ;-)

The reason I asked about alcoholism in your family is that codependence runs in families right alongside alcoholism. Hand in glove. So we can internalize a lot of unhealthy ways to avoid our pain, our fear, etc, if we grew up around alkies/codies.

The great thing about stepping up and admitting and accepting that I have no control over other people and their right to choose their life, is it gave me back control - control over the one thing I CAN change which is me! I only ever had a sick and twisted illusion of control before I accepted the reality of not being able to help and fix the alcoholics in my life.

I am glad you're here! Keep seeking and accepting help, one day at a time, and things will get so much better!
peace-
b

LaTeeDa

My therapist once told me that alcoholism and codependence are just two branches on the same tree. I don't necessarily think that one leads to the other, but growing up in a dysfunctional family can lead to either or both.

L

coffeedrinker

Yes, my former therapist once said that if an addict sobers up, and has some recovery under his/her belt, you will then find a codependent. I think the drug of choice takes over and trumps the codependency - when it takes over, it masks the codep. But it's still way under there, just dormant.

You are 21 year old. You are smart and insightful, to be even grappling with these things when you're barely out of childhood. You will get there; it takes time - there is so much to understand and come to grips with.

I'm glad you're here with us.