Round234

I don't get it.
I went to a meeting once. Found it pretty lame.
With my AA/NA meetings(that I love) I understand the unmanageability that results from me using.
We went over step 1 at that coda meeting I went to and I could not understand at all how being "codependant" would make my life unmanagable. More complicated, maybe, but unmanageable? Really? Like compared to how my life gets when I drink/drug, I found that almost comical.
I just don't really understand the point of coda meetings. Or maybe I don't understand what it means to be "codependant"?
Can someone or a few someones help clarify this?

ICant

I was obsessed with trying to get him not to drink too much.
I drank beer so that there would be less for him so that he wouldn't get too drunk. (I would just end up drunker than him. Stopped doing that)
I would have sex with him to facilitate him passing out. (Sex with an abusive drunk is gut wrenchingly awful and even though my husband is now sober and we are still together, I am sometimes triggered by events from 5 years ago.)
I was happy when he was sober, I was sad when he was hungover, I was angry when he was drunk. It was all about HIM. I don't go to CODA, I go to Al-Anon but I realise I am a recovering codie because now my happiness depends on what is happening inside my head. Not about who I can please or what I can 'make happen'.

But I definitely ended up sicker than my husband. He put down the bottle and after some time has grown up but when he put down the bottle, my problems were just beginning. My place in my little world was to be the responsible one and now he was stepping up to help with the kids and the house and I felt worthless. I now know that I am ok without having to be busy or the one in control.

JenT1968

when you are drinking and taking drugs, you let your addiction rule your decision making processes, and make those decisions through a haze of alcohol or drugs. This leads to your life becoming insane.

When I am exhibiting the worst of my range of codependent behaviours, I let someone else, in their worst alcoholic/drug addicted state, rule my decision making processes and base my view of the world and myself on one seen through someone elses haze of drugs and alcohol.

I was severely clinically depressed, anxious, afraid of people, terrified of my spouses abusive behaviour, contantly on high-alert around him and sleep-deprived. I came up with crazy solutions to problems that could only be solved by removing my spouse from my immediate vicinity.

you don't understand that perhaps, just as i don't understand why an alcoholic doesn't stop drnking after 1 beer or stop drinking completely after endangering themselves, their family, their job, their health, or the general public. maybe you don't have codependent traits? but then, its my understanding that a lot of people that eventually benefit from AA don't think they are alcoholics at first walk into the rooms either?

bookwyrm

Have a read of Melody Beattie's CoDependant No More. It will give you some real insight into the pain we codies can find ourselves in and just how unmanageable our lives can get! There are some really good discussions in the sticky threads at the top of the forum too - have a read through there and you will see examples of unmanageable lives! Heck, stick around and read the posts here and you will gain some insight into codependency!!

Tally

For a period of time when I was at my worst, I stopped leaving the house incase he would go online and flirt with girls or look at porn when I wasn't there. If I was always there he couldn't do it, right?

Yeah, never told anyone this before. I stopped leaving the house. I stopped seeing friends, stopped visiting my parents. The only time I felt ok to leave the house is when he was asleep, otherwise when I "had" to go out somewhere such as the shop or the doctors I would feel extremely anxious and angry that he had a "window" to misbehave and I could do nothing about it. Then I would rush back as quick as I could, give him the silent treatment till he went to bed then hop online to check the history and my keylogger logs to validate my feelings and prove I had been right.

It got that bad for me trying to control it that I told him if he were to continue living with me he would no longer be able to use the internet when I wasn't at home. So when I had to go out I would unplug the modem, pop it in my handbag and take it with me. Did the same when I went to bed.

He was ALL I ever thought about.

How fookin crazy is that?!

Freedom1990

Good advice above!

When I hinge my reality off of someone else, my life becomes unmanageable.

When I was married to my EXAH, we were so enmeshed that neither of us knew where one ended and the other one started.

After I got out of rehab, going back home to the then AH was not an option.

I had to walk away for my own sanity/safety/recovery.

theuncertainty

JenT1968 summed up what I was thinking pretty well. What my STBXAH did or didn't do governed how I lived, how I acted, how I felt. I felt like I was going crazy, because regardless of whether he was drinking that day or not, his behavior was erratic and unpredictable, so my behavior had to be also.

Like ICant, I would try to drink the beer or vodka he had bought so he wouldn't get as drunk. At 5'5" (if I stretch it) to his 6'7" (if he slouches), it wasn't a bright idea, I'd end up feeling pretty f---ing sick and he was just getting started. I was amazed when the lightbulb finally went off for me to just dump it down the sink. Why hadn't I thought of it earlier?? Well because I was caught up in his drinking and trying to control it.

Like Tally with the modem, I used the parental controls to lock the ordering movies on cable, because he kept ordering porn and 1. the cost was starting to add up and 2. it seemed to validate his feelings that he was entitled to sex with me when he wanted regardless of what I said.

Trying to live life by figuring out not only the reason why an alcoholic is doing x but also to find ways to get him too quit or maybe do y instead, is pretty darn unmanageable.

SoloMio

If you want a completely different look at codependency (and this will probably be heretical for many here), take a look at how Jack Trimpey, founder of Rational Recovery puts it:

I don't know, I laughed when I first read that. But then again, I tend to respond well to no-nonsense people like Dr. Phil and Dave Ramsey. I think that's why this guy appealed to me. It's not that I don't recognize the crazy symbiotic relationship of alcoholics and those that just become absorbed into them and their problems. I really do define myself as "codependent." But to tell you the truth, I personally get more motivation by telling myself not to be such a sucker.

smacked

Why did you go to the meeting?

keepinon

i almost killed myself trying to "save" my daughter from herself. I knew I was in trouble when the phrase "I wish I was dead' kept popping into my head. I was consumed with her, felt responsible, thought if I let my guard down for a moment that everything would fall apart.. it already had. alanon helped me realize that trying to control someones addiction was never going to work. Co dependency is not an illness, but I was SICK. I did things I nEVER thought I would do. Maybe you arent codependant cuz when I walked into a meeting I knew i was amongst my people!

Round234

Tally - wow, sorry, lol but that issss a little crazy haha (at least you realize it now!)

Book - I'll read the stickys, thanks.

Smacked - I was told that a lot of alcoholics/addicts also have relationship problems and that they may also benifit from coda as well as AA and NA, relationship was getting rocky, so I thought I would try it out.

Keepinon - Yeah, I don't really think I'm codependant. I could relate to a few things but was still kinda thrown off by it all, so I duno. I get bugged by relapses, makes me want to relapse .... I like get jealous almost but yeah nother story for another day I guess haha

Learn2Live

Tally, pretty fookin crazy. I know exactly the feeling. Always on high alert, living in constant fear, sometimes in absolute terror of what they are going to do next, all the while holding onto the person tight as possible. Like they say how a person who grabs a live electrical wire and is electrocuted cannot physically let go of the wire. Thanks for sharing your story. I hope you got him out of your life.

Jess01

Co-dependancy is a complex condition that cannot be summed up in one or two sentences. All of the symptoms do not apply to everyone. The book Co-Dependant No More by Melody Beattie sums its up perfectly. There is a checklist pages long that clarifys all the different areas. Get this book. It will change your life.

coffeedrinker

Not sure why I'm reacting to this thread - we poke fun at ourselves all the time here - but some of the posts are really hitting my "sensitive" nerve.

Tally - wow, sorry, lol but that issss a little crazy haha

I laughed when I first read that.
to tell you the truth, I personally get more motivation by telling myself not to be such a sucker.

compared to how my life gets when I drink/drug, I found that almost comical.

I'm not really sure why I decided to post this. Just reading those statements - minimizing the pain I have been in - hurt.

stilllearning

Whoa. I'm with Coffee. Actually, this is the second thread that has triggered me recently - this and Pucci's "wine with dinner" thread.

I'm a double winner. Recovering alcoholic and alanoid/codependent. I relate to, and remember well, the uphill climb of early sobriety and the insanity of active alcoholism. As an adult child and ex partner of an alcoholic (while in sobriety), I'm here to report that, for me at least, the hell (and insanity) of loving someone in active addiction is every bit as serious, as painful and as challenging to recover from as alcoholism.

This last week is the first time I have ever felt lucky to know what this disease feels like from both sides of the fence. Triggered like you wouldn't believe - but grateful.

There is no "worse" - alcoholic bottom, hellish - alanonic bottom - equally hellish. Neither was particularly funny at the time.

Round, for what

freefalling

Thanks for this. Helping me today.

coffeedrinker

"a disordered or incorrectly functioning organ, part, structure, or system of the body resulting from the effect of genetic or developmental errors, infection, poisons, nutritional deficiency or imbalance, toxicity, or unfavorable environmental factors; illness; sickness; ailment.

Fits for me.

I was sick. I was so sick inside I could barely function.

Thanks for the validation, StillLearning.

SoloMio

I'm not going to speak for others, but the reason I laughed in my case is because it was refreshing to get hit over the head with "no duh!" information--that being that it's ridiculous that I put up with stuff that I put up with sometimes. I laugh at myself for being a fool, a sucker. When I can laugh at myself, then I can move on and change my behavior. If I don't laugh at the ridiculousness of it all sometimes I might as well just drown in my own self-pity.

Do I think this disease is "funny"? Of course not. This is the most tragic disease known to man--the Greeks couldn't even touch it with all their tales of fallen heros. My own fallen heros are my father, my uncle, my brother, my beloved step-father, my cousin, my husband, and most likely I will have a child or two thrown in--judging by their current behavior. So, no, most of the time I'm hardly laughing.

But I choose to laugh at my own silliness, my own nonsense--and that's the way I get beyond it. It's the way I cope, rather than succumb, to the madness.

coffeedrinker

I certainly understand the ability to laugh at oneself - esp cuz some of "us" take things way too seriously.

I recently sat in my therapist's office, and I think he was trying to really get through to me, to make me see what i was having a hard time seeing.

He said that I have the word "sucker" stamped on my forehead. It hurt, really hurt. It felt like a kick in the stomach, when I think what I really need is forgiveness, understanding and compassion. In hindsight, it was probably exactly what I needed to hear, but it still stings pretty bad when I replay that scene.

We all come here from different places, yes?

Thanks for the response, Solo

stilllearning

Solo, there's a lot of dark humor at both flavors of meeting I attend. You're absolutely right, it's a tonic.

My trigger was the comparison (or need to compare) the unmanageability of alcoholism with the unmanageability of codependency. Someone posted on here a while back that they wished AA/Al-Anon had some sort of program that wasn't "parallel" - that was about giving alanonics and alcoholics the tools to directly relate to each other - kind of like a relationship masters course.

I think there are some folks who spend years in alanon/AA without ever attending a meeting of the "other" program. Totally personal choice. But I was profoundly affected by my upbringing in an alcoholic household - didn't really, truly, "get" that until last year when I finally got to alanon.