Chapter 39: Codependency

Codependency has a fuzzy

definition because it is a gray,

fuzzy condition. It is complex,

theoretical, and difficult to

completely define in one

or two sentences.

~ Melody Beattie

Codependency is a term which emerged in the 1970’s as a way of describing the emotional lives of people affected by someone else’s alcoholism

Originally cobbled together from the clinical terms co-alcoholic and chemical dependency, it has since seeped into everyday language as a term we throw around without ever bothering to define it precisely.

Different theorists have explained it in different ways. 

(I’ve listed some of them at the end of this chapter.)*

Even therapists who work with codependency every day have trouble defining the word succinctly.

But I don’t.

I use it as a synonym for control addiction.

To me a codependent is simply someone who relies mainly on control as a way of managing their anxiety around life in general and relationships in particular.

If you’ve read this far, you understand why I see that as just about all of us.

I also see recovery from codependency as overcoming our addiction to control and finding healthier ways to manage feelings and relationships.

But what we call codependency does have many, many faces.

The next part of this book will explore them.

_________

*Definitions of codependency, in the order they emerged in the professional and popular literature:

An emotional, psychological, and behavioral condition that develops as a result of an individual’s prolonged exposure to, and practice of, a set of oppressive rules — rules which prevent the open expression of feeling as well as the direct discussion of personal and interpersonal problems.

~ Robert Subby, in Co-Dependency: An emerging issue (1984).

*

An underlying, generic disease syndrome that has various manifestations and is inherent in the basic culture as now know it and as it now functions.  There are few, if any of us, not affected by this disease.

~ Ann Wilson Schaef, Co-dependence: Misunderstood-Mistreated (1986).

*

A recognizable pattern of personality traits, predictably found within most members of chemically dependent families, which are capable of creating sufficient dysfunction to warrant the diagnosis of Mixed Personality Disorder as outlined in DSM-III.

~ Timmon Cermak, Diagnosing and treating co-dependence (1986).

*

A codependent person is one who has let another person’s behavior affect him or her, and who is obsessed with controlling that person’s behavior.

~ Melody Beattie, Codependent no more (1987)

*

Codependence describes individuals who organize their lives — decision-making, perceptions, beliefs, values — around someone or something else.  In relation to alcohol, codependence describes the individual (adult or child) who has become submissive to or controlled by alcohol as the central organizing principle in the family and/or the dominance of the alcoholic. 

~ Stephanie Brown, Treating adult children of alcoholics: A developmental perspective (1988).

*

A codependent is a person who can’t function from his or her innate self and instead organizes thinking and behavior around a substance, process or other person.

~ Darlene Lancer, Codependency for dummies (2015).