Stop Being a Doormat

What is it that is in you tells yourself that you have to put up with abusive and controlling behavior? Usually addicts find someone that helps them continue their addictive ways and they lie to them or abuse them in other ways and the other person lets them. It all begins with you. If you can't change the "it" won't change. Stop blaming the other person for all your troubles and do something different. Read some books on assertiveness, go to a workshop on how to treat yourself better. Change change change and your circumstances will change.

A little direction goes a long way

Why do we get off track in dealing with addictions? We go down the wrong road and we get stuck doing the same thing over and over. We get in the game with the addicted person. Part of codependency recovery is stepping back and going down a different road. For example your spouse comes home drunk. You start giving them bad looks and soon there is a fight. You spent the whole night worrying and getting yourself in a stew to then unleash this wrath on your drunken spouse. What does that create, a big fight where you are both frustrated and screaming like idiots and making your kids neurotic set up for their own problems later in life. How about another road..... go to a movie, read a book, go to the gym, Al-Anon meeting, have a meal etc. Then go to bed and if they come home drunk unless there is a safety issue go to sleep. There will be a much better ending in this road. If they are too sick to go to work don't get involved. Try the two roads yourself.

Enabling

I was talking to a lady yesterday who was very upset at her son. She said he was a heroin addict and has been giving her grief for the last 10 years even going so far as setting her up in a violent situation to get money from her. When he gets out of jail or hospital she dutifully gets him a place, furniture money and then feels bad when he slips back into his addiction. Poor her, she can't see her part in this sad story.

Why why why

The answer is not important, the important thing is that we are ready to get some new information and change. Make a decision, do you want to continue to live like this and have the life slowly sucked out of you or do you want something different? It comes down to that and the first step is getting information on what you are dealing with. The person is not the enemy, the sickness is. You can love the person and hate the sickness.

Why to people accept another's addiction problem and make it theirs?

This is a good question and at the heart of why addiction goes on and on or is permitted to go on and on. I have seen from my work that when an addict or alcoholic sees the consequences of their addiction then they have a good chance of stopping. That means that a big problem is enabling. Individually we enable, businesses enable, unions enable, doctors enable and as a society we enable people to keep going and making the rest of the world around them miserable. It is only when boundaries are set and adhered to that the addict changes. An addict will huff and puff that they were put out of work and how unfair the world is but then end up going through with the SAP interview and following the treatment. It is amazing what I see.