Family members of people struggling with addiction often become codependent without realizing it. Try tallying the financial costs over recent months: phone bills, rent, emergency room visits, legal fees. Then count the relational costs: how often you contact them, how much you rely on them for reassurance. Parents may depend on addicted children for "signs of life" more than on healthier siblings.
Codependency and dependence on people is a normal part of life, and we're dependent on the bus and cars and medication. I'm so interested in how family members can edit their relationship with other people. So I ask questions like, add up all the financial costs this month, last month, and the month before that you've spent. Hmm. On the person just across the board? What are the categories? Phone, rent, crisis, emergency room, paramedic, maybe lawyer, lost job, you know, all the things that we do. What about relationships? What are the relationship costs? You know, do you see them? Yes, actually, I see him more than I see my other kids. Well, do you know that makes sense because the addicted adult child is much more likely to be in contact with his parent or parents than the non-addictive child. Well, why is it because they love them so much? No, it's they have higher needs. They're in crisis. They have fewer people to talk to. They want that phone to be turned back on that you pay for. They want to make sure that rent was paid. They want to know if they can have some money to go to the grocery store, but then they actually, well, sometimes use it for other stuff. And so just learning to take an inventory of, well, what are the ways in which the person is dependent on me? What are the ways in which I'm dependent on them? Right. And a parent or a loved one who has somebody who suffers with meth is often dependent on them just for signs of life. Oh my God, it was a good day. I heard from Dallas. Thank God I hadn't heard from him in 2 weeks, you know, and that's dependency. Mm-hmm.
