How to Break Free From Being A Codependent Person: A Guide For Addicts and Non-Addicts

To just stop being so codependent and stop helping other people when that's your habit or almost like compulsive nature. It's about as effective as someone who has an addiction just telling themselves to stop drinking, stop using, stop smoking, stop gambling. We all know that it's a little bit more complicated than that. When we have these behavioral patterns which happen over and over and over again, they get pretty entrenched in our habits and sometimes even in our personality. Especially when it comes to a topic like codependency. If you really want to break free from those codependency cycles, you're going to have to address the root of the matter. And so in this video we're going to be talking about what are some of the possible routes that could be triggering this behavior in you? Now this video is not designed only for people who have addicted loved ones. This is about codependency in general. Codependency can apply to anyone and everyone. And I know that word can be a little fuzzy or gray or it means different things to different people and sometimes different things depending on the context. But what I mean for the purpose of this video, when I'm talking about codependency, it's when you're sort of continually over overly sacrificing your own needs to help someone else's issue fix their problems. Basically it's like an over self sacrifice. And that can apply to anyone and everyone. And sometimes that is even the root of someone's addictive behavior is that they don't know how to get their needs met in a more productive way. And they tend to overdo or over help for other people. So it can truly happen to anyone. When the word first started being thrown around, it comes. It came out of this book Melody Beatty wrote called Codependent no More was sort of the first. There's like hundreds of books on codependency now. And in the concepts in that book it was about her. It was about sort of her relationship with an alcoholic or addicted loved one. And there was some sort of theory thrown around at that time that because she had grown up with an alcoholic father or an alcoholic family, somehow there's. There was this thought that we subconsciously seek out an addicted person to marry. Which I don't really believe that theory at all. It's kind of an old school thought that didn't really have any backing to it. But people would notice. They say, why do I keep falling into this same pattern? And I would say it's not so much that you're picking a person with addiction to have in your life or like drawing them in like magnets, as some people might want to think. But more, if you tend to have codependency, you probably keep them around longer and self sacrifice longer and find yourself stuck in a situation with someone who has an addiction longer than someone else who maybe would have set a boundary earlier. Hopefully that makes a little sense to you. So when I say codependency, I don't mean, oh, you're codependent on their addiction. That's kind of another context of this word. So I've got a whole list for you of reasons why, or kind of like those underlying root reasons why you could struggle with codependency. But I'm hoping that you guys are able to add to the list. Once we start going through them, you'll say you might be thinking, oh, what about this one? Or this one? And I want you guys to add those in the comments. And additionally, I happen to think when I was making the notes for today's talk, I was thinking, I wonder if these, I wonder if these guys would like to like have these notes. There's not a lot to them. They're just some bullet points and stuff like that. But some of you sometimes have asked for that or in closed captions and stuff like that. If that is something you would like to have from these live videos, either write the word notes in the comments or put like a little notepad emoji or something in there. And if enough people are saying they'd like to have these, then I'll start making these available to you because I almost always have some notes for these. And I thought, well, it might be helpful for people to just have these. So if you want them, just, just let me know that and we'll see if we can work that out for you. All right? Simon Sinek always says start with why. So before I tell you what the root cause is, I want to tell you why this is so important to address. Okay, I got several. I got some reasons on the notes written down about this too. The most obvious one, the most obvious why you need to break these code of innate patterns is because you're not getting your needs met. And honestly, of the ones I've got listed up here, that's probably the least important one, honestly, because a lot of you are like, that's okay, that's all right, I don't mind. So that's not really enough probably to like trigger you into action. So it's important. But if you struggle with Codependency, it may not be important enough to make you want to change, but some of these, these other ones I'm about to tell you might be the next big reason why it's really, really important to break these codependent behaviors is because you, when you're fixing someone else's problems over and over, you are preventing them from growing, which is disallowing them to build self confidence, self esteem. If Campbell was here, she'd say, you're not letting them get their serotonins. And I would agree with her. You're. You're robbing the other person of that. Additionally. Let's add to the list additionally. You may not recognize this, but the people around you will recognize this. So if you don't believe me, ask the other people around you, not the person that you're codependent with, but like the other people. Is that if you get in a real codependent type situation with someone, as in, there's a person in your life that has a lot of needs and you're constantly like seeing self sacrificing and you're helping them all the time. The other people in your life who care about you, who love you, who want to be around you, who needs your time and attention to start to suffer. And it's easy to say, well, they're okay. This person's not okay, so they're all right over there. I just sort of need to put that off and I'll get to that. You don't realize it, but you put that off and you put that off and you put that off to. You've neglected those other relationships and sometimes permanently damaged them because of that. And it can be a little bit hard to understand because you may think, well, they're okay. They, you know, they're fine, they can cook their dinner, they can do this without me, or whatever. But over time, you, you can seriously rupture your relationships. For example, let's say you have an adult child who's addicted and you have a partner. Maybe this partner is not even the child's parent. Maybe you went through a divorce or something like that. But even if it is the child's parent you're going to be, you can get so consumed with that child that your partner becomes resentful. And this is beyond just disagreeing with you about how to handle it. There's that. We have other videos on that. But just resentful that you're so consumed with that your other children can become frustrated and, and resentful. Your co workers maybe get upset because you're calling out or you're just sort of like halfway doing your job. And that when you're not taking care of your own needs, when you're not getting your needs met, guess what? That leaks out onto the people around you. And so then it falls on those people. And a lot of times that's that kind of thing that happens behind the scenes and it happens sort of slowly. We don't really quite recognize the magnitude for which that's going on. The other thing, other really big, big reason I've talked about this one before, is when you overly self sacrifice for other people, you end up building big old giant resentments. And that's a problem for a number of reasons. But one of the biggest reasons is because you're going to act out on that resentment. You're gonna either take it so long that you just blow your top one day and say a bunch of mean, nasty, hateful, terrible things, or you're gonna sort of out in these little passive aggressive jabs. Every chance you get these little comments that are like, I call them smarty remarks, it's going to come out and then you're going to be acting in a not so great and lovely and wonderful kind manner. And that again, hurts you. It hurts the people around you. It just has that domino effect. Hopefully you can relate to one of these reasons. Hopefully one or multiple of these reasons is enough to sort of say, all right, I'm going to deal with this. If you can think of some more reasons why, you guys list them for me in the comments. All right, now let's get to those root reasons. Why do you keep doing this? What does it come down to? It could be a number of things. Actually, when I was doing a little research on the topic, somebody said that codependency comes from insecure attachment or anxious attachment is another word for that, which could be true for sure, but. But I was thinking it's really a bigger problem than that. If you're not familiar with what insecure attachment is, it has to do with like early childhood development. It has to do with the way you attach to people. If you kind of have like a fear of losing people or a fear of abandonment, that would be the kind of thing that we're talking about here. And so if you have that deep down fear that someone's going to leave or you're going to lose someone, you may overly self sacrifice thinking that that's going to keep that relationship for you. But there are other reasons too, that that could be one Maybe that's your root reason. If it is, then that's the thing that you have to address if you really want to get over this behavior. Maybe you have a fear of other people being uncomfortable. There could be a number of reasons why you have that fear. Maybe you're like a. A highly empathetic person, and when they're uncomfortable, you're really uncomfortable to some degree. Maybe in your childhood, when other people got upset or bad things happened, they acted out in such a way that they did bad things, and then that fell down on you. So you have this. You have this learned behavior of trying to keep them calm, trying to keep other people sort of smooth or stable. Maybe the root cause of your codependency is irrational guilt. And that could be coming from a number of places, too. Maybe you feel like, well, I have all these nice things and other people don't. I have a responsibility to share or help or something like that. This irrational guilt can come on where you feel like you've done something wrong. And that's why it's irrational. Because usually, I mean, guilt means we've acted in a way that's against our value system towards somebody else. Usually we've done something wrong, but other people creating problems for themselves, that's not on us. And so when we have that guilt for the uncomfortableness that other people are suffering because of their own choices, then that's what makes it the irrational guilt. Not too long ago, I did a reaction video to this. This other YouTuber is a doctor, and he does the. He does these, like, videos where he talks to people, live. They're really cool. And one of the things that he always says in his videos is, choose guilt over resentment. And I really like that. I mean, choose resentment over guilt. I said that backwards. Erase that. Choose resentment over guilt. You'll feel guilty. So it means let it happen and feel guilty and know that that guilt is irrational versus doing it. And then holding that resentment, because that resentment is going to brew into a lot of other negative things in your life. So if you're going to feel guilty, sometimes you just have to live with that guilt. But you should really examine it and say, I really should feel guilty if I feel like I did something wrong. And so you got to ask yourself, did I really do something wrong? Sometimes you'll see parents have this kind of guilt. I call it like parent guilt. And they may think, well, what if my kid is struggling with addiction because I got a divorce or because I work too much or something like that, and I can hear what you're saying when you have that thought, like maybe I contributed somehow. Unless you are giving your kid substances as a kid, like you're literally contributing to it. Yeah, those are things that maybe you wish you could have done differently. But I don't think I would let that guilt, number one make. You make choices that you know are not great choices, like enabling choices, which happens to a lot of people. I see it specifically a lot in divorce situations. It's like, you know, divorce their dad and he's a jerk and he treated him like crap. And I feel guilty about it. So now I feel like I have to make up for it. You, you see this in divorce situations a lot. This sort of like trying to overcompensate basically is what it is. So watch out for that one. Maybe you have. And this is the most difficult one I think to overcome. Maybe the reason you keep fixing other people's problems, overly self sacrificing, putting yourself in a bad situation for someone else is because you're afraid of what's going to happen to the other people in their life. Hopefully that's not too confusing. I see this most often when the person with the addiction has children or the person, it doesn't even have to be person with the addiction really. It could just be person has children. And you feel like if you don't fix it or help this person that their children are going to suffer. And it could be other people around them, but it's almost like you're not exactly doing it for that person. But realize that if you don't, there's a whole another group of people that are going to suffer. And so then you feel like you have to for those other people. That is probably the hardest one to break because there's this empathy inside. And you know that it's. It's usually not, especially when it's children, those other people's choice and they don't have any power in the situation. If, if you're doing that and you're worried it's going to hurt other people around them, but those other people are adults, then I would say those other adults, that's their choice. So that's irrational guilt we need to come back to Now. I want to spend just a little bit of time talking about ways to work on this. Now plan A, stop doing it. If Gamble were here, she does a better job with this, she'd say stop it. But if you feel like you can't stop doing it, then at least back off. Okay, let's do some damage. Control stuff here. Could you at least delay fixing the problem? Right. Could you let them sit in it for a bit? Because, hey, they might solve it if you just let it sit for a minute. Some of us fix other people's problems before they ask us to, before sometimes they even want us to, and lots. And sometimes you might have codependency so bad that you're literally fixing problems for other people that they don't want you to, and they get irritated at you, and they're kind of mad at you for stepping in. They're like, I didn't want you to do that. I. I'm good. I got it. Some people get frustrated with you. So at least if you can't not do it, can you delay doing it for as long as possible? Because a lot of times, like I said, people will step up. Could you possibly ask for something in return? Right. You know, maybe it's an example. Might be, sure, I'll take your shift for you tonight because I know, you know, your kid had this thing. Could you take my shift next Saturday? What I really like about this one is, is if this person says, no, I can't do that for you, it gets real easy to not do that for them because it becomes ultra super clear the nature of the relationship. So if you're gonna sacrifice your needs to help someone else, it's really okay to do that occasionally. That's not a problem. What's a problem is. Is if we're. If we're sacrificing our own and over and over again for the same person or for the same few people. So ask for something in return, hey, I can do that. Could you babysit my kids on this day? Because if you can keep the relationship, and it's not tit for tat, it's not scorekeeping, but if you can keep the relationship somewhat equal, you'll keep the relationship healthy. You'll build less resentment. They'll build less resentment towards you. If someone in your life really needs something, could you meet them in the middle? Could you possibly just not solve the whole problem? You know, if they need somebody, could you give them a little bit of it instead of the whole bunch? And this sounds funny because it's almost like tapering back. It's almost like drink less or whatever, which never works when it comes to addiction, but. But it might help you to sort of withhold and pull back a little at a time if you feel like you just cannot, like, stop rescuing. Could you? If a person in your life is having a problem and you're worried about it and you can't sleep at night and all that kind of stuff. Could you come up with some possible ways you could help that are within acceptable, reasonable limits for yourself? You could say, hey, I could. I could do this. I could make dinner and bring it over to you. I could take care of your dog while you're gone, you know, for X amount of time, whatever. So. And you can give them some multiple choice instead of just jumping in and fixing the problem with whatever solution you think is the solution. So, number one, it's asking, do you could. Do you need some help? And what would be helpful? And that's actually being respectful of their boundaries by doing that. The other thing that I think is really important when you're going to help is set reasonable expectations up front. And you can do that in sort of one of two ways. It's probably more than that, but I thought of two of them off the top of my head. If it's not something you can do regularly and you know that this problem's probably going to keep coming up for that person, then you can say, hey, normally I wouldn't be able to. And if there's a real reason, then say, because I normally have my kids on Saturday night because my budget is down to the wire normally, or whatever it is. But I think I can help you out this one time. And by doing that, you're setting a boundary right up front that says, hey, yeah, I can do it for you this one time. But I'm telling you, like, don't be expecting me to do this for you all the time. Or if it's a situation where someone's going to need some help and there's like over a period of time involved, then say, hey, I can help you. And specify how much and for how long. Because when you don't do that, and let's say you say something vague like, well, I'll help you pay your rent until you can get on your feet. Don't do that. That's what I'm talking about here. I'm saying set the limit. Say I can help you by contributing $300 towards your rent, you know, for the next three months or until you get, you know, your new job or whatever, your first paycheck, put a limit on it. Because then you get past your limit. You get done wanting to help. You're like, okay, I've been doing this. Want to do it anymore? But you didn't say that up front. So then you start with the irrational guilt. If you will set Those boundaries and limits on what and how much for how long and under what conditions, then you're going to save yourself a lot of heartache in the future by just setting the stage correctly. This probably isn't the case for, for the codependent relationship you're thinking of right now. Right now, you probably, if you're watching this video, you have some kind of codependent situation going on with somebody that's done been going on for a long time. That's why you're watching the video. I'm not talking about that one. But if you've got that going on, you're likely to have a codependent type dynamics in the future with other people. So this is a preventative one. Okay. If you're new in a situation, new in a relationship, you don't want to jump in and fix something right off the bat for someone. When you do that, you're. You're literally setting the wrong stage. You're like saying, this is the rules of engagement for this relationship. It's kind of like when I used to be a school teacher and they say you can start out strict and get less strict as the school year goes on, but you can't really start out less strict and get strict. You can, but it doesn't work very well. So if it's a new relationship going forward, start with too many boundaries, it's better. And then as you get to know that person, if it's safe, it's appropriate, you can let some of those boundaries back a little bit. But it's better to start with more boundaries. And these are just ideas of how to keep yourself out of that kind of codependent dynamic going forward. Because once you're in it, y' all know it's real hard to get out of. It's difficult. And then when you eventually do get out of it, then of course they see you as the bad guy, the. The person. I can't believe you did that to me. I can't believe you're not gonna help me now. And even if you've been helping them for 10 years and you finally cut them off and it's like, I can't believe you. Right? Put you in the bag of roll. You change the rules, and that's not fair. And then they'll start saying all that and they'll hit that irrational guilt button and then you'll be stuck. All right, so I am going to link at the end of this video the. The playlist for codependency, because there's more on this topic. But before I do that, let's say hello to the people that are watching live. And if you're watching on playback. Hey, welcome. Glad you came back and watched this video. If you have a question or something you want to chat with me about or ask, put the word question or a bunch of question marks and something in the chat in front of your question because there's so many of you and you talk to each other and sometimes I don't know if you're talking to me, you're talking to each other. I'm too add. I get all confused. So that helps me to find your questions better. Hey, Jordan from North Dakota and Bailey from Arizona and Danielle from California and Bianca from El Paso, Texas. Mississippi. Hello. Hello. Hello. Vicki. Greetings from London. All right. Hey, we got people from all over. Got Nana from Canada, Jordan from Dakota, Riri from Wisconsin, Marilyn from Seattle. Look at all that. Carolyn says I really need this. I'm stuck going in circles and not sleeping well. Yes, that's what happens. Your anxiety gets up. You're worried about them, you're mad at them, you're worried about you. You're worried about everything and it impacts everything in your life. And when you said that, Caroline, you. You prompted me for some reason to remember I think was the sleeplessness part. I didn't say this, but one of the other root reasons why you could be struggling with codependency. Is childhood trauma specific in. In specifically complex childhood trauma. It could have been sort of a trained in you behavior. And that's a whole topic. I was going to say whole video, but probably a whole series of videos in and of itself. Terry says she tends to be codependent. Me too. Terry. I'm with you. I got a. I got a good bit of that in me too. I have to work on it all the time. Denise. Hello. Hello. Ms. Readinger says my 32 year old non functioning addict and my fiance. Wait, hold on. 32 year old non functioning addict and my fiance can't stop letting her destroy our relationship. I'm currently staying away from our home indefinitely. As long as she is there, what do I do? Okay, is it. This must be a situation or I think this situation Miss Reading or where you're saying you're engaged to someone who has an adult child who's addicted and this is one of those situations like we were talking about in the beginning about why to work on this because your other relationship suffering. What you're saying is, hey, I'm done, I'm out. Because you can't your fiance I think is what you're saying can't be there for you. You guys can't have relationship because of that other situation. I think that's what you're saying. And if that is a situation and you need to draw that boundary for yourself, that's perfectly appropriate because guess what? You can enable other people's enabling. You can enable and you go, you can go back 10 levels on that if you want to. Right. Like if. If you've got somebody in your life who's paying and the bills for the addict but then they can't pay their bills and you're paying their bills, then you're enabling their enable. Oh yeah, it can keep going. All right. Says what is the most important thing you can do to create boundaries? I would say the first thing you need to do is really understand boundaries. And I think that that is hard. Boundaries are for yourself. This is the most sort of wrong thing that people do or way they mess it up is the right term. This is the way people mess it up as they start try to say you can and you can't and you won't and don't treat me. If you're trying to set a boundary for someone else, you're doing it wrong. Boundaries are for you. So that's the first thing is really wrap your head around it. I've got a whole series on here about boundaries and and I'm telling you just can't watch that enough. You can't reinforce that enough. If you struggle with codependency, I have to do it myself. And then the second thing you could do is look at why you're doing it. Are you. Are you have an irrational guilt. Let's see. RIRI says I like set boundaries. I feel like the boundaries I set, the more I am resented and the more he drinks. Yeah. If you've been overly self sacrificing for a really long time and you start to set the boundaries. Yeah. People don't like it. And that's what I mean when I say that to turn that dynamic around, you're almost always going to be the bad guy. Sometimes forever and sometimes just for a short time. You can somewhat, sometimes damage control. It depend on the person's personality based on how you go about setting that boundary. What you say or don't say, the tone and that kind of thing can make it easier to absorb. But yeah, they're not gonna like it. You change the rules of the game and they're mad because those rules didn't change in their favor. Oh, I see some people saying notes. All right, we'll see what we can do about that. How about when you're codependent, having many narcissists in your life that take endlessly. Thank you. The codependent becomes the alcoholic due to all the stress. Oh, I see what you're saying. I gotta tell you, Bonnie, the first thing I think when. When I read this, and it's just like an impulsively, like, thought is I've been doing this 20 years, and I've only met probably three people in 20 years that I thought were true narcissists. So my first thought is. Is like, are we talking about, like, narcissistic personality disorder? Like, the diagnosis, Are we just talking about, like, selfish people? Because. Because you can be kind of selfish yourself, is involved or kind of cocky or whatever and not be a narcissistic personality source. So I'm going to assume if there's many in your life that they're probably more on the just, like, selfish side, because otherwise, I mean, I don't even know how you'd get that. You'd have to try to find that many true narcissists. And my guess is, is that you're training those relationships. So what I would say to you, Bonnie, is you need to go to, like, one of those very last things I said, which is start with too many boundaries. Okay. And then slowly let out. Because if you've got a lot of people around you that are taking advantage of you, you have trained them that way. So instead of saying, I'm surrounded by a narcissist, it's like I, for whatever reason, overly self sacrifice, and then you resent them, and then they feel like narcissists. Maybe they are narcissists, but what are you doing to contribute to that? Hey, Robert, thank you for your kind words. Bailey says, would you be open to doing a live. That sole purpose is to answer the questions in the comments and not so much a specific topic. I did that not too long ago, Bailey, when we hit our 100,000 subscriber, it was kind of fun. I answered so many questions. I like my voice hurt by the time we got done, but it was fun. And then also, if you are interested in that, more of that kind of thing, you may want to be in our membership. Because every week in our membership, Campbell and Kim go in there and they have live group coaching where it's. It's all just answering questions, like, in more in depth than. Than what's happening right here. Let's see Here. Sugar salad sandwich. I like that profile. I might have to put it up here on the screen because it's a sugar salad sandwich. Love it. Hey, Amber. You changed my family's life. Thank you. I found once my husband got sober, I felt lost. I hated being his wife mom, but when he didn't need me, I felt lost. You know what? That's super insightful of you to say. It's like, we want them to be fixed. We want the situation better, but it's been going on so long. Like, it's kind of like, now what. And it. Even when they get better. I love that you said wife mom, because that was so on point. That's what happens with your spouse. You become their mom, and then you resent them, and then they resent you. And. And even when the addiction gets better, it's really hard to break that cycle. And I think that's what you're saying here. And I bet there's a lot of people here that could relate to that. So I feel like you nailed it when you said wife mom. So if I were you, I'd start sliding back over into the wife category and do a better job of asking for what you need so that you can respect your partner more as your partner. Because when you're momming them, there's this, like, dynamic that's like this. Like, you're up here, and they're down here, and this. That's why those resentments build. So try to get back on an equal footing with them. And part of that is letting them step up to the plate, asking to step up to the plate in a kind way, and then you both appreciate each other more. Denise says not one more Alabama support group. It started in Huntsville. Very helpful. Weekly meetings. I've not heard of that, but I like that. Not. Not one more. Alabama. All right. Very good. Okay, this is good. I'm putting this up here. All right. Says codependency seems to be about control to me. To some degree it is. And. And usually if you're in a relationship and the other person is codependent toward you, you feel like they're controlling you. And it is because they're so worried is for a couple reasons. Because they're so worried that you might suffer that they try to make sure that you do or don't do certain things to prevent problems or whatever. So there's that. That aspect of controlling, and then there's this other aspect of controlling where that person that's codependent has over self sacrificed for so long that they're just ticked at you and they're. And then you get all this, well, if you're gonna live in my house, well, if I'm gonna pay your bills, then you're gonna do it this way and that way. And so that controlling comes in from two places. It comes from a place of. Place of resentment. And then you tell them that they're being controlling and then they cause more resentment because they're like, what are you talking about? I'm controlling? One of the things I like to say is if you don't take control and responsibility in your life, then someone else will, right? And it's like, I don't want to be boss, I don't want to be controlled. Then take control of your own life, right? Handle your business and then no one else will handle your business for you. That's what I like to say. I say that a lot to young people because they don't quite understand that they want to be adults, but not adult. Y' all know what I'm talking about. Lac, he's got some question marks here. Thank you for that. I think one conversation away. Let's put it up here. I think I'm one conversation away from my husband, who's alcoholic, divorcing me. I've dealt with so much from him and I don't want a divorce, but I don't know what to do. What should I do? I think I'm one conversation away from my husband, who's an alcoholic, divorcing me. Are you saying that it's just been bad blood for so long that he's over it too? I don't know that there is. If it's that close, one conversation away. You're pretty close to the line. It can be brought back because I never say never, but. But I'm not sure and. And I'm not sure exactly what's going on that's causing that dynamics. I don't know that I can tell you for sure exactly what to do. I just need more details about it. I'm sorry I can't give you a better answer. I wish I could. It's actually choose guilt over resentment. I said it wrong. You know, it's like, I'm not going to do it and maybe I feel a little bit guilty, but that's actually slightly more healthier than I did it. And now I resent you. That's what the saying means. I know I said that, like backwards and forwards and confused people, confused myself. Let's see here. Question I have over. I'm Thinking, you're saying, over self sacrifice for decades. Started drinking to cope and then mixed in the mix. Lost my three grown children as fallout. I have been sober for 10 months now, but they are still no contact. What now? It's really hard for people in early recovery when other people won't give them a chance because it feels like, look, I did it, I'm turning around, I'm really trying. I really mean it this time. And you do, you know, and you are trying. But in the other person's eyes, they've been hopeful so many times and been let down so many times. They just don't even want to give you a chance. They literally don't want to consider the possibility that things could be better. And you, as painful as it is, you have to respect their boundaries. If they are saying, if someone is saying to you, do not contact me, do not contact them. That is a boundary that we have to be able to accept whether we like it or not. Let's see here. Bonnie says codependency can definitely lead to addiction due to all the stress. Then you can't help anyone. Must help yourself. Yes, and I see this a lot in women, Bonnie, because it's like, it's sort of like that wine mommy culture thing that's going on. It's like you give, you give, you give, you run all day, you take care of your kids. And then it's like finally it's like this one thing that you're doing for yourself. And that's what it feels like. It's like, this is my self care. I'm having a drink for me or I'm doing this, whatever it is you're doing for yourself. But what's happening is you're over sacrificing so much, you're emptying the tank. You're trying to fill that void with that alcohol, with that gambling, with whatever it is that's happening there. And, and as long as there's a leak in the container, it's never going to be filled. And, and you're right, Bonnie. And then it does lead to addiction. The people who help behind your back are not helping at all. They are only making the process take longer, in my opinion. Yeah, I think you're probably right, Bailey. You got some question marks there. But I don't see your question. Did I miss it? I think maybe I missed it or something. I don't see it. BB says, is it codependency if you are feeling guilty because they act mad at you or when you're trying to figure out what you did wrong. Like, sometimes I express my anger and tell them the things. Is there more they did when drunk? And they will say that they don't want to talk about it or to stop the conversation. And I feel like because they do that I must have done something wrong because they barely accept fault. Well, I mean, sure, baby, you're wanting to show them or tell them something that's humiliating, that makes them feel terrible. So, yeah, they don't want to talk about that. And if you're forcing that situation and you're trying to force them to see and hear what they've done, I know you're gonna think this is crazy, but that's actually you crossing their boundary. That's not a healthy boundary. A lot of people saying, yeah, like, tell them what they did or whatever. That's. But that's. If you're trying to set a healthy boundary, you remove yourself. You literally don't allow yourself to be in a position to be treated like that. That is the better, more healthy move. Rather than stay in the situation and then try to make the person understand how bad they were or terrible, whatever it was that they did. I know that that sounds a little counterintuitive, but that is a great example of what can happen with the codependency and the resentment. That resentment builds up because you're. Because you're allowing yourself to be treated crappy. Right? And somebody's walking all over you. And some. You are going to build resentment. Who wouldn't? And that resentment is going to come out some way. It's going to eventually come out bigger than. I'm going to tell you what you did. It's gonna. It's gonna be bigger. I'm guessing. Annie Lawn said, Annalon says, we just lost our sister to alcoholism. My husband is an alcoholic, and I ask him for help from his mom. His mom now sends him a message about narcissistic. What do I do? Okay, let me read that again. So you lost your sister, your husband's an alcoholic, and you asked his mom to help. I think that's what you're saying. And his mom now sends him messages about being narcissistic. So she's. That's not helpful. First of all, what. You're not saying he's narcissistic. You're saying he's alcoholic. So I don't know what the truth is there, but if. If you're on. If you're on my. I don't. Wait a second. She's saying that you're narcissistic. Or is she saying that he's narcissistic? If she's trying to send him a message saying that you're a narcissist. I didn't think about that till last second. Then want you to go watch my video where I talk about. I think the title is something like what does the addictive person in your life tell other people about you? And this is what you're going to hear. If what's happening is the mom is sending him messages kind of hinting to him, telling him that he's narcissistic, then I would maybe work more on getting on the same page with the mom, asking if you want her to help with something specifically ask her to watch these videos, something like that. Because whatever's happening, she's missing the mark, right? Not, not helping, not helping. Mom in law My dog's cafe and bar says I have been with my boyfriend for a year. He's just coming off an eight day bender. I think I should put in a boundary not to see him in person until he seeks help again or outpatient help. This is a good question. And we get this kind of question. Maybe not exactly this question, but pretty much this question all the time. This is probably going to backfire on you is my first thought, because I don't think you're going to stick. I don't even know you, but I'm probably projecting because I wouldn't stick. That's what. And most people wouldn't. Because you think if I, if I lay down the law and I tell them they got to do this or that or the other, then they're just, they're gonna know I mean business and they're going to do it. Well, it rarely works that way. And then you're going to say, well, I'm not going to see you until you seek help. If you're really, really, really like sure you can do that and you mean it while you're hard, then okay, do that. But if you're just trying to sort of ultimatum someone into seeking help, then that's probably gonna backfire on you. I would say there's a lot of boundaries that could be set here in this situation. I don't know what happened on the eight day bender. Like sometimes depends on what people use. They're like literally MIA for eight days. And if I'm dating someone who's going MIA for days at a time, like literally no contact and I'm scared to death. I think they're like in a car crash or something. I don't know that I can stay in a relationship like that because they're, they're MIA for eight days. Or if they're on a bender for eight days and they're nasty and they're ranting and they're raving and they're saying ugly things or they're obnoxious or whatever, deal with the problematic behavior that's the result of the substance, like the being gone, like the ranting, like the not paying the bills, whatever it is that's happening. They'll be able to hear that usually more effectively than they're able to hear, like, you are an alcoholic, you are an addict. You need to get help. That word get help is triggering in and of itself. I have some videos on that, lots of them. How to get someone out of denial. How to get someone to accept help. There's whole playlists, so definitely check those out because it's a complex topic. Tiffany says rules versus boundaries. I have a video called exactly that. And Kim, who is one of our family recovery coaches who works with the people in our membership, she. She describes it in a even better way because she says it's like a boundary versus an ask. Like sometimes we feel like everything we ask, we have to put a boundary behind it. Like if we ask someone to take out the trash, we feel like we have to say, or else I'm gonna do or not do this. So realizing that everything isn't a boundary, boundaries really should be pretty few. If you go and you throw out a bunch of them, you're going to make yourself crazy trying to enforce all these boundaries. You're just going to make your own life hard. So, yes, decide. Are you asking someone to do something or are you setting a boundary around them doing something? Let's see here. Nana says it's harder to set boundaries because my son has mental health issues that muddy the issue. I know something needs to change, but it's so hard to know what without knowing what those mental health issues are. I probably can't give you the best advice here, Nana. Almost anybody that has an addiction to the level that their families watching my videos has a mental health issue. So I don't know if you mean they're kind of depressed, they're kind of anxious, or. Or if you mean like they're in a full blown psychotic episode most of the time, unless it's something acute, like, like they're suicidal or they're having like serious paranoid psychosis or something, if they're having any of those cute things, you have to deal with that Mental health thing first. Like that's urgent emergency. Now if it's more of a longer term chronic condition, you probably going to have to deal with the addiction first because you're never going to be able to deal with that mental health issue until you deal addiction. And probably what's going on here is over empathy. It's irrational guilt. And a lot of times people with addictions, they will use their mental health stuff as a way to avoid taking responsibility for the addiction. I don't know if that's what's happening here. I have a whole video on that too. But they'll sort of hide behind that. It's the only thing that helps me with my anxiety. I can't because the trauma, the this, that and I, I'll go for that myself. But if it's something severe, like imminent danger kind, then that, that's like, that's a different story. Miss Readinger says you just joined. Oh, you just joined our membership. Camel and Kim do every other week. So this week Kim did it on and it's every Wednesday at 1:30 Eastern. And Campbell will do it next week. And so they just swap off. It's every other. Unless like one of them has to be gone or something and then they might fill in for each other. But Campbell's on next week. Brittany says can you talk more about how addicts respond to boundaries? I was shocked dealing with my addict, about how they would ignore and continue continually bullying me and try to overcome my boundary. Not the same as normal non addictive people. Strategies to keep strong boundaries and not become the bad guy. How to deal with resentments towards addicts who is sober now but still sees you as the bad guy. I have never really taken accountability for the damage they have caused. When you're, when you're saying this to me, Brittany, I have the impression that what you're saying is like, you're saying like, no, I can't give you money or no, you can't borrow my car or something like that. And they're just doing this thing where they're like pestering you. Maybe they're following you around the house. Maybe they're asking a thousand times, maybe they're yelling at you, maybe they're being mean to you, maybe they're threatening you, trying to sort of bully you into changing your mind. Then you're going to have to set a boundary on the bullying behavior. So maybe the initial boundary is, no, I'm not going to give you money. And the secondary boundary is I'm not going to stay here and be bullied. It's kind of like a kid who wants something, right? There's sort of levels, especially if you're talking about an addicted young person, right? It's like I'm gonna ask you nicely first time, and then I'm going to try to like bargain it out of you. Well, what if this, what if that? I'm trying to try to negotiate it with you, and then if that doesn't work, then I'm gonna say me nasty things. I'm gonna tell you how it's your fault. You're over controlling and you're crazy and you need to take your meds and whatever they're gonna say mean things to you. And if that doesn't work, they might up the ante and even go to this next level of threatening that something bad will happen to them. Well, if you don't give me the money, I guess I'll just have to go out on the street and sell myself something like that. Or I guess I'll just have to go buy it on the street. And who knows what happened to me. They'll start. That's that. I call it emotional blackmail. So they'll take it from level 1, 2, 3, 4, to just push and push and push to get what they want. The worst thing you can do is let the pushing behavior make you change your boundary. You'd have been better off to do the thing they wanted to begin with than to set the boundary and then let them act a fool. They'll fit and then cave. Because now you've. You've broken two boundaries, right? Whatever the initial one was. Plus you've allowed yourself to be bullied into something you know, think about, like if your kid throws a tantrum for something now, you definitely can't give it to them. That's what tell my kid I said now. Now I definitely can't give it to you because you acted that way and we can't be rewarding that. So you're gonna have to hold strong. If. If you show them that the bullying doesn't work, maybe it's block your phone, whatever it is you have to do. People only do what works so that behavior will extinguish eventually. But you have to be consistent about it. Hey, Mary, thank you for your kind words. Mary says thank you so much for sharing your incredible wisdom and knowledge about addiction. You have helped so many, in many ways. My husband, who's struggling with alcohol, is now seeking help. All right, that's fantastic. Mary, was there anything that you did that you think was Particularly helpful. Were there boundaries you set? Was there positive reinforcement? You did what. What did you change? You think that helped contribute to that? Because I bet you did some things. Linda says my son has been sober for almost 11 months now, and he looks very good. He destroyed his teeth doing drugs, and I've offered to get him health help to get his teeth fixed. Is that a good idea? I think it is. If someone's helping themselves and you're helping, like they're working and you're helping come alongside them because he's 11 months over, so he's working on something and you're helping them, then that's called helping. And you're going to both walk away with a good feeling of it. If he was trying to help himself and then you're just doing this, that's when you're going to walk away, the bad feeling. So, yeah, I would. I would say now would be a good time to do that, if you can and within. What's reasonable for you, like, don't put yourself in jeopardy to do it. But if you can reasonably do it, then, yeah, I think that's fine. I think that's great. Cars and crypto says your thoughts on codependency versus separation anxiety and an alcoholic that is in limerence. Carson, crypto. You throw in, like, 10 things at me. I don't even know how to separate out what you're saying. Let me read it one more time. Codependency versus separation anxiety. Okay. Codependency is really more about a fear of someone else being uncomfortable. And separation anxiety is more a fear about you being uncomfortable because they're gone. So if I had to separate it, that's the way I do it. My apologies. Dog's crazy out there. And an alcoholic that is in limerence. I don't. I don't know how to answer that last piece because I don't know how that last piece connects to the first piece. Like, are you having separation anxiety from an alcoholic? And you're in limerence. They're in limerance. It's your brother. So I'm not sure I'm very helpful on that. I apologize. But I bet there's a whole lot to that story. Okay, hold on. Lac is saying there's more to this conversation. Lac. But I wanted to address it because this last little piece you put here for the last few years, when I asked him what he wanted, all he said was, I don't know what. What might be helpful is to give multiple choice when someone. Because sometimes people don't know so you can say, what about this or this or this or that? And let them pick. I do that in therapy a lot. I would say, listen to what someone's saying now saying, is it more like this or like this or like that? And they'll say more like that second one. So giving multiple choice might be helpful in a situation like that. Victoria says, I found myself being anxious. When I know my partner is anxious or something, I just think he is. So I ask. It's weird. I wish I could break the codependency he took. I took care of him in active addiction a lot. So probably what's happening here is you have a fear. If he's anxious, you're afraid he's going to relapse back. That's what I'm reading into this. I think that's what you're saying because you're saying you took care of him in active addiction, which tells me he's not in active addiction. And so probably when he gets anxious, you get scared that's going to send him back. And one of the things you can do for someone else that's anxious is be calm and reassuring versus being anxious. Especially if it's your concern that they're going to, like, that's back when people come into me and they're like, anxious and they're, you know, in recovery, I say, you got this, dude. Like, here's what. Here we got some options and that calmness and you can help be helpful for them. But I also realized, Victoria, that you probably have some trauma if that's what's happening. If you're scared he's going to relapse and that can be hard. That can be a hard thing to control. Bridget says. Bridget says, what advice would you give to both sides? A codependent wife, addicted husband, the relationship started this way. Want to save the marriage. What is your advice for both sides in trying to heal? Well, the codependent person needs to step back and the addictive person needs to step forward in most cases to balance out so that you can be in an equal partnership type relationship. Because typically what's happening is the codependent person is over functioning. The addicted person is under functioning, and that creates resentment on both sides. You're resentful because that person's not taking care of their responsibilities. And they're resentful because you're trying to control them and treating them like a child. So to correct that, they have to step forward and you have to step back so that you can be on equal footing and respect each other. Lisia says codependency. Isn't that an outdated term? Yeah, kind of is. And honestly, the only reason I called it this is because YouTube says that you guys want me to make a video on codependency. Like, they been telling me that for weeks. I'm like, okay, YouTube, I hear you. You're saying I need to make a codependency video. Science says attachment injury and attachment wounds, which lead to why we stay with others and why we don't make boundaries. Yeah, I do think that that's a big piece of it, but I think there are some other pieces of it too. But I definitely agree that it. The a big basis part is that fear of, like, losing the relationship. But. But there's more pieces of it too. Like, for example, when you see codependency from, like, a parent and a child, it's just. That's one of the biggies. There are some others. But I agree the word is sort of all muddied up, and I don't. I don't like the word that much myself either. The topic is legit, but the word is not a great word. All right, everybody, I think we're out of time. I appreciate you hanging out with us. I will link up the playlist for you on codependency, and I will get these notes. I'll try to get these notes put in so you guys can just download them. So check back in a couple hours if you want to, and I'll have that link in here. I'll put it in the description and in the comments and so you can grab those notes if you want them. I'll see you guys next Thursday at 1 Eastern. Bye, everybody.