2024 1036 Juliann G hosts Rusty and our guest Mike A for a wide-ranging discussion on Codependency including learned helplessness, workaholism, perfectionism, tap dancing as a few of the topics in this episode.
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(00:00):
Welcome everyone, I'm Tim, I'm an alcoholic.
(00:05):
And I'm Rusty and I'm an alcoholic and this is Children of Chaos.
Hey, today we have a guest host and this is something we're going to start doing on a regular basis
and inviting other people to come in with topics that are important to them.
And so today, Julianne is going to be our guest host and Julianne, why don't you take it away.
(00:32):
Good morning, Tim. Well, you didn't have to broaden too far. I'm Rusty's wife.
He's my husband. This is on codependency today.
And we have not only Rusty and myself, but we also have Mike A. here.
And glad to have you, Mike. Good morning.
Good morning. I'm Mike, I'm an alcoholic.
(00:55):
Great. Well, when we think about codependency, I kind of broke it down into there's four parts of it.
It's a massive topic and maybe like 90% of the United States has experience with codependency.
But we often think of it as just a pattern of living that's not healthy,
that's in reaction to somebody else's drinking or drugging.
(01:18):
It's more than that. It's about a dysfunctional pattern of living
and not being able to problem solve very well,
which is nurtured often by a set of rules that we had growing up in our family
and that we still continue to work with.
Now, that's just a little bit, a little tidbit, and that's defining it.
(01:40):
Rusty has some more ideas about that that I'm going to share, we're going to share.
But we're going to give you an overall of what we're looking at today. What is it?
What are the common characteristics and what's the origin of it?
And probably most important, what do we do to get over it and can we get over it?
Or how do we minimize it is another question.
(02:03):
So if we get to all of that this morning, it will be a miracle.
Looks like we might have some other podcasts going on.
Okay, so I just kind of threw out some basic ideas to define what is codependency.
But Rusty, I know you have something on that.
Thanks, yeah, Julianne. I wanted to call her honey, see, because this is, yeah.
(02:30):
She has great boundaries, my wife does. I mean, great boundaries.
Julianne, I wanted to read something that I, it's a definition of codependency.
And being a therapist and doing family systems work, this, I mean, this is family systems work.
When you're dealing with people, you know, I think everybody is codependent.
(02:53):
So let me just read this to give the people listening a real idea.
What about family systems? You just said family systems.
Well, I do.
What do you mean by that? Well, family systems is, the family is all a system.
And if people really want to find out what family systems is, is that you can go on YouTube
(03:17):
and John Bradshaw, this guy is the guru for as far as I'm concerned, with family systems.
And he has a program with 10 different segments and it's called The Family.
Man, it is, it's just tremendous.
Another one that he does, and I've mentioned it before, is about shame, healing the shame that binds us.
(03:41):
And that's another great one. And the great thing about it for people is it's free.
Yeah, and it's related to codependency. It's all about codependency too.
Yes.
Well, on the thing of family systems, let me add this, that I think John Bradshaw, and he even mentions this,
he gets his idea of, and this goes back to Virginia Satir, to homeostasis, yeah, homeostasis,
(04:07):
which is an organism strives for wholeness to get balance. And that's in all of nature.
So it applies to us as human beings. And that kind of helps us understand better what we're talking about
when we talk about a family system.
Absolutely.
Yeah, okay.
Absolutely.
There you go, Rusty.
Okay, so I'm just going to read this. It says, codependency is a term that has been widely used
(04:32):
within the chemical dependency field over the past many years, but is often misunderstood.
Originally, it was used to describe the person or persons whose lives were affected
as a result of their being involved with someone who was chemically dependent.
(04:53):
The codependent spouse or child or lover or someone who was chemically dependent
was seen as having developed a pattern of coping with life that was not healthy
as a reaction to someone else's drug or alcohol use.
The now familiar strategies of minimizing problems or of total denial of problems
(05:18):
was seen as a reaction to the chemically dependent person's maladaptive behavior.
Many of us professionals are coming to realize codependency is our discussion,
that these codependent patterns of coping do not necessarily develop solely as a result
(05:43):
of having lived with a chemically dependent person.
In fact, through specific research and clinical work on family systems,
it is now becoming clear that chemical dependency is a condition which can emerge from any family system
where certain unwritten and even unspoken rules exist.
(06:07):
It says, researchers know that addiction has a ripple effect on the addict's entire family.
They tell us that the people attached to the addicts, their spouses, lovers, and children,
also have a lot in common, although they might come from very different backgrounds
and may have started out with very different personalities.
(06:30):
Most of them seem to think and behave very much alike once they live in the middle of a loved one's addiction.
And unfortunately, the ways they think and behave aren't good for them or anyone else.
In trying to cope with the trouble in their lives,
they have fallen into patterns of living that makes them miserable.
(06:55):
Well, on that note, it's hard to take all that in, but at least we know for sure it's a dysfunctional pattern of living.
Yeah, but thank you for reading all that.
Before I turn this back to you, I'm sorry. Could I give you a couple of examples?
Sure.
Okay.
Difficulty in actually identifying feelings. Am I angry? Am I lonely? Am I sad? Do I feel hurt? What? What's going on for me?
(07:26):
Difficulty in forming or maintaining close relationships.
I want to be close to others, but I'm afraid of being hurt or rejected by them.
And one of my favorites is perfectionism.
Too many expectations for self and others.
Don't get me started.
(07:47):
Thank you, Rusty. Well, that's a perfect segue into the next part.
Now that we have an idea and it's been defined for us of what is codependency,
let's look at what are the characteristics of it.
And, you know, Ernie Larson, who wrote Stage 2 Recovery, says that codependency, that these behaviors are self-defeating behaviors.
(08:14):
And I like that term because that means that there's something I can do about them.
So what we're looking at now is what are the common characteristics or self-defeating behaviors that is how we know it's a codependent.
I mean, you can actually identify that by how people act and what they do. It's not a mystery.
(08:35):
And you've mentioned some already. And all of these are about the key thing is that we're talking about codependency.
So it's all about relationships and whether you can have a healthy relationship or not.
And, you know, we often go through our whole life and we don't have one because we try this, we try that.
(08:58):
And we've, you know, we're just picking up pieces.
It's really, I think, inspiring to think that if we just study this a little bit and we hear other people's stories,
we have a far greater chance of having a healthy relationship because we can see how other people do it.
And that's what has encouraged me in life to have the relationship I now have.
(09:21):
So one of the you've mentioned a couple of things that are common characteristics, Rusty.
And I know we have Mike here who has a lot of experience with this subject.
So maybe you could tell us. I know you have something that you looked into.
I looked at some of the things that Rusty shared earlier.
And codependency is it's a huge triangle that is so encompassing.
(09:43):
It means so many different things.
But one of the things I thought was when I read about perfectionism, I thought, well, I'm not a perfectionist.
I'm kind of, you know, do it halfway. Sometimes guide.
But perfectionism is too many expectations for yourself and others.
Doesn't mean you achieve perfectionism.
One of the things that I realize is I feel overly responsible for other people's behavior or feelings.
(10:09):
I say something and I'm talking to Julianne and she says, you hurt my feelings.
Then the people pleaser in me wants to go, oh, I'm so sorry.
And then I compensate. I try to overcome that.
And, you know, the one thing that really jumped out to me was that paradoxical dependency,
(10:31):
which on the outside I'm strong and I'm secure.
And on the inside, there's a self doubt and a little boy.
And I put that on for years when I was working in the public service field.
What did you do, Mike?
Well, I was a police officer EMT so I could break people and I could fix them sometimes, I thought.
So, you know, you've got to be position leadership.
(10:55):
People call 901 because something's going bad in their lives.
They want you to take away the boogeyman, get the cat out of the tree, find their lost kid
or start an IV and stop that bleeding on their cut on their arm.
And so I realized that, you know, that self doubt, oh, my gosh, what if I can't save the day?
What if I don't have my Superman cape on or my Wonder Woman shirt or whatever?
(11:19):
So, yeah, this is a good thing because we can't be all things to all people is what I figured out.
And you know, Mike, all those things that you talked about that he did, there's a difference in what you do.
And then if you go home and do that, then you really are in trouble.
(11:40):
But when we're that is your was your job and you did a great function there, Mike.
You did a great service.
But it's when I go past that, when I don't let people take responsibility for themselves,
that I'm into the codependency. Oh, absolutely.
Yeah. You know, we have stereotypical roles.
(12:01):
Men are hunter gatherers and women are nurture, caring, loving, maternal figures.
And there's sometimes I've been told by other people that when I go home to my spouse,
if she's upset about something, it works out much better.
She says, I don't want you to fix it. I just want you to listen.
And we do. We don't do that. Well, listening is a it's a perishable skill.
(12:26):
We should be quick to listen, slow to talk and slow to anger. Exactly.
And when you mentioned that there's this there's interdependency and there's codependency.
I know that that Julianne and I, we work really hard on interdependency and not codependency.
(12:47):
Interdependency is stepping up for someone when they're not able to achieve something
and helping and being of service there. Like when Julianne had cancer, which was devastating,
but it was devastating for both of us. I never realized about the caregivers so much until I stepped up.
(13:08):
That's interdependency. But she would also let me know when she could handle things herself.
Because I could get over into my codependency. We're all codependent. Right.
So I'm on guard with that all the time. So what I hear you say is she set a boundary
when you were trying to help and she could do it. Exactly. See how those are so intertwined.
(13:32):
Golly. It helped me get better. Yeah. Set a boundary on that.
And that we're going to talk about boundaries in just a minute here. On the people pleasing,
I thought that was that's definitely one of the main characteristics of this.
And that's when people have learned that their self-esteem depends on never making anyone angry.
That's the bottom line for that. And I felt good the other day about thinking how much progress I've made on that.
(14:00):
When I had a couple of friends actually was last Saturday out on the patio and we were talking.
And then one of them, you know, she got her purse out and she started to pull something out and she said,
Oh, well, let me ask this. Does anybody mind if I vape? And I was so shocked.
See that anybody I know vapes. I was like, and I'm so shocked because, you know, since I had cancer,
(14:23):
I'm really aware of people bringing things into their body that actually hurt them.
So I immediately said, no, I just said, I said, I said, yes, I do mind. I do mind.
And she was really shocked that anybody said that, especially since we were sitting outside.
So when I said that, you know, I did think I thought, yeah, yeah, Julie, you've made some progress.
(14:45):
So that's as simple as that. You know, people pleasers never want to say no, you know, because and they can't stand conflict.
So whatever you want is going to be OK with them, even if they have to grovel, you know, even if it means they're being hurt.
And so that's the sickness of it. A lot of women who are abused are people pleasers.
(15:09):
They don't understand that they can have a greater self-worth by by standing up for themselves.
It's such an adventure living with Julie Anne.
I love her. See, I just I have so much respect for her because she will do things like she just said.
And man, that is so, so great. Thanks. Thank you.
(15:31):
It's difficult this day and time when you said vape.
Yeah, my folks were both ex smokers.
I remember back when smoking was everywhere is prevalent.
You know, it's illegal in buildings.
And I remember people getting offended and when we when the vaping came up, which is so devastating medically, I want to go into that detail.
(15:52):
But people. Well, I have a right to smoke.
Well, I have a right not to get secondhand smoke and let it destroy my pulmonary system, my lungs, my breathing and besides, you smell like smoke.
So we don't want to ruffle feathers. I say we in society, we want to make people mad or make them upset because then they're going to holler and scream and put us on Facebook and slam us.
So when you said that, good for you for sticking up because we know people's their feelers are going to be hurt.
(16:20):
Maybe when we say no, do you mind if I pollute the air and burn this port tobacco plant or whatever?
So, yeah, I like that example. That's good.
And the other side of that, too, is that it took me having cancer to be able to do that, to be able to say no when I wanted to say it.
That's how that's how devious this sickness is of codependency.
(16:42):
And it's so you know, it's almost like a ghost. You can't really see it.
You can't put your hand on it, but it's everywhere in our relationships.
So that's what we're trying to do with this is actually put our hand on these pieces that allow us to see it in ourselves and in others, you know, because if we can see it in somebody else, then we can begin to see it in ourselves.
(17:05):
And in Al-Anon, which has helped me tremendously with all this, you know, they have this thing called three A's and that stands for awareness.
You know, and even the Buddhas talk about awareness and being awake and then acceptance and A's talk about acceptance.
(17:27):
We have to accept what we see and what we hear.
And in other words, we're seeing reality for what it is, not what we imagine is happening or where it's going to go in the future.
It's right here in the right now. And then there's the third A, which is action.
We take some action to change something in ourselves, maybe in society, you know, whatever.
(17:53):
But those are the three A's from Al-Anon. Did you want to say something, Rusty?
No, I just wanted to go back with the caretakers and rescuers.
Oh, yeah. They're real close to people pleasing.
I mean, yes. And you were talking about Al-Anon, and that's what I come away with a lot when I'm at one of my Al-Anon meetings,
(18:17):
is that when it comes to their children, that's when the codependency becomes really harmful.
And then it happens with mothers especially, and with their sons more than it does their daughters.
We've talked about, you and I've talked about this, Julie, and they'll have a boy staying at home, and you'll ask him,
(18:39):
well, how old is he? And he'll go, well, he's 40, you know, and he's not sick. And their fear—
And she'll be doing his laundry, too.
Oh, yeah, she'll be—oh, absolutely do his laundry. Yeah, and cook for him.
It's called learned helplessness. You know, when you are doing all these things and not allowing this person to grow up
(19:02):
and be responsible for themselves, that's all codependency. It's extreme.
And underneath all that, it's on the last page of the seventh step in the twelve and twelve.
The chief activator of my character defects is self-centered fear, fear that I'm not going to get what I want
(19:27):
or I'm going to lose something I've got. And if people will pay attention to that and go inside and go,
what is my fear here? Why am I acting? That will do something.
It will give them the opportunity to make a behavioral change if they choose to,
because most of these people do not realize what they're doing.
(19:51):
Learn behavior. That's why the spot check in step 10 is so pivotal.
I was blessed, starting off in Al-Anon, I heard people say, talk about the twelve steps,
and, you know, got familiar with it. They said, hey, just be aware of step 10, that if you stop—
if I'm in a conflict, if Julianne and I are having a disagreement, or Tim and I are,
I need to stop and think, what's my motive? Oh gosh, I was kind of terse.
(20:17):
I was in a hurry. My blood sugar was low. I had too much coffee, not enough food, not enough sleep, whatever.
Because it hits us all, especially older folks like us. And take a spot check.
Like you. Exactly, right. Yes, ma'am.
What's going on with me? Oh, I was a little bit terse. Hey, Julianne, I'm sorry I was a little terse earlier.
And then don't make excuses. That's my MO. I was feeling whatever. Well, that's true.
(20:41):
But it dilutes my apology to you and my recognition. I was screwed up or whatever.
But yeah, that spot check. You can start your day over any time of the day. Absolutely.
That's great. You know, the discussion we're having on people-pleasing and caretaking,
some of the things you just said, Rusty, about the people that have come into your sessions as a counselor,
(21:07):
brings up enablers. And they all three go really well together. You know, they're really a group.
And the enablers are those who shield others from the consequences of their irresponsible behavior.
Absolutely. And so that's what these parents are doing that have 40-year-old children living in their home.
(21:29):
They're not giving their child a chance to grow up, basically.
And so, and women are often seen in this role with alcoholics or drug users.
And today, more so, I mean, it goes both ways today really easily.
But by being an enabler, it stops the person who's having the problem from having a spiritual conversion,
(21:58):
experience. That is, they never see themselves out of control. They never hit bottom.
They're never on their knees because I'm going to rescue them, right, as an enabler.
I'm going to make sure his laundry is done. I'm going to make sure, you know, he's fed. All of those things.
(22:19):
So actually, instead of helping that person, we're hurting that person.
And that's a real wake-up point right there to realize that, that that person never has to face a consequence.
And you can't grow up. You can't grow up.
And that goes back to the learned helplessness, right?
Right. Right.
I saw, I was in the Coast Guard back in the day, and during storms, they would have warnings,
(22:44):
and they had a dedicated channel on the Maritime Radio, and they would give warnings.
And the Coast Guard would broadcast, you know, high winds, high seas, hurricane, whatever.
And yet people would go out in that, knowing the Coast Guard would rescue them.
And, you know, they, you look at that, what's the catcher's mitt, that safety net,
(23:07):
whether it's mom and the 40-year-old or a fisherman that's going to go out because he's got to get food for his family.
But that's, when you say that, it is click. But we have these, and the rescuers, they'll always have jobs,
and the co-dependents will always, they'll have an unhealthy relationship.
Yeah, absolutely.
It'll keep going on and on and on.
(23:28):
Yeah. Yeah. And the interesting thing too is in those, particularly those roles,
more than I think some of the other characteristics, that we see that there's people-pleasing and enabling and caretaking.
We're liars. That's what we are. Because we're not owning up to our part in the relationship.
We're just being the jolly, you know, it's all going to, I'm going to help it all work out, or at least look like it's working out.
(23:54):
That's the main thing. So we're lying to the other person and we're lying to ourselves.
And I can think of an example when I, before I met Hugh Rusty then, you know, I was involved with a man in California.
And he had a business. And I was, I met him in Oklahoma.
And I went out and we lived out in California at that point for a couple of years.
(24:18):
But, you know, and he was an alcoholic. And I didn't, of course, I didn't recognize it at first because I was in denial.
You know, when you have a trash can that's full of, you know, wine bottles every day, well, gee, that should tell you something.
But no, I didn't want to look at that. So I didn't think a thing of it for at least a year and a half.
So I'm going to tell you this whole story about how, you know, how terrible he was, right?
(24:43):
We could never get clear on anything in our relationship because he was always pulling back because he's a, he's having a relationship with alcohol.
Right? But the truth is, is that I wanted to live in California and he was my ticket.
I knew nobody in California. And I wanted to be in that business because I wanted to learn the business.
(25:04):
So I had my own drive. You know, I knew we were probably never going to get married.
And that was OK because the truth was I wasn't totally in love with this guy.
You know, he was a nice person in many ways, and he was helpful in my life.
And that was the liar part of me that I had to see to own up to.
(25:25):
Now, was he an alcoholic? Yes. You know, did I need to leave him? Yes.
But that's you see, there's always another side to the story. And that's the codependent side.
What's the payoff for you to stay in that relationship?
You may decide it's worth it. That's up to you.
But I can tell you there are such things as healthy relationships and they do happen to people.
(25:51):
And I know, Mike, you're in a healthy relationship.
When you both have addiction issues, you spot it, you got it. We've heard that phrase before.
I spotted I got it. You hit the nail on the head. What's my motives?
What motivates me to do this? Is it something selfish? Well, oftentimes, yeah.
But you talk about it, you communicate.
(26:12):
I learned this in Alan on NAA that we have two eyes, two ears, one mouth,
which should always look and listen twice as much as we talk.
And I forget that because I'm a Jabberwocky. So, but yeah, what's my motive?
What's motivating me? Is it good? Is it bad? Is it?
With what you were just talking about.
The amazing part is that people, as they go deeper and deeper into the codependency,
(26:38):
and they're not realizing this, you have to be aware that they're not realizing it,
is that they will stay in a relationship, in a marriage for years.
Now, one of them is usually the alcoholic or the addict, and there's no intimacy.
There's no intimacy in that marriage.
There cannot be intimacy when you're living with a using alcoholic or addict.
(27:04):
We know that because you're on different levels of consciousness, for one thing.
And the other part is that you're trying to move ahead with your life.
You're taking over responsibilities that you really shouldn't be having to take care of.
And you're spending all your time trying to rescue or to fix that other person.
(27:30):
And that's how deep the codependency goes.
It really gets a hold of you.
It gets a hold of you, yeah.
Yeah, yeah, I met a woman the other day, and she has, she lived with a workaholic husband for 30 years.
After the first 10 years, she moved into another bedroom because they weren't getting along.
She stayed another 20 years.
(27:53):
And now, after all that, she's reflecting on her life.
And hopefully, it's great if you can catch it faster than that.
Yeah, right.
So you have more life left to live.
So, well, let's look at some of the other characteristics, and they're called defeating, you know, self-defeating behaviors.
We do it to ourselves, but we did learn it, you know, early on as a survival strategy.
(28:17):
So there is the workaholic.
I just mentioned one.
You know, I think you guys are familiar with workaholics.
Well, you know, in family systems, they have those identified scapegoat, the family hero, all of those different ones that we just use that as examples because of the codependency.
And so each person gets identified if you're working with people.
(28:42):
They get identified as, OK, here's the family hero.
Here's the enabler.
It always plays out in every dysfunctional family.
Everybody's got a role.
Everybody's got a role.
And the hero usually becomes the workaholic, the one that took on that role in the family.
And Bradshaw, he talks a lot about that, about the family system, especially in these dysfunctional homes, the family system is set up for everything revolves around the addict or the alcoholic, whether it's the child.
(29:16):
There's a person that I've been working with that had a son that was living at home at 30-some years old.
The mother, her and the dad are total opposites.
They're fighting all the time.
They're close to divorce because she wants to let him stay in the house and he's not working.
(29:37):
He's not doing anything.
He's been there three years.
And the father is saying, you know, this has got to end.
And she's saying, no, it's, you know, it's OK for him to be here.
So there's no compromise.
But they're living under the same roof.
And it's just so dysfunctional for them.
Absolutely.
And as we talked earlier, that dysfunction, that learned helplessness that the boy is learning, it just gets deeper each day.
(30:06):
And that's extreme codependency.
Well, that's a true child of chaos.
Absolutely.
And if that if he.
Oh, great, Mike.
Well, I was just thinking if anything, if that son goes out and does get married, he's going to more likely and I know this from being in a marriage or two in my time.
He's going to seek the least path of least resistance.
(30:29):
So he's going to find the nurturing, the mom and the mommy figure and just carry that on.
And that's definitely the enabler right there that you guys are really talking about.
I want to move on to like workaholics and talk about that, because that's something that's so rewarded in our culture.
You know, the idea is that if you could, you know, if you could just like forget us, forget sleep, then you could really get ahead of whatever.
(30:56):
Because we're very competitive in this society.
And so we're talking about people who base their self-esteem on activity, a workaholic.
And I have been in phases of this myself where I'm busy, busy, busy.
And it's not really about accomplishing anything.
It's about I'm busy.
Oh, I've got a project here.
(31:17):
I've got a project there.
And I actually spent a number of years being busy when I lived in New York, even before that for 12 years.
You know, I was busy all the time, morning, noon and night, doing something I loved, which was social activism.
And I was very interested in that and wanted to help people.
And then I just burn out.
(31:39):
You know, it's what happened. I burn out.
I didn't take care of myself.
And so it all goes back to that family homostasis that needing a balance in your life.
And that's really what we're talking about here in these relationships is all of these characteristics.
And we're going to name a few more.
Take us out of balance.
It means somebody in the family we grew up in was in control.
(32:03):
And we took on these roles, these survival skills in order to try to be take some balance, put some balance into that family system again.
And then we carry it on into adult life.
And I found out that didn't work very well for me.
So I'm trying it in my marriage now not to be a workaholic.
(32:24):
In the police world, it's a given fact. Cops work part time jobs.
I didn't realize that.
Oh, gosh. I did that for 41 years.
Yeah. You always work part time job.
And there was a point in my career early on when I was a rookie that I needed to work those part time jobs.
And sadly, not to mention my old apartment, but the part time jobs paid more hourly than I was making.
(32:48):
You reach a point as your spouse makes more money and you move on, get promoted or whatever happens that you realize the part time job is an addiction.
Number one. Number two, it prolongs and avoids marital communication issues.
So it's an escape.
You could start a 12 step program for workaholics.
(33:09):
And it doesn't matter if it's in the corporate world.
There's wage and labor laws that govern how much 40 hours a week that you work anything over that's overtime unless your management, et cetera, et cetera.
But it's addiction. I look back and know that I avoided a lot of conflict and day to day issues in a marriage by being, oh, I got to get some sleep and go work part time job.
(33:32):
And then you look at your health.
I remember I never forget when I worked graveyard shift, I would use Benadryl, diphenhydramine, hydrochloride, which is an histamine.
And I drink a Benadryl and a beer to put me to sleep.
And then I'd wake up. Well, Benadryl stops you up.
It keeps your sinus and running.
And I'd wake up stopped up and plus with a little headache from that and then the beer and go to work and drink a ton of coffee.
(33:55):
So I was a vicious cycle.
So we do that and then we don't have the energy or the the emotion left to work on the day to day stuff.
I'm just blessed never had children that I inflicted that on my children.
I was a stepfather.
And this day and time, it doesn't matter what venue the first responder corporate world to get ahead.
(34:19):
If you want to make partner in a law firm, if you want to make senior accountant, you got to work more billable hours.
Firemen.
Firemen. Oh, yes.
They do 24 hour shifts.
Everyone of those guys and girls have part time jobs.
They work a day and are off two days.
So it knows no bounds, whether it's somebody making minimum wage, trying to pay their rent or somebody that's living in a nice house that wants to buy the boat or go on vacation.
(34:45):
Then you ignore you're ignoring the problems you have day to day with the spouse or the kids or the aging parents.
Being a workaholic myself, it is very difficult that once you realize it, and I've known I've known this about myself.
You know, I knew that about this for years.
But trying to change that behavior, awareness is not behavioral change.
(35:10):
I mean, I can know for years that I have this problem, whatever the problem may be.
But the difference between that and really changing it can be years.
And for me, it's been a double edged sword.
It's like what I have done for the last 38 years.
I love doing what I love.
And so I'm trying to discern always is this is this workaholism or is this where do you where does that line at between the workaholism and loving what you do?
(35:44):
I never get tired of it.
Is it workaholism or is it just doing what what you love to do?
Ask your spouse.
Well, I know what she says.
See, that comes into setting boundaries, Rusty.
Then that's another problem for co-dependence.
Setting boundaries.
That's right.
Well, reasonable boundaries.
(36:06):
Yeah, absolutely reasonable boundaries.
You know, what works for you is and for your spouse.
You know, another one of these characteristics is being a perfectionist.
I confess to that one for sure.
You know, and I can see where it started in childhood, you know, survival mechanism, because I didn't want to be at home.
(36:29):
But when I was at home, I would clean.
I started cleaning things, you know, I would like clean this, you know, the chandelier, clean whatever it was.
And that made me feel better.
It was a mood alteration, altering situation to be a perfectionist.
And then I carried it over into other things.
So, you know, that was when I was really young.
And then and then as I got into my teen years, I definitely didn't want to be at home.
(36:52):
And I could not I could go someplace.
I could go to my friend's house.
But to do that, I would have to be somebody they would want in their house.
So I learned not only people pleasing, but, you know, to try and be a perfectionist.
You know, I watched how they dressed.
I watched, you know, listen to how they talk, you know, all of those things.
And so then I carried it into adult life.
(37:15):
And the problem is that, you know, you can never really be happy as a perfectionist because it's unattainable.
You can never attain it.
And so then if you're working on something, like if I'm writing something like an essay or a little story or something, which is something I enjoy doing, I'm never finished.
I'm never finished with it because it has to be perfect at some level, deep level.
(37:40):
I can't get rid of that thing as hard as I try.
But I'm working on that one quite a bit.
So and it hurts.
It hurts in relationships because if you're if I'm stuck in that perfectionism thing, then the person I'm looking for in my world, I want them to be perfect.
(38:01):
But no one is perfect.
And so when I see something that's imperfect, it's shocking, you know, or I don't know what to do with that.
And I don't have a balanced sense of how to deal with this when in real life, you know, we all have conflicts.
This is just life.
You know, we're all changing and growing.
Everybody sitting at this table.
I know these people are perfectionists.
(38:24):
We are perfectionistic.
Oh, good thing we're not pointing fingers here.
There'd be four out and three into each one of us.
Well, the problem is with perfectionism, we're in an imperfect world.
And unless the person you're dealing with is on your same level, let's say you've got one OCD and you've got somebody's ADD.
(38:47):
That's a recipe for disaster.
So they're going to you're not going to meet that expectation.
So, yeah, that's when you were talking about that.
The perfection is I thought, well, I am a perfectionist.
Now, I don't achieve it.
I lose steam.
And I may have certain little parts of my life that are in some kind of balance, but there's others that are out of balance.
But yeah, that great examples.
(39:08):
Golly, you know, the thing is that then I'll get into shaming myself because I never I mean, I don't live up to my expectations.
And then part of that, too, is, you know, all of these things that we've mentioned so far workaholism, perfectionism, people pleaser, caretaker and able in a way.
(39:29):
Those little pieces do work to some degree.
I mean, we do need to care about other people.
You know, you had to be my caretaker for a while.
But even in everyday life, we care about somebody else.
And the same thing with the people pleasing.
Yeah, you know, I do want to please some people when I have my friends over.
I want to please them.
I want them to leave happy.
(39:50):
This is not you know, that's not what we're talking about here.
We're talking about something that's deeper and that is out of control, even in ourselves, and that by recognizing that we have a chance to do something about it.
And so the same is true for perfectionism.
I mean, yeah, I think it's healthy to want to do a good job.
(40:11):
You know, I'm sure, you know, Mike, when you're on the police force, you want to do a good job.
And we appreciate, you know, the work you do.
I want to write a good paper.
I want to, you know, hand it into my professor, that kind of thing.
But it's just at what are the limits?
How do we set those boundaries and become more balanced?
And that's that's part of the problem with co-dependence is that we don't see the boundaries of things.
(40:37):
It's like if I'm a perfectionist, we'll go 100 percent workaholic, work 100 percent.
We don't you know, we have it's hard to learn that and pull it back in a more balanced, aware, aware state that's doable.
We're only human beings.
We're not human doings.
You know, that's an old saying.
(40:58):
You know, and we learn these as children in these co-dependent families.
We learn all this stuff.
Each of us has got a role and we take on those personalities because at that time, what you're calling self-defeating behaviors,
at that time, it really did work for me.
It got me what I needed.
(41:19):
It got me what I got the attention or it kept me out of trouble or I wanted approval.
And then I wake up 40 years later and it's it's a big deficit in my life and has been.
And then I didn't even know it.
Yeah, because there's no instruction manual comes with kids.
(41:40):
There's there's books.
Dr. Spock was the hot book when I was growing up.
I remember my mom, I was the first born and I remember mom looking at me one day said, son, you didn't come with an instruction manual.
And whatever we learned, you know, obviously our folks learn from their folks who learn from their folks.
But whatever worked that we survived doesn't mean we thrive, but we survive. We pass it on to other people.
(42:04):
Doesn't mean it's the same tool belt, the same tool kit that will work in this day and time that worked back in the 60s and 70s for me.
The in one of the tapes, one of the shows that we watched with Bradshaw, he talks about this stuff, too.
And he said in one of the segments that, you know, I'm 52 years old and I'm I'm just now.
(42:28):
Able to feel like that I could have children that I would be responsible enough to have kids.
And I think that's the way it is for most of us, as he says, anybody can have a kid.
Yeah, yeah. You have to have a driver's license to drive. Right.
You know, yes, but you don't have to have anything to have a kid.
(42:50):
One of the last self-defeating behaviors that we're going to look at today is tap dancing.
And this is a really interesting one. Oh, God. I hear you're resting over there.
But you're not the only one that was a tap dancer. There are women and men both that, you know, that are tap dancers.
And that means not being committed to things. It's like you're in a relationship and you kind of like them.
(43:15):
But you know what? You got somebody in the wings to just in case this doesn't work out.
So you're ready. And then one one problem here, man, I'm out of this relationship and you're into the next one.
And that's a that's an example of a tap dance, which I did, you know, time and time again.
And I heard I heard people that way. I heard a lot of you know, you're nodding your head over there.
(43:41):
Well, out of all of those, tap dancer was the most damaging for me and for others.
It did not stop when I got sober because I brought that behavior right with me.
I had been married three times before I got sober.
And all of those divorces came over about me and tap dancing.
(44:06):
I had something on the wings. And not only was it that it was that I was so sick from all the codependency
that I was brought up with and all the the deviancy that came along with that.
I didn't I didn't realize the reasons why the fear of you was going to leave me.
(44:27):
So I'm going to leave you first or whatever it may be.
I damaged a lot of people in that behavior.
And that's why I was single 17 years in a day.
And now I've been married to Julianne for going on 25 years and and been think, you know, I'm I am proud of this.
I have to say this. I have great self-worth about this is that I have not had a relationship
(44:53):
with any other human being besides my wife. That's the way I want to leave the planet.
But that tap dancing tap dancing is it's like you don't mind talking about the rest of it.
But when it comes to that, it's like, man, I don't want to have to address this.
So tap dancing, your feet are always solidly on the ground.
(45:15):
You got the toe down and you might have the heel down instead of walking with your whole entire foot grounded.
One foot. So, OK, I got you. I got you.
Yeah, that's great. Yeah. Another.
And, you know, it's it's it seems so simple to describe it.
But really, today it's it can be confusing because, you know, for women, especially today, we want our independence.
(45:38):
We know what we were expected to do in the past in our mother's lifetime.
And so we want our independence to be able to be full people, be able to have a career of some type,
as well as children and a family, you know, but holding that ideal of independence can can go two ways.
Because the idea and the family, of course, is to be balanced. We get too much into that independence.
(46:03):
The idea is, well, then they'll they'll end up marrying somebody who's really a tap dancer and noncommit or at least a noncommitted person.
That's the that because you draw to you, you know, what you're what you're like.
And then instead of a marriage, we have two people that are still lonely.
But that but it looks OK. It looks OK to the other world that they're together.
(46:28):
But they you know, he hasn't given up, you know, in terms of really making a commitment to this person and loving her.
And she hasn't given up because she wants she's afraid that by doing any kind of giving up, she's going to lose all of her independence.
So it's really you know what comes down to it from my you know, how I'm looking at it, it's all about balance and just striking the right balance in our lives.
(46:54):
What I have found is what I missed out was intimacy.
I never knew what it was to have a real intimate relationship.
We talk about you can't have a be intimate in the marriage if one person is using the other one, is it?
Well, if you're out screwing around, you can have intimacy in your in your marriage.
(47:17):
And once I have lived it, I see how the years that I spent doing all the things that I did, I was like this libertine that just would go through people's lives and not even think about what I was doing.
So there's so many benefits to the intimacy.
(47:39):
I mean, with Julianne today, it's it's just amazing the marriage that we have one thing Julianne, the things that I talked about there at the last about the intimacy, you know, what I didn't say is that it damaged my soul.
But thank God that I found alcoholics anonymous or it found me.
And then I was able to be willing enough to do something about that and look at myself.
(48:05):
Yeah, I think it's healed myself. And that's a gift that I never even knew I would even have.
I sure see you as a soulful person.
So these are some of the main self-defeating characteristics.
And, you know, we have to ask ourselves with all this.
Well, how did it start? How do we really get into all these, you know, as people and take this stuff on?
(48:26):
You know, one of the primary views on that is that when we're when we're in childhood and dealing with our dysfunctional family, then one, we do want to try and solve things for our parents.
That's one thing we try to do at maybe an unconscious or a conscious level.
And we realize that we can't we can't save them in some way.
(48:47):
And we realize that whatever we do is insufficient to solve this problem.
It's never going to be enough.
And that leads us into taking on other patterns of living that end up being dysfunctional as we grow up.
But at the time, it seemed to help solve that problem and help us with this increasing sense of shame and lack of self-worth that grows in a dysfunctional family.
(49:19):
So these type of activities, these self-defeating behaviors are part of our armor that we take on when we're children.
And that's when we bottom out.
Often that is the one thing that helps us start to break off that armor and take it off piece by piece.
And we get to see the pieces that we've been thinking would really help us.
(49:43):
And we find out now they're nothing but hindering our growth as a human being.
I think today, this is, you know, we've really covered a lot of material and something we'll pick up next time on codependency, the origins of it.
How do you get out of it? You know, how do you really work these things out?
So I'm glad we had this opportunity, you know, to share with folks.
(50:05):
This has been a production of Children of Chaos.net.
Children of Chaos is a forum to discuss topics related to and in concert with addiction and recovery in America.
It's not affiliated with, endorsed, or financed by any recovery or treatment program, organization, or institution.
Any views, thoughts, or opinions expressed by an individual in this venue are solely that of the individual
(50:32):
and do not reflect the views, policies, or position of any specific recovery-based entity or organization.
Welcome everyone, I'm Tim, I'm an alcoholic.
(00:05):
And I'm Rusty and I'm an alcoholic and this is Children of Chaos.
Hey, today we have a guest host and this is something we're going to start doing on a regular basis
and inviting other people to come in with topics that are important to them.
And so today, Julianne is going to be our guest host and Julianne, why don't you take it away.
(00:32):
Good morning, Tim. Well, you didn't have to broaden too far. I'm Rusty's wife.
He's my husband. This is on codependency today.
And we have not only Rusty and myself, but we also have Mike A. here.
And glad to have you, Mike. Good morning.
Good morning. I'm Mike, I'm an alcoholic.
(00:55):
Great. Well, when we think about codependency, I kind of broke it down into there's four parts of it.
It's a massive topic and maybe like 90% of the United States has experience with codependency.
But we often think of it as just a pattern of living that's not healthy,
that's in reaction to somebody else's drinking or drugging.
(01:18):
It's more than that. It's about a dysfunctional pattern of living
and not being able to problem solve very well,
which is nurtured often by a set of rules that we had growing up in our family
and that we still continue to work with.
Now, that's just a little bit, a little tidbit, and that's defining it.
(01:40):
Rusty has some more ideas about that that I'm going to share, we're going to share.
But we're going to give you an overall of what we're looking at today. What is it?
What are the common characteristics and what's the origin of it?
And probably most important, what do we do to get over it and can we get over it?
Or how do we minimize it is another question.
(02:03):
So if we get to all of that this morning, it will be a miracle.
Looks like we might have some other podcasts going on.
Okay, so I just kind of threw out some basic ideas to define what is codependency.
But Rusty, I know you have something on that.
Thanks, yeah, Julianne. I wanted to call her honey, see, because this is, yeah.
(02:30):
She has great boundaries, my wife does. I mean, great boundaries.
Julianne, I wanted to read something that I, it's a definition of codependency.
And being a therapist and doing family systems work, this, I mean, this is family systems work.
When you're dealing with people, you know, I think everybody is codependent.
(02:53):
So let me just read this to give the people listening a real idea.
What about family systems? You just said family systems.
Well, I do.
What do you mean by that? Well, family systems is, the family is all a system.
And if people really want to find out what family systems is, is that you can go on YouTube
(03:17):
and John Bradshaw, this guy is the guru for as far as I'm concerned, with family systems.
And he has a program with 10 different segments and it's called The Family.
Man, it is, it's just tremendous.
Another one that he does, and I've mentioned it before, is about shame, healing the shame that binds us.
(03:41):
And that's another great one. And the great thing about it for people is it's free.
Yeah, and it's related to codependency. It's all about codependency too.
Yes.
Well, on the thing of family systems, let me add this, that I think John Bradshaw, and he even mentions this,
he gets his idea of, and this goes back to Virginia Satir, to homeostasis, yeah, homeostasis,
(04:07):
which is an organism strives for wholeness to get balance. And that's in all of nature.
So it applies to us as human beings. And that kind of helps us understand better what we're talking about
when we talk about a family system.
Absolutely.
Yeah, okay.
Absolutely.
There you go, Rusty.
Okay, so I'm just going to read this. It says, codependency is a term that has been widely used
(04:32):
within the chemical dependency field over the past many years, but is often misunderstood.
Originally, it was used to describe the person or persons whose lives were affected
as a result of their being involved with someone who was chemically dependent.
(04:53):
The codependent spouse or child or lover or someone who was chemically dependent
was seen as having developed a pattern of coping with life that was not healthy
as a reaction to someone else's drug or alcohol use.
The now familiar strategies of minimizing problems or of total denial of problems
(05:18):
was seen as a reaction to the chemically dependent person's maladaptive behavior.
Many of us professionals are coming to realize codependency is our discussion,
that these codependent patterns of coping do not necessarily develop solely as a result
(05:43):
of having lived with a chemically dependent person.
In fact, through specific research and clinical work on family systems,
it is now becoming clear that chemical dependency is a condition which can emerge from any family system
where certain unwritten and even unspoken rules exist.
(06:07):
It says, researchers know that addiction has a ripple effect on the addict's entire family.
They tell us that the people attached to the addicts, their spouses, lovers, and children,
also have a lot in common, although they might come from very different backgrounds
and may have started out with very different personalities.
(06:30):
Most of them seem to think and behave very much alike once they live in the middle of a loved one's addiction.
And unfortunately, the ways they think and behave aren't good for them or anyone else.
In trying to cope with the trouble in their lives,
they have fallen into patterns of living that makes them miserable.
(06:55):
Well, on that note, it's hard to take all that in, but at least we know for sure it's a dysfunctional pattern of living.
Yeah, but thank you for reading all that.
Before I turn this back to you, I'm sorry. Could I give you a couple of examples?
Sure.
Okay.
Difficulty in actually identifying feelings. Am I angry? Am I lonely? Am I sad? Do I feel hurt? What? What's going on for me?
(07:26):
Difficulty in forming or maintaining close relationships.
I want to be close to others, but I'm afraid of being hurt or rejected by them.
And one of my favorites is perfectionism.
Too many expectations for self and others.
Don't get me started.
(07:47):
Thank you, Rusty. Well, that's a perfect segue into the next part.
Now that we have an idea and it's been defined for us of what is codependency,
let's look at what are the characteristics of it.
And, you know, Ernie Larson, who wrote Stage 2 Recovery, says that codependency, that these behaviors are self-defeating behaviors.
(08:14):
And I like that term because that means that there's something I can do about them.
So what we're looking at now is what are the common characteristics or self-defeating behaviors that is how we know it's a codependent.
I mean, you can actually identify that by how people act and what they do. It's not a mystery.
(08:35):
And you've mentioned some already. And all of these are about the key thing is that we're talking about codependency.
So it's all about relationships and whether you can have a healthy relationship or not.
And, you know, we often go through our whole life and we don't have one because we try this, we try that.
(08:58):
And we've, you know, we're just picking up pieces.
It's really, I think, inspiring to think that if we just study this a little bit and we hear other people's stories,
we have a far greater chance of having a healthy relationship because we can see how other people do it.
And that's what has encouraged me in life to have the relationship I now have.
(09:21):
So one of the you've mentioned a couple of things that are common characteristics, Rusty.
And I know we have Mike here who has a lot of experience with this subject.
So maybe you could tell us. I know you have something that you looked into.
I looked at some of the things that Rusty shared earlier.
And codependency is it's a huge triangle that is so encompassing.
(09:43):
It means so many different things.
But one of the things I thought was when I read about perfectionism, I thought, well, I'm not a perfectionist.
I'm kind of, you know, do it halfway. Sometimes guide.
But perfectionism is too many expectations for yourself and others.
Doesn't mean you achieve perfectionism.
One of the things that I realize is I feel overly responsible for other people's behavior or feelings.
(10:09):
I say something and I'm talking to Julianne and she says, you hurt my feelings.
Then the people pleaser in me wants to go, oh, I'm so sorry.
And then I compensate. I try to overcome that.
And, you know, the one thing that really jumped out to me was that paradoxical dependency,
(10:31):
which on the outside I'm strong and I'm secure.
And on the inside, there's a self doubt and a little boy.
And I put that on for years when I was working in the public service field.
What did you do, Mike?
Well, I was a police officer EMT so I could break people and I could fix them sometimes, I thought.
So, you know, you've got to be position leadership.
(10:55):
People call 901 because something's going bad in their lives.
They want you to take away the boogeyman, get the cat out of the tree, find their lost kid
or start an IV and stop that bleeding on their cut on their arm.
And so I realized that, you know, that self doubt, oh, my gosh, what if I can't save the day?
What if I don't have my Superman cape on or my Wonder Woman shirt or whatever?
(11:19):
So, yeah, this is a good thing because we can't be all things to all people is what I figured out.
And you know, Mike, all those things that you talked about that he did, there's a difference in what you do.
And then if you go home and do that, then you really are in trouble.
(11:40):
But when we're that is your was your job and you did a great function there, Mike.
You did a great service.
But it's when I go past that, when I don't let people take responsibility for themselves,
that I'm into the codependency. Oh, absolutely.
Yeah. You know, we have stereotypical roles.
(12:01):
Men are hunter gatherers and women are nurture, caring, loving, maternal figures.
And there's sometimes I've been told by other people that when I go home to my spouse,
if she's upset about something, it works out much better.
She says, I don't want you to fix it. I just want you to listen.
And we do. We don't do that. Well, listening is a it's a perishable skill.
(12:26):
We should be quick to listen, slow to talk and slow to anger. Exactly.
And when you mentioned that there's this there's interdependency and there's codependency.
I know that that Julianne and I, we work really hard on interdependency and not codependency.
(12:47):
Interdependency is stepping up for someone when they're not able to achieve something
and helping and being of service there. Like when Julianne had cancer, which was devastating,
but it was devastating for both of us. I never realized about the caregivers so much until I stepped up.
(13:08):
That's interdependency. But she would also let me know when she could handle things herself.
Because I could get over into my codependency. We're all codependent. Right.
So I'm on guard with that all the time. So what I hear you say is she set a boundary
when you were trying to help and she could do it. Exactly. See how those are so intertwined.
(13:32):
Golly. It helped me get better. Yeah. Set a boundary on that.
And that we're going to talk about boundaries in just a minute here. On the people pleasing,
I thought that was that's definitely one of the main characteristics of this.
And that's when people have learned that their self-esteem depends on never making anyone angry.
That's the bottom line for that. And I felt good the other day about thinking how much progress I've made on that.
(14:00):
When I had a couple of friends actually was last Saturday out on the patio and we were talking.
And then one of them, you know, she got her purse out and she started to pull something out and she said,
Oh, well, let me ask this. Does anybody mind if I vape? And I was so shocked.
See that anybody I know vapes. I was like, and I'm so shocked because, you know, since I had cancer,
(14:23):
I'm really aware of people bringing things into their body that actually hurt them.
So I immediately said, no, I just said, I said, I said, yes, I do mind. I do mind.
And she was really shocked that anybody said that, especially since we were sitting outside.
So when I said that, you know, I did think I thought, yeah, yeah, Julie, you've made some progress.
(14:45):
So that's as simple as that. You know, people pleasers never want to say no, you know, because and they can't stand conflict.
So whatever you want is going to be OK with them, even if they have to grovel, you know, even if it means they're being hurt.
And so that's the sickness of it. A lot of women who are abused are people pleasers.
(15:09):
They don't understand that they can have a greater self-worth by by standing up for themselves.
It's such an adventure living with Julie Anne.
I love her. See, I just I have so much respect for her because she will do things like she just said.
And man, that is so, so great. Thanks. Thank you.
(15:31):
It's difficult this day and time when you said vape.
Yeah, my folks were both ex smokers.
I remember back when smoking was everywhere is prevalent.
You know, it's illegal in buildings.
And I remember people getting offended and when we when the vaping came up, which is so devastating medically, I want to go into that detail.
(15:52):
But people. Well, I have a right to smoke.
Well, I have a right not to get secondhand smoke and let it destroy my pulmonary system, my lungs, my breathing and besides, you smell like smoke.
So we don't want to ruffle feathers. I say we in society, we want to make people mad or make them upset because then they're going to holler and scream and put us on Facebook and slam us.
So when you said that, good for you for sticking up because we know people's their feelers are going to be hurt.
(16:20):
Maybe when we say no, do you mind if I pollute the air and burn this port tobacco plant or whatever?
So, yeah, I like that example. That's good.
And the other side of that, too, is that it took me having cancer to be able to do that, to be able to say no when I wanted to say it.
That's how that's how devious this sickness is of codependency.
(16:42):
And it's so you know, it's almost like a ghost. You can't really see it.
You can't put your hand on it, but it's everywhere in our relationships.
So that's what we're trying to do with this is actually put our hand on these pieces that allow us to see it in ourselves and in others, you know, because if we can see it in somebody else, then we can begin to see it in ourselves.
(17:05):
And in Al-Anon, which has helped me tremendously with all this, you know, they have this thing called three A's and that stands for awareness.
You know, and even the Buddhas talk about awareness and being awake and then acceptance and A's talk about acceptance.
(17:27):
We have to accept what we see and what we hear.
And in other words, we're seeing reality for what it is, not what we imagine is happening or where it's going to go in the future.
It's right here in the right now. And then there's the third A, which is action.
We take some action to change something in ourselves, maybe in society, you know, whatever.
(17:53):
But those are the three A's from Al-Anon. Did you want to say something, Rusty?
No, I just wanted to go back with the caretakers and rescuers.
Oh, yeah. They're real close to people pleasing.
I mean, yes. And you were talking about Al-Anon, and that's what I come away with a lot when I'm at one of my Al-Anon meetings,
(18:17):
is that when it comes to their children, that's when the codependency becomes really harmful.
And then it happens with mothers especially, and with their sons more than it does their daughters.
We've talked about, you and I've talked about this, Julie, and they'll have a boy staying at home, and you'll ask him,
(18:39):
well, how old is he? And he'll go, well, he's 40, you know, and he's not sick. And their fear—
And she'll be doing his laundry, too.
Oh, yeah, she'll be—oh, absolutely do his laundry. Yeah, and cook for him.
It's called learned helplessness. You know, when you are doing all these things and not allowing this person to grow up
(19:02):
and be responsible for themselves, that's all codependency. It's extreme.
And underneath all that, it's on the last page of the seventh step in the twelve and twelve.
The chief activator of my character defects is self-centered fear, fear that I'm not going to get what I want
(19:27):
or I'm going to lose something I've got. And if people will pay attention to that and go inside and go,
what is my fear here? Why am I acting? That will do something.
It will give them the opportunity to make a behavioral change if they choose to,
because most of these people do not realize what they're doing.
(19:51):
Learn behavior. That's why the spot check in step 10 is so pivotal.
I was blessed, starting off in Al-Anon, I heard people say, talk about the twelve steps,
and, you know, got familiar with it. They said, hey, just be aware of step 10, that if you stop—
if I'm in a conflict, if Julianne and I are having a disagreement, or Tim and I are,
I need to stop and think, what's my motive? Oh gosh, I was kind of terse.
(20:17):
I was in a hurry. My blood sugar was low. I had too much coffee, not enough food, not enough sleep, whatever.
Because it hits us all, especially older folks like us. And take a spot check.
Like you. Exactly, right. Yes, ma'am.
What's going on with me? Oh, I was a little bit terse. Hey, Julianne, I'm sorry I was a little terse earlier.
And then don't make excuses. That's my MO. I was feeling whatever. Well, that's true.
(20:41):
But it dilutes my apology to you and my recognition. I was screwed up or whatever.
But yeah, that spot check. You can start your day over any time of the day. Absolutely.
That's great. You know, the discussion we're having on people-pleasing and caretaking,
some of the things you just said, Rusty, about the people that have come into your sessions as a counselor,
(21:07):
brings up enablers. And they all three go really well together. You know, they're really a group.
And the enablers are those who shield others from the consequences of their irresponsible behavior.
Absolutely. And so that's what these parents are doing that have 40-year-old children living in their home.
(21:29):
They're not giving their child a chance to grow up, basically.
And so, and women are often seen in this role with alcoholics or drug users.
And today, more so, I mean, it goes both ways today really easily.
But by being an enabler, it stops the person who's having the problem from having a spiritual conversion,
(21:58):
experience. That is, they never see themselves out of control. They never hit bottom.
They're never on their knees because I'm going to rescue them, right, as an enabler.
I'm going to make sure his laundry is done. I'm going to make sure, you know, he's fed. All of those things.
(22:19):
So actually, instead of helping that person, we're hurting that person.
And that's a real wake-up point right there to realize that, that that person never has to face a consequence.
And you can't grow up. You can't grow up.
And that goes back to the learned helplessness, right?
Right. Right.
I saw, I was in the Coast Guard back in the day, and during storms, they would have warnings,
(22:44):
and they had a dedicated channel on the Maritime Radio, and they would give warnings.
And the Coast Guard would broadcast, you know, high winds, high seas, hurricane, whatever.
And yet people would go out in that, knowing the Coast Guard would rescue them.
And, you know, they, you look at that, what's the catcher's mitt, that safety net,
(23:07):
whether it's mom and the 40-year-old or a fisherman that's going to go out because he's got to get food for his family.
But that's, when you say that, it is click. But we have these, and the rescuers, they'll always have jobs,
and the co-dependents will always, they'll have an unhealthy relationship.
Yeah, absolutely.
It'll keep going on and on and on.
(23:28):
Yeah. Yeah. And the interesting thing too is in those, particularly those roles,
more than I think some of the other characteristics, that we see that there's people-pleasing and enabling and caretaking.
We're liars. That's what we are. Because we're not owning up to our part in the relationship.
We're just being the jolly, you know, it's all going to, I'm going to help it all work out, or at least look like it's working out.
(23:54):
That's the main thing. So we're lying to the other person and we're lying to ourselves.
And I can think of an example when I, before I met Hugh Rusty then, you know, I was involved with a man in California.
And he had a business. And I was, I met him in Oklahoma.
And I went out and we lived out in California at that point for a couple of years.
(24:18):
But, you know, and he was an alcoholic. And I didn't, of course, I didn't recognize it at first because I was in denial.
You know, when you have a trash can that's full of, you know, wine bottles every day, well, gee, that should tell you something.
But no, I didn't want to look at that. So I didn't think a thing of it for at least a year and a half.
So I'm going to tell you this whole story about how, you know, how terrible he was, right?
(24:43):
We could never get clear on anything in our relationship because he was always pulling back because he's a, he's having a relationship with alcohol.
Right? But the truth is, is that I wanted to live in California and he was my ticket.
I knew nobody in California. And I wanted to be in that business because I wanted to learn the business.
(25:04):
So I had my own drive. You know, I knew we were probably never going to get married.
And that was OK because the truth was I wasn't totally in love with this guy.
You know, he was a nice person in many ways, and he was helpful in my life.
And that was the liar part of me that I had to see to own up to.
(25:25):
Now, was he an alcoholic? Yes. You know, did I need to leave him? Yes.
But that's you see, there's always another side to the story. And that's the codependent side.
What's the payoff for you to stay in that relationship?
You may decide it's worth it. That's up to you.
But I can tell you there are such things as healthy relationships and they do happen to people.
(25:51):
And I know, Mike, you're in a healthy relationship.
When you both have addiction issues, you spot it, you got it. We've heard that phrase before.
I spotted I got it. You hit the nail on the head. What's my motives?
What motivates me to do this? Is it something selfish? Well, oftentimes, yeah.
But you talk about it, you communicate.
(26:12):
I learned this in Alan on NAA that we have two eyes, two ears, one mouth,
which should always look and listen twice as much as we talk.
And I forget that because I'm a Jabberwocky. So, but yeah, what's my motive?
What's motivating me? Is it good? Is it bad? Is it?
With what you were just talking about.
The amazing part is that people, as they go deeper and deeper into the codependency,
(26:38):
and they're not realizing this, you have to be aware that they're not realizing it,
is that they will stay in a relationship, in a marriage for years.
Now, one of them is usually the alcoholic or the addict, and there's no intimacy.
There's no intimacy in that marriage.
There cannot be intimacy when you're living with a using alcoholic or addict.
(27:04):
We know that because you're on different levels of consciousness, for one thing.
And the other part is that you're trying to move ahead with your life.
You're taking over responsibilities that you really shouldn't be having to take care of.
And you're spending all your time trying to rescue or to fix that other person.
(27:30):
And that's how deep the codependency goes.
It really gets a hold of you.
It gets a hold of you, yeah.
Yeah, yeah, I met a woman the other day, and she has, she lived with a workaholic husband for 30 years.
After the first 10 years, she moved into another bedroom because they weren't getting along.
She stayed another 20 years.
(27:53):
And now, after all that, she's reflecting on her life.
And hopefully, it's great if you can catch it faster than that.
Yeah, right.
So you have more life left to live.
So, well, let's look at some of the other characteristics, and they're called defeating, you know, self-defeating behaviors.
We do it to ourselves, but we did learn it, you know, early on as a survival strategy.
(28:17):
So there is the workaholic.
I just mentioned one.
You know, I think you guys are familiar with workaholics.
Well, you know, in family systems, they have those identified scapegoat, the family hero, all of those different ones that we just use that as examples because of the codependency.
And so each person gets identified if you're working with people.
(28:42):
They get identified as, OK, here's the family hero.
Here's the enabler.
It always plays out in every dysfunctional family.
Everybody's got a role.
Everybody's got a role.
And the hero usually becomes the workaholic, the one that took on that role in the family.
And Bradshaw, he talks a lot about that, about the family system, especially in these dysfunctional homes, the family system is set up for everything revolves around the addict or the alcoholic, whether it's the child.
(29:16):
There's a person that I've been working with that had a son that was living at home at 30-some years old.
The mother, her and the dad are total opposites.
They're fighting all the time.
They're close to divorce because she wants to let him stay in the house and he's not working.
(29:37):
He's not doing anything.
He's been there three years.
And the father is saying, you know, this has got to end.
And she's saying, no, it's, you know, it's OK for him to be here.
So there's no compromise.
But they're living under the same roof.
And it's just so dysfunctional for them.
Absolutely.
And as we talked earlier, that dysfunction, that learned helplessness that the boy is learning, it just gets deeper each day.
(30:06):
And that's extreme codependency.
Well, that's a true child of chaos.
Absolutely.
And if that if he.
Oh, great, Mike.
Well, I was just thinking if anything, if that son goes out and does get married, he's going to more likely and I know this from being in a marriage or two in my time.
He's going to seek the least path of least resistance.
(30:29):
So he's going to find the nurturing, the mom and the mommy figure and just carry that on.
And that's definitely the enabler right there that you guys are really talking about.
I want to move on to like workaholics and talk about that, because that's something that's so rewarded in our culture.
You know, the idea is that if you could, you know, if you could just like forget us, forget sleep, then you could really get ahead of whatever.
(30:56):
Because we're very competitive in this society.
And so we're talking about people who base their self-esteem on activity, a workaholic.
And I have been in phases of this myself where I'm busy, busy, busy.
And it's not really about accomplishing anything.
It's about I'm busy.
Oh, I've got a project here.
(31:17):
I've got a project there.
And I actually spent a number of years being busy when I lived in New York, even before that for 12 years.
You know, I was busy all the time, morning, noon and night, doing something I loved, which was social activism.
And I was very interested in that and wanted to help people.
And then I just burn out.
(31:39):
You know, it's what happened. I burn out.
I didn't take care of myself.
And so it all goes back to that family homostasis that needing a balance in your life.
And that's really what we're talking about here in these relationships is all of these characteristics.
And we're going to name a few more.
Take us out of balance.
It means somebody in the family we grew up in was in control.
(32:03):
And we took on these roles, these survival skills in order to try to be take some balance, put some balance into that family system again.
And then we carry it on into adult life.
And I found out that didn't work very well for me.
So I'm trying it in my marriage now not to be a workaholic.
(32:24):
In the police world, it's a given fact. Cops work part time jobs.
I didn't realize that.
Oh, gosh. I did that for 41 years.
Yeah. You always work part time job.
And there was a point in my career early on when I was a rookie that I needed to work those part time jobs.
And sadly, not to mention my old apartment, but the part time jobs paid more hourly than I was making.
(32:48):
You reach a point as your spouse makes more money and you move on, get promoted or whatever happens that you realize the part time job is an addiction.
Number one. Number two, it prolongs and avoids marital communication issues.
So it's an escape.
You could start a 12 step program for workaholics.
(33:09):
And it doesn't matter if it's in the corporate world.
There's wage and labor laws that govern how much 40 hours a week that you work anything over that's overtime unless your management, et cetera, et cetera.
But it's addiction. I look back and know that I avoided a lot of conflict and day to day issues in a marriage by being, oh, I got to get some sleep and go work part time job.
(33:32):
And then you look at your health.
I remember I never forget when I worked graveyard shift, I would use Benadryl, diphenhydramine, hydrochloride, which is an histamine.
And I drink a Benadryl and a beer to put me to sleep.
And then I'd wake up. Well, Benadryl stops you up.
It keeps your sinus and running.
And I'd wake up stopped up and plus with a little headache from that and then the beer and go to work and drink a ton of coffee.
(33:55):
So I was a vicious cycle.
So we do that and then we don't have the energy or the the emotion left to work on the day to day stuff.
I'm just blessed never had children that I inflicted that on my children.
I was a stepfather.
And this day and time, it doesn't matter what venue the first responder corporate world to get ahead.
(34:19):
If you want to make partner in a law firm, if you want to make senior accountant, you got to work more billable hours.
Firemen.
Firemen. Oh, yes.
They do 24 hour shifts.
Everyone of those guys and girls have part time jobs.
They work a day and are off two days.
So it knows no bounds, whether it's somebody making minimum wage, trying to pay their rent or somebody that's living in a nice house that wants to buy the boat or go on vacation.
(34:45):
Then you ignore you're ignoring the problems you have day to day with the spouse or the kids or the aging parents.
Being a workaholic myself, it is very difficult that once you realize it, and I've known I've known this about myself.
You know, I knew that about this for years.
But trying to change that behavior, awareness is not behavioral change.
(35:10):
I mean, I can know for years that I have this problem, whatever the problem may be.
But the difference between that and really changing it can be years.
And for me, it's been a double edged sword.
It's like what I have done for the last 38 years.
I love doing what I love.
And so I'm trying to discern always is this is this workaholism or is this where do you where does that line at between the workaholism and loving what you do?
(35:44):
I never get tired of it.
Is it workaholism or is it just doing what what you love to do?
Ask your spouse.
Well, I know what she says.
See, that comes into setting boundaries, Rusty.
Then that's another problem for co-dependence.
Setting boundaries.
That's right.
Well, reasonable boundaries.
(36:06):
Yeah, absolutely reasonable boundaries.
You know, what works for you is and for your spouse.
You know, another one of these characteristics is being a perfectionist.
I confess to that one for sure.
You know, and I can see where it started in childhood, you know, survival mechanism, because I didn't want to be at home.
(36:29):
But when I was at home, I would clean.
I started cleaning things, you know, I would like clean this, you know, the chandelier, clean whatever it was.
And that made me feel better.
It was a mood alteration, altering situation to be a perfectionist.
And then I carried it over into other things.
So, you know, that was when I was really young.
And then and then as I got into my teen years, I definitely didn't want to be at home.
(36:52):
And I could not I could go someplace.
I could go to my friend's house.
But to do that, I would have to be somebody they would want in their house.
So I learned not only people pleasing, but, you know, to try and be a perfectionist.
You know, I watched how they dressed.
I watched, you know, listen to how they talk, you know, all of those things.
And so then I carried it into adult life.
(37:15):
And the problem is that, you know, you can never really be happy as a perfectionist because it's unattainable.
You can never attain it.
And so then if you're working on something, like if I'm writing something like an essay or a little story or something, which is something I enjoy doing, I'm never finished.
I'm never finished with it because it has to be perfect at some level, deep level.
(37:40):
I can't get rid of that thing as hard as I try.
But I'm working on that one quite a bit.
So and it hurts.
It hurts in relationships because if you're if I'm stuck in that perfectionism thing, then the person I'm looking for in my world, I want them to be perfect.
(38:01):
But no one is perfect.
And so when I see something that's imperfect, it's shocking, you know, or I don't know what to do with that.
And I don't have a balanced sense of how to deal with this when in real life, you know, we all have conflicts.
This is just life.
You know, we're all changing and growing.
Everybody sitting at this table.
I know these people are perfectionists.
(38:24):
We are perfectionistic.
Oh, good thing we're not pointing fingers here.
There'd be four out and three into each one of us.
Well, the problem is with perfectionism, we're in an imperfect world.
And unless the person you're dealing with is on your same level, let's say you've got one OCD and you've got somebody's ADD.
(38:47):
That's a recipe for disaster.
So they're going to you're not going to meet that expectation.
So, yeah, that's when you were talking about that.
The perfection is I thought, well, I am a perfectionist.
Now, I don't achieve it.
I lose steam.
And I may have certain little parts of my life that are in some kind of balance, but there's others that are out of balance.
But yeah, that great examples.
(39:08):
Golly, you know, the thing is that then I'll get into shaming myself because I never I mean, I don't live up to my expectations.
And then part of that, too, is, you know, all of these things that we've mentioned so far workaholism, perfectionism, people pleaser, caretaker and able in a way.
(39:29):
Those little pieces do work to some degree.
I mean, we do need to care about other people.
You know, you had to be my caretaker for a while.
But even in everyday life, we care about somebody else.
And the same thing with the people pleasing.
Yeah, you know, I do want to please some people when I have my friends over.
I want to please them.
I want them to leave happy.
(39:50):
This is not you know, that's not what we're talking about here.
We're talking about something that's deeper and that is out of control, even in ourselves, and that by recognizing that we have a chance to do something about it.
And so the same is true for perfectionism.
I mean, yeah, I think it's healthy to want to do a good job.
(40:11):
You know, I'm sure, you know, Mike, when you're on the police force, you want to do a good job.
And we appreciate, you know, the work you do.
I want to write a good paper.
I want to, you know, hand it into my professor, that kind of thing.
But it's just at what are the limits?
How do we set those boundaries and become more balanced?
And that's that's part of the problem with co-dependence is that we don't see the boundaries of things.
(40:37):
It's like if I'm a perfectionist, we'll go 100 percent workaholic, work 100 percent.
We don't you know, we have it's hard to learn that and pull it back in a more balanced, aware, aware state that's doable.
We're only human beings.
We're not human doings.
You know, that's an old saying.
(40:58):
You know, and we learn these as children in these co-dependent families.
We learn all this stuff.
Each of us has got a role and we take on those personalities because at that time, what you're calling self-defeating behaviors,
at that time, it really did work for me.
It got me what I needed.
(41:19):
It got me what I got the attention or it kept me out of trouble or I wanted approval.
And then I wake up 40 years later and it's it's a big deficit in my life and has been.
And then I didn't even know it.
Yeah, because there's no instruction manual comes with kids.
(41:40):
There's there's books.
Dr. Spock was the hot book when I was growing up.
I remember my mom, I was the first born and I remember mom looking at me one day said, son, you didn't come with an instruction manual.
And whatever we learned, you know, obviously our folks learn from their folks who learn from their folks.
But whatever worked that we survived doesn't mean we thrive, but we survive. We pass it on to other people.
(42:04):
Doesn't mean it's the same tool belt, the same tool kit that will work in this day and time that worked back in the 60s and 70s for me.
The in one of the tapes, one of the shows that we watched with Bradshaw, he talks about this stuff, too.
And he said in one of the segments that, you know, I'm 52 years old and I'm I'm just now.
(42:28):
Able to feel like that I could have children that I would be responsible enough to have kids.
And I think that's the way it is for most of us, as he says, anybody can have a kid.
Yeah, yeah. You have to have a driver's license to drive. Right.
You know, yes, but you don't have to have anything to have a kid.
(42:50):
One of the last self-defeating behaviors that we're going to look at today is tap dancing.
And this is a really interesting one. Oh, God. I hear you're resting over there.
But you're not the only one that was a tap dancer. There are women and men both that, you know, that are tap dancers.
And that means not being committed to things. It's like you're in a relationship and you kind of like them.
(43:15):
But you know what? You got somebody in the wings to just in case this doesn't work out.
So you're ready. And then one one problem here, man, I'm out of this relationship and you're into the next one.
And that's a that's an example of a tap dance, which I did, you know, time and time again.
And I heard I heard people that way. I heard a lot of you know, you're nodding your head over there.
(43:41):
Well, out of all of those, tap dancer was the most damaging for me and for others.
It did not stop when I got sober because I brought that behavior right with me.
I had been married three times before I got sober.
And all of those divorces came over about me and tap dancing.
(44:06):
I had something on the wings. And not only was it that it was that I was so sick from all the codependency
that I was brought up with and all the the deviancy that came along with that.
I didn't I didn't realize the reasons why the fear of you was going to leave me.
(44:27):
So I'm going to leave you first or whatever it may be.
I damaged a lot of people in that behavior.
And that's why I was single 17 years in a day.
And now I've been married to Julianne for going on 25 years and and been think, you know, I'm I am proud of this.
I have to say this. I have great self-worth about this is that I have not had a relationship
(44:53):
with any other human being besides my wife. That's the way I want to leave the planet.
But that tap dancing tap dancing is it's like you don't mind talking about the rest of it.
But when it comes to that, it's like, man, I don't want to have to address this.
So tap dancing, your feet are always solidly on the ground.
(45:15):
You got the toe down and you might have the heel down instead of walking with your whole entire foot grounded.
One foot. So, OK, I got you. I got you.
Yeah, that's great. Yeah. Another.
And, you know, it's it's it seems so simple to describe it.
But really, today it's it can be confusing because, you know, for women, especially today, we want our independence.
(45:38):
We know what we were expected to do in the past in our mother's lifetime.
And so we want our independence to be able to be full people, be able to have a career of some type,
as well as children and a family, you know, but holding that ideal of independence can can go two ways.
Because the idea and the family, of course, is to be balanced. We get too much into that independence.
(46:03):
The idea is, well, then they'll they'll end up marrying somebody who's really a tap dancer and noncommit or at least a noncommitted person.
That's the that because you draw to you, you know, what you're what you're like.
And then instead of a marriage, we have two people that are still lonely.
But that but it looks OK. It looks OK to the other world that they're together.
(46:28):
But they you know, he hasn't given up, you know, in terms of really making a commitment to this person and loving her.
And she hasn't given up because she wants she's afraid that by doing any kind of giving up, she's going to lose all of her independence.
So it's really you know what comes down to it from my you know, how I'm looking at it, it's all about balance and just striking the right balance in our lives.
(46:54):
What I have found is what I missed out was intimacy.
I never knew what it was to have a real intimate relationship.
We talk about you can't have a be intimate in the marriage if one person is using the other one, is it?
Well, if you're out screwing around, you can have intimacy in your in your marriage.
(47:17):
And once I have lived it, I see how the years that I spent doing all the things that I did, I was like this libertine that just would go through people's lives and not even think about what I was doing.
So there's so many benefits to the intimacy.
(47:39):
I mean, with Julianne today, it's it's just amazing the marriage that we have one thing Julianne, the things that I talked about there at the last about the intimacy, you know, what I didn't say is that it damaged my soul.
But thank God that I found alcoholics anonymous or it found me.
And then I was able to be willing enough to do something about that and look at myself.
(48:05):
Yeah, I think it's healed myself. And that's a gift that I never even knew I would even have.
I sure see you as a soulful person.
So these are some of the main self-defeating characteristics.
And, you know, we have to ask ourselves with all this.
Well, how did it start? How do we really get into all these, you know, as people and take this stuff on?
(48:26):
You know, one of the primary views on that is that when we're when we're in childhood and dealing with our dysfunctional family, then one, we do want to try and solve things for our parents.
That's one thing we try to do at maybe an unconscious or a conscious level.
And we realize that we can't we can't save them in some way.
(48:47):
And we realize that whatever we do is insufficient to solve this problem.
It's never going to be enough.
And that leads us into taking on other patterns of living that end up being dysfunctional as we grow up.
But at the time, it seemed to help solve that problem and help us with this increasing sense of shame and lack of self-worth that grows in a dysfunctional family.
(49:19):
So these type of activities, these self-defeating behaviors are part of our armor that we take on when we're children.
And that's when we bottom out.
Often that is the one thing that helps us start to break off that armor and take it off piece by piece.
And we get to see the pieces that we've been thinking would really help us.
(49:43):
And we find out now they're nothing but hindering our growth as a human being.
I think today, this is, you know, we've really covered a lot of material and something we'll pick up next time on codependency, the origins of it.
How do you get out of it? You know, how do you really work these things out?
So I'm glad we had this opportunity, you know, to share with folks.
(50:05):
This has been a production of Children of Chaos.net.
Children of Chaos is a forum to discuss topics related to and in concert with addiction and recovery in America.
It's not affiliated with, endorsed, or financed by any recovery or treatment program, organization, or institution.
Any views, thoughts, or opinions expressed by an individual in this venue are solely that of the individual
(50:32):
and do not reflect the views, policies, or position of any specific recovery-based entity or organization.
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