Sylvie Shene - Articles - Addicts and Codependents Live in the Extremes

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ARTICLES: ADDICTS AND CODEPENDENTS LIVE IN THE EXTREMES

Addicts and Codependents live in the extremes. No middle ground exists. You, as a addict or codependent, are like a light switch that is either totally on or totally off. Life, however, requires a rheostat, a switch mechanism in which there are various degrees of middle ground. Mental health involves a disciplined balance that relies on self-limits and boundaries. Nowhere is that more evident than in the two core issues that all addicts and codependents face: intimacy and dependency.

The most obvious extreme is dependency on a mood-altering drug or addictive behavior (like sex, gambling, or eating) to cope with life. The chemical or addictive behavior becomes the trusted source of nurturing or a way to avoid pain or anxiety. All else is sacrificed or compromised. Workaholism, compulsive spending, high-risk experiences simply fill out the range of options to lose oneself.

In the grip of addiction or obsessive behavior, life becomes chaotic and crisis-filled. Addiction and codependency live in excess and on the edge. Because they do not complete things, they have much unfinished business. They lack boundaries, so they often do not use good judgment. Others see them as irresponsible and lacking in common sense.

The opposite excessive extreme is grounded in overcontrol. Sexual obsession, for example, can be expressed as either sexual addiction or compulsive abstinence. Many adults children of alcoholics who become compulsive nondrinkers are as obsessed with alcohol as their alcoholic parent(s). An anorexic and compulsive overeater are both obsessed with food. Overcontrol may be reflected in behaviors such as compulsive dieting and saving, extreme religiosity, phobic responses, panic attacks, and procrastination.

For those with a strong need to control people, events, or their emotions, life becomes rigid, empty, and sterile. Risks are to be avoided at all costs. The fear of beginning new projects or experimenting with new behaviors is sustained by harsh judgmental attitudes and perfectionism. Living in deprivation may seem better than being out of control. But it is still an obsessive lifestyle that leads to loss of self. Recovering people can fall into a real trap if they switch one extreme to the other and believe that the shift equals true change.

Out of Control

Overcontrol

Alcoholism

Compulsive nondrinking

Sex addiction

Compulsive nonsexuality

Compulsive eating

Anorexia

Compulsive gambling

Extreme religiosity

High-risk experiences

Phobic responses

Workaholism

Procrastination

Compulsive spending

Compulsive saving

Life Becomes

Life Becomes

Chaotic

Rigid

Living on the edge

Risk avoidant

Crisis-filled

Empty

Unfinished

Fear of beginning

No common sense

Judgmental

Irresponsible

Perfection

Excess

Deprivation

When some of these obsessive behaviors mix, life becomes even more complex. Consider this couple: He is a sex addict and an alcoholic, and she is a compulsive overeater. She attempts to control his addiction by throwing out his playboys and his booze. He monitors her eating and criticizes her weight. They are both codependent. Each is obsessed with what the other is doing, each believing that he or she has power to change the other. As his sex addiction becomes more out of control (although he believes he can control it), she becomes more nonsexual, acting as if she has the power to balance the equation. Even her excessive weight becomes a way for her to exert power by making her sexually unattractive. The reality is they are both powerless in some ways they have not acknowledged.

Variations on this theme plague couples and families in which addiction and codependency thrives. A person can even live in simultaneous internal extremes. For example, think of the bulimic who both binges (overeats) and purges (vomits). Only one way for people to fight living in such addictive extremes: to admit to the reality of their powerlessness.

To accomplish that task, another issue needs to be faced: intimacy. Addicts and codependents seek closeness, nurturing, and love. In many ways addicts and codependents derives its compelling force because of failure of intimacy. Addictive (again including codependency) obsession replaces human bonding and caring.

With no emotional rheostat, you can live an isolated, lonely existence in which you build walls around yourself, deny your own needs, and share nothing of yourself. Or, you flip to an emotionally enmeshed existence in which you are so overinvolved you fill trapped and smothered. You concentrate on meeting the needs of another person and take responsibility for that person’s behavior. No boundaries exist and consequently no privacy exists. Again, a pattern of living in the extremes emerges.

Isolated

Enmeshed

Denial of needs

Needs of others are priority

Lonely

Smothered

No Sharing

No privacy

Alienated from others

Responsible for others

Extreme boundaries

No boundaries

Add out of control with isolated - that’s one extreme and you get off-center; add overcontrol with enmeshed and you get off center in another way.

From the book: "A Gentle Path Through The Twelve Steps: The Classic Guide for all People in the Process of Recovery” By Patrick Carnes, PH.D.

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