Hope For Recovery

Codependency is a term that describes damage done to persons who are close to an addicted person and are affected by their disease. Addicts are afflicted with the disease of addiction, but codependents are affected by that disease. In fact many times those around the addict are affected mare than the addict, because they are going through thew pain without any anesthesia, while the addict is anesthetized.

Children who grow up in dysfunction of some kind have struggles from that training that can have a very damaging effect on their adult lives. They learn survival skills that oftentimes don't translate well for the rest of the world. The shame that is part of an addicted household usually causes poor self-image to the children in that home.

Addicted persons never get help until things look desperate, so sometimes those who love an addicted person can help them by actually making things worse. There are legal interventions, employer interventions, medical interventions, and family interventions. All of these can be useful to push the addicted person towards help.

When we violate our values or moral standards we feel guilt and this is an emotion that really gnaws at us. Addicted persons have more guilt than the average, because the disease itself causes the loss of values and morals. Addicts use many techniques to try to avoid guilt such as: rationalization, blaming, minimizing, and using anger to control. The cure for guilt is confession and admitting what has been done that is wrong and then receiving forgiveness.

Painful feelings like guilt, shame, fear, anger, and grief are things we definitely try to avoid and the use of addictive agent looks like not only a quick, but easy way to avoid these feelings. We start out thinking that these agents are going to solve our problems and for a little while it looks like they do, but eventually they end up not solving problems, but causing problems and then it is too late.