I was asked by a friend to say something about codependency.  I’m not an expert but I can surely talk about my experience, hope and strength.  I think there is confusion on what codependency is but I personally define it as a cycle of enabling behaviors that does not allow the person I am enabling to take responsibility for their own feelings, behavior and life.  As a mother of small children I would run in to pick them up when they fell down.  Sometimes this was helpful and gave my child a sense of security and love.  At other times, I’d run in too soon and they wouldn’t start crying until I picked them up.  This taught them to feel sorry for themselves.  It’s easy when their small.  You catch on pretty quickly.  It becomes more difficult when they’re grown and many times others can see our enabling behavior before we can.

It becomes even more difficult when our enabling behavior is complicated with guilt over what we should and shouldn’t have done.  We want to rush in a rescue because we think it’s our fault our child is alcoholic or an addict or struggles with depression or whatever the case may be.

First of all, I have to say after raising five children that I don’t think it makes much difference what you did and didn’t do.  I have tried over the years to pound in certain lessons to my children which made no difference.  They’d still continue with the same behavior into adulthood.  There were other things that my children just intuitively knew without any direction.  My children have been some of my best teachers.  I’ve seen alcoholics come from good families and I’ve seen good kids come from addict parents.  I’m here to tell you, sorry, you didn’t have that kind of power.  You didn’t make your children fall or fail or drink or drug.  They are who they are.  They are each born unto their own.  What you say or teach or pound into them probably made little difference.  And I’m pretty sure all they really care about and all they remember is the love you show them and sometimes it’s the tough love that’s best.

With that being said, I struggle with this issue every day of my life.  I have a daughter who is an addict.  I don’t think I ever got a good night’s sleep when she was out there.  I gained 50 pounds and constantly worried.  I had a period of time when I couldn’t contact her because I would immediately lay into her about her lifestyle or nag her to eat.  There were a couple of years that I didn’t even know where she was living because she was on the run.  The day came when she decided to get treatment.  This is where the rubber meets the road.  It was carefully orchestrated and planned.  There was only a window of opportunity.  If I nudged too hard, she would rebel.  If I enabled, she would miss taking the responsibility.  There was a period of about two months that was pretty shaky.  She was in a women’s facility with about 12 other women and their children.  She wanted to come home, but the option was the facility or homelessness.  I did not have the skills or the resources, financial, emotional or spiritual to help her.  I knew she needed professionals and I somehow knew that with all the sobriety that my husband and I have that it wouldn’t be enough.  I had to decide early on that I couldn’t work her program.  I can’t tell her to go to meetings, or get a sponsor.  I was desperate for her to get better so I stayed out of it.

Sometimes self-preservation kicks in and I do the right thing.  Other times I struggle and try to tell my adult children what to do and what kind of help they need.  I want to control it and I want them to get help and get better in my timing.  I can’t take any chances.  I cling with desperation and give them whatever they want and tell them what they want to hear instead of what they need to hear.

I wish I could tell you that I am absolutely sane and have it figured out.  I’m not.  Eventually another alcoholic or my husband who has 26 year in the program points out to me that I’m giving too much.  I might see it or I might not.  I don’t have that figured out either.

I usually let go right before I’m ready to destroy my relationship with my child.  I think what I’m learning is that if it affects my sobriety in any way, my sanity or my relationships with my other children or my husband, I’ve gone too far.

It is natural as mother’s to want to protect our children.  It’s counterintuitive to push them out of the nest, but sometimes for their own sake and for ours we have to.  When I keep in mind that my job as a mother is to teach them to be responsible citizens that can take care of themselves and are independent from me, I do much better.  Sometimes the only way to learn is to make mistakes and I need to allow them to do that.  I need to give them the dignity of their choices.  We are told that “no human power could relieve our alcoholism.”  How can I then possibly cure my children of that or any other mental ailment?  They have to want to get better.  It’s time to turn it over to a power greater than myself.

My sponsor used to tell me that I needed to stay strong so that when my daughter was ready for help, I’d be able to help her.  That spoke to me and I took her suggestion.  Talking to another alcoholic saved me and it saved her.  She now has 3 years in the program and is coming upon 4.

I think I’ll make a phone call, just for today.