Codependent Life

Understanding and accepting that I was powerless to stop someone I loved from self-destruction did not mean that it did not hurt to watch it happen. I understood it was his life and his right to do what he wanted with his life. What I could not accept was that I should do nothing to try to stop him from his own self-destruction. Even though he had proven to me, over and over again, that he was going to do what he wanted to do whether I liked it or not – I still could not accept that I was powerless to save him from himself.

They say that when it hurts more to stay the way we are than it does to change we will change. It was only when it hurt me more to play tug-of-war over control of his life, than it hurt me to let go of the rope and watch him fall down, was I able to accept my powerlessness. I have learned that there are times in my life that I am going to hurt no matter what decision I make. I learned that as long as I interfered, by trying to control him, the hurt was never ever going to go away.

In reality, my interference was sacrificing both of our lives. The best chance either one of us had, was for me to get out of the way. As he got sicker and sicker, I started on my road to healing and recovery. Even though getting out of his way was painful, it was even more painful when I was sacrificing my life trying to save him.

When I finally got it through my head that my rights ended where his began (and vice-versa), I got out of his way and let him be responsible for his own life. It made me sad to watch him struggle, and it hurt to watch him battle his demons. Just because I chose not to participate in his insanity anymore did not make me a bad wife – because he had the same choice I had for a happy life if he wanted it.

I ran interference between my alcoholic and his consequences for a long long time. In the beginning I really did not know any better. I thought that I was helping. I thought I was protecting him and our family. What I did not realize, was, that as long as I stood between him and his consequences I was feeding his disease and making it stronger.

In protecting him I hurt myself over and over again, because I became the buffer between him and his reality. It cost me physically, emotionally, financially and spiritually every time I stood between him and his reality. I was so terrified over what could or would happen if I did not ride in on my white horse and save the day.

He was the one that drank but both of us had been ensnared by his disease. I became obsessed with trying to control his alcoholism and it’s symptoms and the effect it had on our lives. I did not see myself as a risk taker or a gambler, but I had a real bad gambling problem when it came to his disease. Every time I enabled his drinking I was more or less underwriting his outrageous, inappropriate and unacceptable behavior. I was gambling that, this time when I rushed in to save the day, that my actions were going to make him see the error of his ways and he would never do it again. I lost every single time and I still went back and did it over and over again.

There was no light bulb moment for me that helped me see that my enabling was not helping but was contributing to the problem. It was a series of small steps that helped me to look at my motive and make decisions based on what was good for me and our children. It was learning more about the disease of alcoholism that helped me to understand how I was selectively participating in the chaos. It was letting go of my pride and talking things out with my sponsor or some other person in the program that helped me to think before I jumped out of the frying pan into the fire.

You might say that through the steps, Serenity prayer, the slogans and the support of people who had walked this walk before me I experienced an extreme makeover to my mind, heart and soul.