Codependent No More: How to Stop Controlling Others and Start Caring for Yourself (Revised and Updated)

Sometimes we rescue because it’s easier than dealing with the discomfort and awkwardness of facing other people’s unsolved problems. We haven’t learned to say, “It’s too bad you’re having that problem. What do you need from me?” We’ve learned to say, “Here. Let me do that for you.”

For some of us, the fear of intimacy overpowers the desire for it. It feels safer to be alone or in relationships where we are “unemotionally involved” than it does to be emotionally vulnerable, close, and loving. I understand that. In spite of the range of needs and wants that go unmet when we don’t love, it may feel safer to not love. We don’t ri

Rescuing and caretaking are synonymous. Their definitions are closely connected to enabling. Enabling is therapeutic jargon that means a destructive form of helping. Any acts that help a substance abuser continue abusing, prevent the abuser from suffering consequences, or in any way make it easier for a substance abuser to continue abusing are cons

“HOW”: honesty, openness, and willingness to try.6

Denial is the shock absorber for the soul. It’s an instinctive and natural reaction to pain, loss, and change. It protects us. It wards off the blows of life until we can gather our other coping resources.

It is no longer Camelot. It is no longer even person-to-person. The distortion is bizarre. I will stay because “He doesn’t beat me.” “She doesn’t run around.” “He hasn’t lost his job.” Imagine getting credit for the behaviors we ordinary mortals do as a matter of course. Even if the worst is true—even if he does beat you; even if she does run aroun

You cannot live with active alcoholism without being profoundly affected. Any human being who is bombarded with what you’ve been bombarded with is to be commended for sheer survival. You deserve a medal for the mere fact that you’re around to tell the story.

Giving ourselves what we need means becoming our own counselors, confidantes, spiritual advisors, partners, best friends, and caretakers in this exciting, new venture we have undertaken—living our own lives.

We’re like singers in a large chorus. If the person next to us goes off-key, must we also? Wouldn’t it help them, and us, if we strived to stay on key? We can learn to hold our part.