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What role does co-dependency play? · Wellbeing Solutions - Ask A Counsellor

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  SPEAKER_00: So codependency can play a significant role in addiction, particularly within close relationships.
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  SPEAKER_00: It can develop when one person becomes heavily focused on managing, rescuing, or emotionally supporting someone with an addiction, often at the expense of their own well-being or outside of their own capacity.
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  SPEAKER_00: So addiction not only ends up impacting the person that is using or engaging in addictive behaviour, but also the people around them because it is at all consuming.
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  SPEAKER_00: A partner, parent, or family member may gradually take on responsibility for preventing the consequences of the addiction, making excuses, for example, covering up problems, providing money, monitoring behaviour.
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  SPEAKER_00: Although these actions may come from love and concern, they can unintentionally enable the addictive pattern to continue.
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  SPEAKER_00: Codependency isn't simply caring too much.
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  SPEAKER_00: It can involve difficulty establishing boundaries, a strong need to feel needed, a fear of abandonment, and a tendency to prioritise the other person's needs over your own.
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  SPEAKER_00: Over time, the relationship can become organised around the addiction.
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  SPEAKER_00: From a counselling perspective, the aim is not to blame the family member or suggest that they've caused it.
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  SPEAKER_00: It isn't like that.
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  SPEAKER_00: Addiction is very complex and has multiple contributing factors.
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  SPEAKER_00: Instead, counsel and support can help the person recognise patterns within the relationship that aren't healthy, that are beyond their capacity, and understand what is or isn't within their control.
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  SPEAKER_00: This can be establishing healthier boundaries, for example, and reconnecting with their own needs and well-being, because that is the cup from which you pour to everybody else.
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  SPEAKER_00: An important part of this work would be learning the difference between supporting somebody and taking responsibility for them.
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  SPEAKER_00: So support is everything that you can give at your capacity, and sometimes taking responsibility is everything that you endure in spite of your capacity.
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  SPEAKER_00: A counsellor might help a client move from rescuing and controlling towards communicating clearly, setting realistic boundaries, and equipping the person for the consequences of what is going on for them.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_00: This can be difficult and emotionally painful, particularly when guilt and fear or a sense of responsibility has become established, but this is about creating something that is more sustainable longer term and within everybody's benefit, even if the journey there isn't the easiest.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_00: Ultimately, counselling can help break the cycle in which addiction dominates a relationship.
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_00: The goal isn't to control whether the other person recovers or not, it's to help the person that is codependent develop healthier ways of relating while protecting their own emotional and physical well being.