Codependents might derive their sense of worth from being needed, while those with DPD are more focused on being cared for. A core principle of Al-Anon is that alcoholics cannot learn from their mistakes if they are overprotected. Detachment with love means caring enough about others to allow them to learn from their mistakes. It also means being responsible for our own recovery and making decisions without ulterior motives or the desire to control others. This is an obvious red flag that their alcohol or drug use is affecting you enough to cause pain, and they are unwilling to change their substance use. One sign of codependency or enabling is the failure to follow through on boundaries and expectations.

The Great Debate: Is Codependency a Mental Illness?

The answers to the first two questions are a little more complicated. Codependency, while it can include enabling behaviors, is a broader pattern that affects the codependent person’s entire sense of self and way of relating to others. It’s like the difference between giving someone a fish (enabling) and believing your entire worth comes from being the best fisherman for others (codependency). Sarah is terrified of losing Tom, which causes her to cling to their unhealthy relationship. She believes that if she stops supporting him, he will leave her or spiral further out of control. Sarah has difficulty setting boundaries with Tom, allowing him to take advantage of her kindness and caregiving nature.

Codependency and Enabling Behavior

• Codependency was first recognized and defined in the context of people with addiction problems and the people who support and facilitate addictive behavior in their partners.
• Understood this way, detachment with love plants the seeds of recovery.
• Reach out to a therapist or family support group for help, especially if you’re codependent on or enabling someone with SUD.
• Sarah is terrified of losing Tom, which causes her to cling to their unhealthy relationship.
• Sharon is also the author of The CBT Workbook for Perfectionism and write the blog Conquering Codependency for Psychology Today.

Many people come to recognize their codependent tendencies through self-reflection, often triggered by relationship difficulties or personal crises. This self-awareness can be both a blessing and a curse – it’s the first step towards change, but it can also be a painful realization. This intricate tango of needs, fears, and misplaced devotion forms the core of what we’ve come to know as codependency disorder.

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• Enabling and codependency do not seem to be related in any way when one considers the literal meanings.
• Although life circumstances can indeed cause undue stress, some things—like excessive alcohol or drug use—can’t be explained away by stress.
• Enabling makes things worse by letting the addict keep acting out.
• Relationships between an enabler and a codependent person can become quite destructive.
• Codependency doesn’t exist in a vacuum – it’s often intertwined with other mental health issues and life experiences.
• He has not had to face life in the streets or the loss of his family.

It’s important to establish early on which of our actions is helping those move toward recovery and which are leaving them stagnant. Enabling behavior also often includes taking responsibility for or making excuses for others’ inappropriate or unhealthy behaviors. The person with codependency sees their efforts at taking responsibility for others’ mistakes or doing something for someone that person can do on their own as helpful. One of the trickiest aspects of codependency is distinguishing it from genuine care and support. While both involve supporting someone else, enabling typically refers to behaviors that inadvertently support harmful or destructive behaviors, often in the context of addiction. Self-awareness plays a crucial role in identifying codependency.

When she wants to go out or visit friends, he is more interested is getting high, and he doesn’t enjoy being around people. Eventually, the marriage is not what it once was, and she decides to leave. Codependence is a whole spectrum of behaviors, including enabling, and it often affects those who grew up in a family that suffered from addiction. Major areas of dysfunction that describe codependence are denial, low self-esteem patterns, compliance patterns, control patterns, and avoidance patterns.

Emotional Dependency vs Love: Recognizing the Difference in Relationships

It’s also important to note that both people in a relationship can be codependent. When this happens, both people are enmeshed in unhealthy patterns of facilitating each other’s bad habits while also depending on each other to feel needed and valued. They enable each other and use each other as crutches to avoid change. These behaviors are typically passed down, generation to generation. They are learned behaviors that follow with unhealthy coping mechanisms. Codependent individuals often do not openly discuss their issues because they don’t want to ‘burden’ their loved ones.

This makes the relationship bad for both people’s mental health. These patterns indicate the enabling is driven by an underlying codependency. The enabler relies on the enabled person for their own self-worth and emotional stability.

Sharon is also the author of The CBT Workbook for Perfectionism and write the blog Conquering Codependency for Psychology Today. True codependency means there’s dependence on both sides of the relationship. However, that doesn’t mean you look the other way if the person’s behavior is dangerous to himself or others, such as drunk driving or making threats of suicide. Call for help, and don’t try to solve life-threatening problems on your own. A repository of premium articles on mental health, written by expert therapists. The husband, if he’s lucky, will find someone else, or he may not.

Codependency is broadly defined as an excessive emotional, physical, and psychological reliance on another person for approval, identity, and a sense of self-worth. The term initially arose in the context of those who were in relationships with people struggling with addiction, but has expanded to mean unhealthy dependence in any relationship. Codependency and enabling are two terms that are often used interchangeably, but there are some key differences between them. Both codependency and enabling involve unhealthy patterns of relating to other people, but the motivations and underlying issues are distinct.

For the enabler, this step is the part where things get difficult, because they fear they will lose the relationship and no longer feel needed or desired. However, offering assistance can turn into enabling, which encourages the behavior. If your family member decides to enter treatment, you can benefit tremendously from family therapy sessions or events often held in conjunction with treatment. If she isn’t ready to begin treatment, continue to be encouraging and supportive, but in the meantime, take steps to help yourself and change the way you react to the situation. Let’s take an example of a married couple in which the husband is addicted to opioids. He’s not out partying or cheating on his wife, he just needs the opioids to function and takes them every day.

It is important to recognize warning signs of a codependent relationship, and take proactive steps to stop it from continuing. Some relationships have both enablement and codependency dynamics at play. The situation can quickly become out of control, especially when substance abuse is a factor in the relationship.

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It’s characterized by an excessive need to be taken care of, leading to submissive and clingy behavior. People with DPD often struggle to make decisions without excessive reassurance from others and have an intense fear of abandonment. The topic of addiction will understandably create some conflict. Your loved one may show signs of denial, where they refuse they have a problem with alcohol or other drugs. Or they may have decided that their drinking or drug use “is what it is” and are unwilling to change. When your loved one realizes their alcohol or drug use is considered problematic, they may ask or expect you to keep it secret so that their addiction can remain undisturbed.

Enabling can lead to codependency when the person enabling leans into the unbalance of the relationship in other ways, eventually becoming codependent. If you find yourself constantly making excuses for your partner’s behavior or giving all of your energy to a child, you may be enabling them. You may also be in a relationship characterized bycodependency. Enabling and codependency often go hand in hand in relationships. You didn’t cause it, even though the addicted person may try to blame you for their problems.

She does this thinking that it is her job or because she wants to take care of her husband and not leave him in the lurch when he is an alcoholic. This act of the wife, which is not bad, is actually an enabling factor. When the husband realizes that he is being looked codependency vs enabling after, he is not going to have an attack of conscience and he is not going to be enlightened overnight since he is an alcoholic. He would get drunk again and create a mess which the wife will clear up again. The wife, in this case, is enabling the husband to remain an alcoholic.