Tag Archives: codependency

Lines in the Sand

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People who love addicts learn to draw lines in the sand. Christians who love addicts may have a difficult time knowing whether their “line” is godly “tough love” or sheer anger and self-protection. We reason, “God loves us unconditionally, shouldn’t I love others that way, too?” Yes. But unconditionally sometimes mean taking a difficult stance in order to truly do the right thing. It also means loving and caring for ourselves.

I’m still reading David Sheff’s Beautiful Boy. I have to take it in small doses. It’s painfully reminiscent of the life I used to live loving an addicted spouse. Although David’s story is from a parent’s perspective, anyone who has lived the hell of waiting for a loved one who has disappeared on a binge to resurface can connect. Here’s what he realizes in chapter 17:

“I have learned to live with tormenting contradictions, such as the knowledge that an addict may not be responsible for his condition and yet he is the only one responsible. I also have accepted that I have a problem for which there is no cure and there may be no resolution. I know that I must draw a line in the sand – what I will take, what I will do, what I can’t take, what I can no longer do – and yet I must also be flexible enough to erase it and draw a new line. And now, with Nic in the hospital, I learn that I love him more, and more compassionately, than ever.”

Later, on p. 228 he writes, “Through Al-Anon…we understand the ways that our lives have become unmanageable, too. Mine has. My well-being has become dependent on Nic’s. When he us using, I’m in turmoil; when he’s not, I’m OK, but the relief is tenuous. The therapist says that parents of kids on drugs often get a form of posttraumatic stress syndrome made worse by the recurring nature of the addiction. For soldiers back from battle, the sniper fire and bombs are in their heads. For parents [or spouses] of an addict, a new barrage can come at any moment We try to guard against it. We pretend that everything is all right. But we live with a time bomb. It is debilitating to be dependent on another’s moods and decisions and actions. I bristle when I hear the word codependent, because it’s such a cliché of self-help books, but I have become codependent with Nic – codependent on his well-being for mine. How can a parent not be codependent on a child’s health or lack of it? But there must be an alternative, because this is no way to live. I have come to learn that my worry about Nic doesn’t help him, and it harms…me.”

I can completely relate. I became codependent with my addicted spouse. I built my life around his binges, his relapses, his lies. My emotions were constantly on a yo-yo as we lived the shame of being a Christian family with a double life. I hid in busyness and work. I smiled when I was crushed on the inside. I felt guilty that our money was supporting the illegal drug trade rather than advancing the kingdom of God. I fell into patterns of sin and hiding in order to cope with his sin and hiding. Ours was far from the abundant life that God longs for His children to live.

When I read the following selection from Touchstones Daily Meditations for Men, Aug. 13 in preparation for our church’s 12 Step group, the part about believing our shame is greater than that of others resonated with me. That’s what I used to believe. I thought ours was the only marriage in church being destroyed by addiction. For a long time I was too ashamed to talk about it, even with close family and friends. Especially with close family and friends. Statistics have proved me wrong. There are nearly as many Christians dealing with an addicted loved one or suffering from addiction themselves as those who are in the world. Here’s the whole quote:

“We cannot hang on to feelings of shame and guilt and still hope to become better people. How did these feelings begin? If we were treated badly by people, we need to be honest about what happened so we can resolve it and move on. Have we perpetuated our feelings by acting disrespectfully ourselves? Then we need to take a thorough inventory of our wrongdoings, admit them, make repairs, and let them go.

We may wallow in shame because facing it feels too frightening. Often, we believe our shame is greater than that of others. This belief is usually untrue and grandiose. It’s part of how we isolate ourselves. We don’t have to face it alone. We have the help of other men and women who can listen to our pain and tell us about their experiences.”

If you are wearing a cloak of shame for any reason, let me encourage you today to throw it off. Speak the truth in love to yourself or your addicted loved one. Set healthy boundaries. Find a healthy supportive group/place where you can be real – I recommend Al-Anon or Celebrate Recovery for starters. You are not alone in your suffering. It really helps to know that. When we hear the stories of others,  they begin to sound so familiar, so similar to our own. We can find solace in the experience of others and be encouraged by their journey to wholeness. Addiction breaks people. God heals the broken. And He does that, accNo Shameording to Dr. Larry Crabb, in community. Not in isolation. Finding a community for our own healing and growth is an important way that we can care for ourselves so that we can care for our loved ones. Within the context of that community, we can learn to draw healthy lines in the sand.

More Questions Than Answers

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IMG_0381“It was SHE. Whoever has loved knows all the radiant meaning contained in the three letters of this word ‘she.”
― Victor Hugo, Les Misérables

I cried in front of the 2% milk at Walmart on Tuesday. I live a vegan lifestyle, but was trying to locate the evil buttermilk among shelves of other milks and milk-wannabes, when my phone rang and I it was she. She whose name I cannot say aloud without strange constrictions in my throat. She whose voice is changed with the passing of too much time since we last spoke. She who is now in the sixth grade and who I have not held since she was three. It was SHE.

There in the milk aisle, while looking for soured milk (which I only purchase at holiday time because my once-a-year Texas Pecan Praline recipe calls for it) my heart did that funny little skip thing that it does whenever she calls. Should I take this, or let it go to voice mail? Swallowing hard I stopped right there in front of twenty kinds of milk behind a glass door and answered my phone, “Hello Sweet Girl! How are you?” in my cheeriest godmommy voice.

Eight and a half minutes later, after talk of school and new ipads, Thanksgiving and “yam pies,” we said goodbye. I asked her what she needed, how I could bless her with a gift, but she didn’t know. She couldn’t think of anything. Nothing at all. So we ended with, “I love you,” and “Call me again when you think of something.”

And then I cried. Just a little. It gets easier each year. She was almost mine once. And I’ve never forgotten how I loved her. Still love her. But she has a different family, a big happy family who lets me love her from afar. Who allows me to be “godmom” and “Mrs. Clause,” (when she can think of something for me to give). It’s a long, long story. A chapter I haven’t quite finished writing because it’s just too hard to find the words, or the answers. But, like my sister Ami said in one of her Facebook posts this week:

“Sometimes life is more questions than answers. And that’s okay. Sometimes the answers are in the silence. And that’s okay. Sometimes you need to be told that everything will be okay, even when that okay just means things will be different… Sometimes you just need a hug or another cup of coffee…morning ramblings from the cornfield.”

I guess that’s it. Sometimes life is just more questions than answers. And there is only ONE who holds all of those answers in His nail-scarred hands. I know that one day, He will tell me why. For now, I choose to trust Him, believing that He redeems the things I thought were lost. For now I choose to “hang on loose” to this girl I love too much to let go of completely.

In her book The Language of Letting Go ( p. 94-95), Melody Beattie, attaches the name detachment to this loose kind of hanging on. Here’s what she says: “Detachment is a key to recovery from codependency. It strengthens our healthy relationships – the ones that we want to grow and flourish. It benefits our difficult relationships – the ones that are teaching us to cope. It helps us!

Detachment is not something we do once. It’s a daily behavior in recovery. We learn it when we’re beginning our recovery from codependency and adult children issues. And we continue to practice it along the way as we grow and change, and as our relationships grow and change.

We learn to let go of people we love, people we like, and those we don’t particularly care for. We separate ourselves, and our process, from others and their process.

We relinquish our tight hold and our need to control in our relationships. We take responsibility for ourselves; we allow others to do the same. We detach with the understanding that life is unfolding exactly as it needs to, for others and ourselves. The way life unfolds is good, even when it hurts. And ultimately, we can benefit from even the most difficult situations. We do this with the understanding that a Power greater than ourselves is in charge, and all is well.

Today, I will apply the concept of detachment, to the best of my ability, in my relationships. If I can’t let go completely, I’ll try to ‘hang on loose.’”

What about you? Would you like to choose trust today? Ask Him to show you how to hang on loosely when you really just want to weep, right there in the grocery aisle.

“Trust God from the bottom of your heart;
don’t try to figure out everything on your own.
Listen for God’s voice in everything you do, everywhere you go;
he’s the one who will keep you on track.” Proverbs 3:5-6 The Message

Ever Feel Deflated?

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IMG_0373Flattened, deflated, defeated. There they are again. I haven’t seen them for almost a year. But my morning neighborhood run revealed lawn after lawn strewn with these sad collapsed creatures. Most have been reduced to barely recognizable shells of their pretentious puffed-up selves.

I first took notice of them last year around holiday time. Something new for consumers and chronic yard decorators to spend their dollars on. Personally, I’m not a fan. But, I can identify with the poor things because they look like I sometimes feel. Maybe you know what I’m talking about; completely spent, exhausted and empty. That’s when I know that I am falling back into old patterns of codependency, and my brain’s caution light begins blinking yellow!

Back in the thick middle of my former marriage to a chemically dependent person, more days than I can count, I felt like that deflated reindeer on my neighbor’s lawn! My entire life, at times, revolved around trying desperately to control our cash so he wouldn’t go on a binge and kill himself or someone else, or trying to catch him in a lie so I wouldn’t feel so crazy when he tried to convince me that IIMG_0370 hadn’t seen, heard, or smelled the evidence of something that I was positive I DID see, hear, or smell. It was exhausting! Add that to hysterically clinging to routines and facades so that no one would know how bad things really were. All the while choosing to love, give and serve someone who was too broken to reciprocate. No wonder I often felt like that wilted Saint Nick I passed on my run this morning. I knew what it was like to control, fix, and give, give, give until there was nothing left but a thin shell of my once buoyant, joyful self.

In 1986, Melody Beattie wrote Codependent No More: How to Stop Controlling Others and Start Caring for Yourself. It has sold more than 5 million copies and Amazon is still stocking it.  If you find yourself, like I did, flat on your face from caring for and trying to control everyone but you, please do yourself a favor and buy this book! Here’s the link: http://www.amazon.com/Codependent-No-More-Controlling-Yourself/dp/0894864025

Currently, (just to keep on top of my game, so I don’t relapse into crazy control-freak-save-the-world-itis), I’m reading Darlene Lancer’s Codependency for Dummies. In it, she describes those of us with these tendencies this way: “A codependent is a person who can’t function from his or her innate self, and instead, organizes thinking and behavior around a substance, process, or other person(s)”. She says that codependency is, “A lost Self, which includes addicts as well as many of those who love them.” Codependency for Dummies, p. 30. For the longest time, I thought that the drug addict in our household was the only one with problems. It wasn’t until my life became consumed with trying to save him, that I realized the significance of my own problems. In my struggle to rescue my lost spouse, I had lost myself. My needs were not being met. The following definition of addiction and codependency fit me as perfectly as an Asics running shoe: “Codependency is an unhealthy reliance on the control of exterior things in order to fill interior needs.”

I can sure identify with this quote from Melody Beattie, can you? “Codependency can be absolutely and totally exhausting. It drains and depletes people, puts a blindfold on them, spins them around in circles until they’re dizzy. Then people try to go on with their lives and wonder why they can’t.” Codependent No More Workbook p. 14.  She goes on to say that, “Most of us have been so busy responding to other people’s problems that we haven’t had time to identify, much less take care of, our own problems.”

That was once my entire life. Now I have a new life. But, as you know, we usually bring our old selves into our new relationships. Where I once was run ragged trying to be the savior of one, now I am tempted to rescue the many, at the expense of the relationships I most value. For, you see, God redeemed the things that I thought were lost. And now I am married to a precious, God-loving, people serving husband who ministers to a whole congregation and an entire county. As his wife, I embrace his heart for the lost and suffering and work right alongside him. Together we are BUSY! Sometimes so busy in doing “good things” that we look and feel like those deflated lawn ornaments in our neighborhood. We both must be cautious of never trying to be God in anyone’s life. We continually strive for a healthy balance, as we live lives of service to God and people. It’s only through much prayer and the daily invitation of God’s Holy Spirit to live inside of us that any of us can do the work He’s called us to do. He doesn’t ask us to be God to anyone. He asks us to show God to everyone. There is a difference.

So, as we enter this season of frantic busyness, Philippians 1:11 is my prayer for us all: may we never be depleted and deflated from carrying burdens that do not belong to us, but “May you always be filled with the fruit of your salvation–the righteous character produced in your life by Jesus Christ–for this will bring much glory and praise to God.” Doing “good” and helping others is never about praise and glory for me. It’s about living a balanced, healthy life of service that will bring glory to our one and only Savior, Jesus Christ.