Three Early Signs of People-Addiction (Codependency)

Most of us don’t realize that it’s possible to get addicted to a person. We tend to think of addiction to substances and things, not people. The term for addiction to a person is codependency because it has the same symptoms as any addiction (loss of control, continuing a behavior despite negative consequences, personal losses, etc.). Further, we can’t effectively treat a condition if we don’t adequately define it. When someone’s attachment to another, regardless of the relationship (i.e., child, friend, lover, sibling), creates self-harm, they suffer from an addictive relationship. 

Codependency starts long before a person is an adult. Codependency has its roots in early childhood. Kids raised by parents who are addicted or otherwise impaired to the point of the inability to be full-time parents are inadvertently trained to be codependent. There’s an unconscious wish that providing support will fix their parent’s problems and make them better parents. This never happens.  

Later on, when grown, these same individuals gravitate toward people like their wounded parents. They will transfer the same caretaking patterns to other impaired people in their lives. They will take on the other’s responsibilities at the expense of themselves. They cover up, make excuses, and enable the person they caretake to remain stuck. Even worse, the codependent suffers emotionally, physically, or financially while the person they are helping isn’t able to appreciate the help and even fosters an underlying resentment. 

People in addictive relationships have confused addiction with love. Once we identify the substitutes for love and replace them with authentic love, the relationship can become healthy and fulfilling.  

Sign #1: Codependency Starts in Childhood 

When something painful happens in a family, some kids adopt the role of the fixer. They often assume the responsibilities of the parents, become a family life coach, or take on the role of a superhero. This is typical in families suffering from alcoholism, affairs, reckless spending, and other addictive behaviors. These kids believe that their efforts will make things better. But even if it does help, it’s not the role of a child to adopt a parental role or to fix their family’s problems. There’s a difference between a healthy team approach with shared responsibilities and a child who is overcompensating for a parent’s deficiency. Once the pattern starts, there is an unconscious drive throughout life to help other people like their parents. Unwarranted help is ineffective and only leads to disappointment and suffering. 

Sign #2: Blurred Boundaries 

It’s one thing to be helpful, and it’s another to enable. Helpful fosters independence and enabling creates helplessness. Protecting someone from the consequences of bad choices perpetuates someone’s resistance to positive change. When a parent financially supports an adult child (or vice-versa) without insisting on education or employment, when a lover tolerates abuse from their partner, or when someone covers up for a sibling or friend, they have overstepped a healthy boundary. Even worse, there are always underlying resentments by both participants in these relationships. Helpful means we support people through guidance without rescuing them. We don’t jump in. When asked for help, we make suggestions and encourage them. They are allowed to work their way out of whatever dilemma they face so that they can grow past repeating the same mistakes. 

Sign #3: Constant Defeat 

An addiction to someone is exhausting because, like any addiction, it’s a vicious cycle. You are locked into a back-to-back relationship that you are carrying. You keep thinking that your efforts will make a difference, but they don’t. No matter how many times you pay off the bills, hire lawyers, or forgive unacceptable behavior, things don’t change. You keep winding up in the same hole while the other person skates on by. You’re both doing the same thing repeatedly and expecting different results. The only result you achieve is anger, depression, and more pain.  

The best thing you can do to change someone else is to change yourself. When you love someone, you offer them a hand but don’t do all the work. They take your hand and pull themselves up. Otherwise, you get pulled off the ledge, and you both go down.  

Repeatedly subjecting yourself to a painful agreement is not love. Before you can offer love to someone else, you must love yourself. The first step toward self-love is to stop being used and abused. Only then will you have the strength to be an agent of change for a mentally healthy relationship with the person you care about. It might be comfortable at first but think of the long-term benefits of replacing a frustrating, dysfunctional relationship with an adult-to-adult, loving one. 

It’s never too late to tell someone you realize your efforts haven’t been helping them and you know they can figure out how to fix their own problems. You can warn them ahead of time that you will no longer be able to help. Then, when the next catastrophe happens and they come to you to fix things, you can remind them of the earlier warning. They might get angry and might even threaten you. This is a normal reaction by someone who has become overly dependent. But once they are forced to figure out how to take responsibility for their actions, they will be grateful. Then both of you can learn how to take better care of yourself as healthy, loving adults.