Recovery from co-dependency is a process that has some predictable steps in it. The order of these steps will likely be different with each individual, but it seems necessary to "touch all the bases" before returning home, free from co-dependent patterns. Some people will need to do much more than "touch the base" of some of the steps. For example, the first step, which involves recognizing the extent of the co-dependent patterns in your relationships, can take considerable time and effort.
What makes it so difficult is that co-dependency is so pervasive that you may not recognize it as dysfunctional behavior. As a friend of ours said when we described a codependent pattern, "Mat's wrong with that? Isn't that the way everybody acts?" Other steps also can require intensive work. Learning to feel your feelings more fully and learning how to express your feelings in effective ways usually requires lots of hard work.
Step 1: Recognizing Co-Dependent Patterns
There are lots of ways to avoid recognizing the existence of co-dependency. It's like being asleep. You dream that things are one way. Even if they aren't that way, you keep dreaming. Because almost everything you have been exposed to has co-dependent overtones, you may not be aware that there is something better.
For some of you, denial may have been a learned survival or safety mechanism. If you really saw or talked about what was happening in your family where you grew up, you might not have survived childhood. You may have been taught not to notice what was happening to you and to other people in your family in order to maintain a "one big happy family" fantasy for the outside world. Of all the things you were taught to ignore, it is the lack of recognition of your own feelings that usually has the most devastating effects on you and your relationships. co-dependency, like most addictions, is a feeling disorder.
Step 2: Understanding the Causes of the Problem
There is much confusion in the literature about the actual causes of co-dependency. Some claim it is the result of a genetic weakness, while others claim it comes from contact with alcoholics or an alcoholic family. The main thesis of this ministry is that it is caused by a developmental flaw and it is learned dysfunctional behavior. It is also seen as a systemic problem related to growing up in a dysfunctional family and a dysfunctional society.
Step 3: Unraveling Co-Dependent Relationships
Once you understand that the causes of co-dependency originate in relationship dynamics that never got completed, you can begin to see how those dynamics recycle in your present relationships. The completion of your psychological birth process is the dynamic that is pressing for recognition all the time in co-dependent relationships. When you learn to recognize what you left undone, then, with additional support and new skills, you can consciously finish the process.
Step 4: Taking Back Your Projections
When you attempt to become separate by making others wrong or bad, you usually develop a lifestyle based on projection. You may twist reality to suit your need to be right and justify your behavior by making others wrong. Taking back these projections often requires theloving confrontation and support of group or family members, friends and partners, a spouse or a therapist. Projections are the building blocks in the wall of denial. They tend to fall away slowly until enough of the wall of denial is removed and the truth of who you and others are is finally revealed.
Step 5: Eliminating Self-Hate
If you didn't become separate from your mother or your family and you tried to separate by making them wrong or bad, you will likely end up making yourself wrong or bad as well. You may try to deny or cover up these negative feelings, but they usually run your life. It is necessary to uncover, claim and transform these negative images. They are based on misperceptions and illusions and are also the result of poor object constancy. By understanding that these projections are the source of your low self-esteem, you can correct them.
Step 6: Eliminating Power Plays and Manipulation
Lacking the full natural power that comes from the completion of the psychological birth, you are likely to utilize power plays and manipulations to get what you want. The drama triangle (persecutor, rescuer and victim roles) is a common way to manipulate others while remaining very passive. As you find more effective ways to get people to cooperate with you, the need to try to control others will drop away.
Step 7: Asking For What You Want
One of the most simple, straightforward ways to get what you want is to ask for it directly in such a way that people are delighted to give it to you (if they have it to give). What usually happens is that people don't ask directly ("I might be needing the car later.") and then get disappointed when people don't rescue them, or they ask with so much anger or resentment ("Damn it, I've got to have the car tonight! Can I have it?") that the other person resists and says no.
Step 8: Learning to Feel Again
Children raised in dysfunctional families learn very early to deny their feelings and thoughts about what is happening in their home. One of the most frequently denied feelings is anger, even though people in co-dependent relationships are angry much of the time. Anger has to be "'justified" in some way before it can be expressed. Someone has to be blamed or made the scapegoat for all the unhappiness in the family. Children often are used in this way. As an adult, you will have to reclaim the feelings that you denied in order to help you survive childhood. People cannot recover from codependency without reclaiming their feelings.
Step 9: Healing Your Inner Child
If you grew up in a dysfunctional family, you were taught to focus on what others were doing and not on what you were doing. You were forced to adopt a false self in order to please others. You also were forced to hide your true self, including your innocent, vulnerable inner child. Your inner child suffered from wounds administered by supposedly caring, loving people who may have laughed at you, teased you, showed no respect for you, not listened to you, physically beat you or ignored your most important needs. To keep from getting hurt, it may have been necessary for you to hide that part of you from the outside world. In the process, you also may have hidden that part from yourself. Recovery involves reconnecting with and healing your inner child.
Step 10: Defining Your Own Boundaries
Everyone has a psychological territory that is their own. It consists of your thoughts, feelings, behaviors and your body. Most people who came from a dysfunctional family had their territory violated so often as a child that as an adult they no longer are even aware of when it is happening. Most co-dependents have a very low awareness of their personal boundaries and almost no skills in defining and protecting their boundaries. It is essential for co-dependents to learn to define and protect their boundaries in effective ways if they wish to break their co-dependent patterns.
Step 11: Learning To Be Intimate
co-dependents both fear and desire intimacy. The fear is often that they will be controlled, hurt, engulfed or trampled by someone with whom they are intimate. Breaking co-dependency seems to require a rebonding process with another human being. People often need new parenting from someone like a therapist or another adult who can supply the missing information, touch or the nurturing support necessary to build object constancy and self-esteem.
Step 12: Learning New Forms of Relationship
Most people who have lived with co-dependent patterns for some time have little or no awareness of the richness of life that they are missing. Often it is some vague awareness that "There has to be more to life than this" that allows co-dependent people to start taking the risks to change. What replaces co-dependency is interdependency, where two or more people have learned to be autonomous enough to be able to co?create life together and to be willing to support the highest good in each other.
To learn more about our 12-Step support group for Co-Dependency, click here.
In association with "Overcomers Outreach" The Good Shepherd Restoration Ministries has established a "Life-Application" Bible study support group that will help you find "balance in you personal & family relationships.
God speaks to us through His written word...the Holy Scriptures. God also reveals His will for our lives to us through His word; hence, the answers to many of life's questions can be found in God's word. More importantly, once we have accepted Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior, we grow in the knowledge of His grace by studying the Scriptures. Therefore, apart from prayer, bible study is the most critical aspect of a believer's walk with God.
 In order to increase reading comprehension and to make reading the Bible more enjoyable, we have chosen the "New Living Translation" Bible as our preferred translated version of the Bible for all of our study groups.
We also use this version for our addiction recovery support group meetings (Overcomers Outreach).
Because of the holistic approach to the exposition of scripture in this model of study, the participants better understand the motivation behind their negative behaviors and learn to identify and seek out appropriate responses to situations. By understanding God's principles for living, individuals learn to incorporate spiritual discipline in their daily living.
This study-group model also fosters an exchange of views between participants and allows them to view their situation with a fresh perspective, in a sense, allowing them to step out of their situation and examine it with some objectivity. Moreover, this interaction fosters spiritual growth among the participants resulting in their desire to take responsibility for their life choices. As the participants broaden their understanding of addictive behaviors and their consequences, hopefully, they'll come to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ.
"If you or someone you know needs help in developing healthy "love" relationships and overcoming codependence, let us know!"
The Good Shepherd Restoration Ministries has compiled a national database of churches, ministries, and community organizations that provide "Overcomers Outreach" support group meetings or similar support group meetings in various communities across the country.
If you or someone you know need the assistance of a support group in order to overcome substance abuse, compulsive gambling or any other addictive behavior, please email us, and we'll assist you in identifying a Christian, support group similar to "Overcomers Outreach" in your community.
***Clergy Confidentiality Agreement***
All communication with this ministry is kept in strictest confidence! Everything you share with this ministry is covered under the "clergy confidentiality" agreement and is considered privileged information. Under no circumstances will we share any of your communication with anyone. As we coordinate contacts in your community on your behalf, your identity will remain anonymous.
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