Codependency Therapy
Do you feel lost trying to help a family member overcome addiction and dependency?
Have all your efforts to support them made you exhausted, frustrated, and irritable?
Are you thinking that it’s time for your loved one to get professional help?
You care about someone whose life is out of control. You see craziness, fear, and pain, and you’ve tried to help. You’ve tried to understand and forgive, but the more you give of yourself, the worse the situation becomes. Perhaps there has been an additional crisis, such as a car accident, a lost job, a separation, or a divorce. Oftentimes, the crisis is what motivates your loved one to seek help. It may be that the addicted person has taken the first step toward recovery, and now you’re the one who needs help and support.
Your Loved One’s Issues Could Deeply Impact Your Own Mental Health
Drug and alcohol addiction is a baffling disease that takes its toll on the affected person, as well as those close to them. After all, addiction never exists in isolation—it eventually reaches a point where it impacts other people. For instance, your loved one might start lying to you about where they’re going or what they’re doing to cover up their habit. Perhaps their behavior has become more and more destructive and you feel like you’re walking on pins and needles when they’re around.
Over time, these issues could make you anxious, depressed, and burnt out. You might go to such great lengths to help your loved one that you have no room for self-care. It’s like you’ve sacrificed all your needs for their sake.
If this is how you feel, I encourage you to pursue codependency therapy with me. My mission is to help you bring self-care back into your daily routine and learn to navigate life with a loved one struggling with substance abuse. Additionally, the support groups I facilitate can provide a helpful source of information and encouragement. I offer both services, and I would love to connect with you!
Many Family Members Of Addicts Struggle To Help Their Loved Ones
No matter how much you love them, you can’t control a loved one’s addiction. The complex nature of the disease requires additional help and support. Family members who feel anxious about their loved one’s drug or alcohol abuse may try to help out and inadvertently worsen the problem. Moreover, when the attention is narrowed to just the addicted person, family members can end up so narrowly focused on them that they lose sight of themselves. This is why family members of addicts often end up neglecting self-care.
Additionally, it’s not uncommon for addicts to betray the trust of their loved ones, resulting in damaged or severed relationships. Many family members suffer silently, not wanting others to find out what’s happening. They might struggle to establish healthy boundaries with the addict because the addict has come to depend on them for support. All of these reasons necessitate the importance of therapy for those who are in the midst of a codependent relationship.
It’s Normal For Family Members To Blame Themselves For An Addict’s Struggles
There is a good reason that addiction is referred to as a “family disease”: it affects the entire family of the addict. The reality of addiction destroys any idealized images families have of someone, especially if that person was a mentor, authority figure, or someone they helped raise. Relatives may ask themselves, “How could this happen? Where did I go wrong? How did I not see this coming? What does this say about me as a mother, father, brother, or sister?”
Therapy assures families that their concerns are valid, and they aren’t suffering alone. It can also help them increase their self-compassion and realize that they’re not at fault for their loved one’s addiction.
Therapy Can Help You Navigate Codependency And Prioritize Self-Care
In therapy, you can learn valuable tools to start a conversation with an addict about getting help without worsening the situation and driving or enabling them to use more. Therapy can also teach you the necessity of boundaries and help you lovingly enforce them with an addict.
The more you practice setting boundaries with your loved one, the easier it will be to invite self-care back into your life. You will learn to detach yourself from their dependency, allowing you to love them while still valuing your own independence. By practicing detachment, you can stop trying to protect your loved one from the consequences of their destructive behavior. As a result, they can learn to help themselves.
My Support Groups Offer Healing And Encouragement Through The Power Of Community
For family members who feel isolated and alone, the community offered in support groups can be an invaluable source of hope and strength. Support groups help loved ones cope with difficult feelings and emotions while confronting the reality of addiction. They can also offer education about the disease of addiction and help for codependency.
After all, codependency is broadly defined in a relationship where one person enables another person because of their reliance on others for approval and a sense of identity. This is a behavior pattern that can be difficult to stop. Support groups can help pinpoint the reasons why this happens. It’s a natural tendency to want to help someone you love who is suffering or hurting in some way.
Additionally, because addiction still carries a stigma in our society, the acceptance and understanding offered in support groups is invaluable to people who might have nowhere else to turn. The shared experiences establish a deeper sense of connection as each member shares what they have gone through. It’s not uncommon for relatives of addicts to experience depression or anxiety from watching someone they love struggle with addiction, and support groups offer resources and compassion for this as well.
Participation in support groups helps the entire family. Rather than addiction being a character flaw or an issue of morality, these groups can help you understand how addiction affects the brain, therefore influencing one’s behaviors and actions. Between my expertise as a therapist and the community support of group counseling, I’m confident that I can help you overcome codependency and navigate your relationship with your loved one more peacefully.
Learn More About Codependency Therapy and Support Groups
You don’t have to keep struggling in silence. I specialize in helping families of addicts establish healthy boundaries, make room for self-care, and overcome codependency. In order to assess your needs, I offer a free 15-minute phone consultation. You can reach me at 805-453-2729.
"Ashleigh has a supportive and encouraging presence and creates a comforting holding space for clients to explore their thoughts and emotions. Her work with those in recovery or family members of those in recovery is informed, compassionate, and gently challenging. I am fortunate to have continued our friendship and professional relationship over the years. Currently sharing private office space together in Santa Barbara, we regularly consult, and I value her clinical perspective. She is someone whom I regularly refer clients to and I continue to hear positive feedback about her work. She is ethical, responsible, direct, kind and warm." ~ Michele, MA, LMFT
