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Source: Unidentified Historical Recording – Fellowship Review Recording 790 – Date Unknown.mp3 File: co-anon-welcome-meeting-ohio-area-conference-1993-07-10.mp3 Duration: 01:34:40
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1993 CA Conference. My name is Pam, and I'm a co-dependent. Hi, Pam. And I'm also your chairperson for the day. I would appreciate if everybody could go around the room and introduce themselves. Pam, Dana, Sharon, Brenda, Pat, Audrey, Joyce, Ben. I'd like to start the meeting off with a serenity prayer. God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.
Amen. In case you're in doubt of if you're a co-dependent or not, I brought a checklist that you might want to go over. This is on the first page. Number one, lastly, worrying about a person who abuses alcohol or other drugs. Center your thoughts and attention around the activities of an alcoholic or drug abuser on the problems caused by that person. Number three, been disappointed that the alcohol or drug abuser has broken promises which you thought she or he would keep. Number four, avoided discussing your concerns with the abuser to avoid making matters worse. Number five, marked, hid, diluted, or emptied bottles of liquor or medications.
Number six, taken over chores, duties, or responsibilities that you would normally expect the alcoholic or drug abuser to assume. Number seven, withdrawn from outside activities and friends in response to the behavior of an alcoholic or drug abuser. Number eight, experienced physical symptoms such as nausea, a knot on the stomach, ulcers, shakiness, sweaty palms, or bitten fingernails in response to abuser's behavior. Number nine, drink excessively or use medication in response to the alcohol or drug abuser's behavior. Number ten, experienced sexual problems including feelings of revulsion or avoiding sex when responding to the alcoholic or drug abuser's behavior. I hope you did.
Have you or your children, have you or the children in your family ever taken sides with conflicting members of the family who were arguing with or about the alcoholic or drug abuser? Number twelve, shown signs of emotional stress such as declining school performance, withdrawing from family or friends, having trouble with authority figures, becoming overly rebellious, or acting out sexually. Number thirteen, thought everything would be okay if only the alcoholic or drug abuser would stop or control his or her drinking or drugs. Number fourteen, experienced verbal, physical, or sexual abuse from the alcohol or drug abuser.
Number fifteen, experienced prolonged periods of depression or anxiety heightened by worry, self-pity, guilt, or resentment concerning the alcohol or drug abuser. A yes response to any three of these fifteen questions indicates that chemical dependency exists in the family and that you may be suffering from AFMS, the caring person's illness. I have a response on number five, to delude or empty bottles of liquor.
I can't think of the name of the medicine that they give alcoholics. What's the name of the medicine? Antabuse. Antabuse, that's what it is. I would put that in my husband's milk and orange juice every morning. When he first came home from the rehab center because he wasn't taking it. I guess he knew, I didn't know, but I thought maybe he just forgot, so I was helping him. I was putting it in his orange juice and in his milk. He never even knew, but one day he went out drinking and he got definitely sick.
I mean, definitely sick. And he didn't know why. I said to myself, oh my God. So the stuff actually really works. And when I was, she had that on and that just brought back memories. Because I used to do that. I would make sure he took that antabuse and even though it didn't help, he still went out and got drunk. He got definitely sick. You didn't tell him you did it, did you? No. After the fact, I told him.
[00:05:02]
I think there's a lot of things we've all done that we didn't tell them that we did. I think if I had known about that when I was married to my alcoholic husband, I would have done it to him and I would have done it every day because he drank every day. And he could have been sick every day because I would have done it. Maybe he would have stopped. I said, well, maybe you need to stop drinking. Maybe he don't agree with you anymore. All along I knew I had to give him his medicine, you know.
I would have never thought of it. I did. I would have been afraid to do it, but I'm sure if I had known about it, it would have crossed my mind. The topic that I chose for today is what is a codependent. I was reading some of our recovery books and I ran across a triangle that's called a codependence triangle. I chose this because a lot of people don't know and don't understand what codependency actually is.
So we've all taken a corner of this triangle. We'll read some of the information about each corner. And then we'll explain how it affected our lives. And anytime you want to add in or speak on it, feel free to go right ahead. At the beginning of the story, there's a small story I want to read to you about it. It says, about a year into my recovery from codependency, I realized I was still doing something over and over that caused me pain.
I sensed this pattern had something to do with why many of my relationships went sour. But I didn't know what it was that I was doing, so I couldn't stop doing it. One sunny day, I was walking down the sidewalk with my friend Scott. I stopped, turned to him and asked, what is it that keeps us feeling so bad? He thought about my question for a moment before answering. Codependents are caretakers, rescuers. They rescue, then they persecute, then they end up victimized.
Study the Cartman Drama Triangle, he said, the Cartman Drama Triangle and the work and observation of Stephen B. Cartman. What he said didn't make sense, but I went home, dragged out some therapy books that were collecting dust on my shelf and studied. After a while, a light went on inside my head. I saw, I understood, and I felt like I had discovered fire. This was it. This was my pattern. This is our pattern.
This is what we repeatedly do with friends, family, acquaintances, clients, or anybody around us. As codependents, we may do many things, but this pattern is what we do best and most often. This is our favorite reaction. We are the rescuers, the enablers. We are the great godmothers and godfathers to the entire world. We not only meet people's needs, we anticipate them. We fix, nurture, and fuss over others.
We make better, solve, and attend to. And we do it all so well. Your wishes, my command, is our theme. Your problem is my problem, is our motto. We are caretakers. I found that to be very true in my relationship with my addict. Anything that I thought was going to happen, I tried to counteract, tried to block. I knew that on payday, they were going to meet him at the gate with his paycheck, so I tried to beat him there.
I had, I mean, I tried to fix, tried to control everything. And this program really helped me a lot now because I've learned how to mind my own business and let him, if that's what he's going to do, eventually he did it anyway, so I might as well just stay home and relax. On this triangle that we worked on, I ended up being the rescuer. And since rescuer is the first one, I guess I get to go first.
What is a rescue? Rescuing and caretaking means almost what they sound like. We rescue people from their responsibilities. We take care of people's responsibilities for them. Later, we get mad at them for what we've done. Then we feel used and sorry for ourselves. That is our pattern, the triangle. Rescuing and caretaking are synonymous. How do you say that? Synonymous. Okay, synonymous. Their definitions are closely connected to enabling.
Enabling is therapeutic jargon that means a destructive form of helping. Any act that helps an alcoholic or addict continue drinking or using
[00:10:03]
prevents the alcoholic or addict from suffering consequences or in any way makes it easier for the alcoholic to continue drinking are considered enabling behaviors. We rescue anytime we take responsibility for another human being, for that person's thoughts, feelings, decisions, behaviors, growth, well-being, problems, or destiny. The following acts constitute a rescuing or caretaking move. Doing something we really don't want to do.
I'm sure we've all done that at one time. I know I have. I can remember when my addict would call when he was out on one of his so-called missions, run out of gas sitting on the side of a road, and I could be in the middle of cooking dinner, and he would say, I'm out of gas, bring me gas. I'm busy, but no matter how busy I was, I always took out the time to go taking the gas, and I can see now where it was wrong.
But at that point, I just wanted him to shut up and leave me alone. I don't know. Has anybody else done that, anything similar to that? Mm-hmm. Yeah. Come pick me up because he's giving away the car or the truck, and I've said it myself a thousand times over. The next time he comes, I'm not going to go. I'm not going to go. But faithful me, here I go, middle of the night, the rescuer, not only with my addict, but family members, too.
You never hear from them until they need something where they can get you, where you can get them out of their mess. Exactly. Anybody else? Especially if you're the oldest, it seems like you're always doing something you don't want to do. It seems like the responsibility always falls on you. You feel guilty if you don't do it because it's your responsibility. You take on a lot of responsibility and guilt for everybody's actions when you don't have to.
You're the strong one. Right. I feel the same way because I'm the oldest, and it seems like sometimes I just get so fed up with being everybody's fixer and everybody's comforter and everybody's caregiver. And my mother calls me, and she talks about my brothers and sisters, and at work it's like I'm everybody's mother. When I get home and I'm a mother, it's like, what about me? So thank goodness for these meetings because I was able to find me because otherwise it was always being a caregiver and taking care of everything and making sure everybody's life was okay.
And preaching when the phone rang because I was scared something was going to be like. And I have a sister that left Accra and moved to Stone Mountain, Georgia. And I think, and I try not to be jealous of people, you know, but I'm so jealous that she got a different care. I'm so stuck here. Being the caretaker. Last week at our meeting I had a problem, and I didn't know why I was feeling the way I was feeling, and here it was I had a relapse, a mental relapse.
And I didn't know I had a mental relapse until they started talking to me about it. And like you say, you're trying to fix things, you're trying to keep peace in the home, and then before you know it, it's just like, I gave up. I was like staying in the bed, I didn't want to talk, I didn't want to go, I didn't want to visit, I didn't want to do nothing for nobody, you know. And I didn't know why I was in this mood.
I said, God, something's wrong with me and I don't know why. And here it was I had a mental, you know, relapse. That's what it, you know, the problem was. And I didn't know it until the guys brought it up to me. And then it just, I felt better because I knew why I was feeling that way. That's why it's nice to have a support system. Yes. You know, someone that you can call and say, you know, I really feel terrible today.
And dumping on somebody so that you can get some positive feedback from them. I know, my better half has a saying, nobody gets mad at me not realizing, hey, you don't know what I went through today. You know, I want to blow out steam too. I think that's a saying for him. My father used to say that. I think that's something from back in the old school. Yeah. You know what I'm saying? Here's another one that I think everybody in this room can relate to.
Saying yes when we mean no. I'm really good at that one. I don't know about anybody else, but I, a lot of times I'll say yes, but inside I'm pissed off because I want to say no. But I ain't got the heart to go ahead and say no, because I don't want to step on nobody else's feelings. Not realizing that when I do that, my feelings are hurt then. And that's what should count.
[00:15:21]
I know. Can I expound on that? Go right ahead. I can remember when my daughter, she's a grade four recovering cocaine addict, and I sent her to her father in Virginia because I just couldn't take it anymore. And that was a mistake because her father was a cocaine addict, which I didn't know, because he said send her to me and I'll help you with her, you know. But anyway, when I sent her, she, you know, they make up these great excuses to get money and she called me at work one day and she said, Mommy, I need some money. I'm pregnant. I can't have this baby. You know I'm running crack and I can't have a crack baby. I said, how much money do you need? You know, I was so just fed up. She says, I need $250.
I said, okay, I'll wire it to you. And I sat in my office and I cried because I knew she was lying to me. But, you know, I was like, what if she's not? And the doctor came in and he said, what's wrong? And I said, my daughter said she's pregnant and I gotta send her the money. He said, don't send her that money. And I said, but I have to. And he said, no, you don't. Don't do it. And I did. And she wasn't. She sent it for you know what.
That's the typical example of codependency. They just tear their guns out. They're good liars too. And there's always, they tell them so well that there's always that little shred of doubt that says, maybe they're telling the truth. And you can't distinguish, was he telling the truth or is he not telling the truth? And it puts you really on the edge where they're concerned because you're trying to do the right thing and you really don't know whether you are or you're not.
Here's another one of our rescuing moves that we tend to do. Doing something for someone, although that person is capable of and should be doing it for him or herself. Like going to work or something. Or telling somebody I'm not here when they're sitting right there. Yeah, we know all those as well. We got a list that we can run down on that one. Meeting people's needs without being asked or before we've agreed to do so.
I learned a great lesson about that one. When you start doing, I forget where I read it at, but when you start doing things for other people that they're capable of doing themselves and they did not ask you to do it, they do not appreciate it. So you're really wasting your time and before you know it, you're upset and you're pissed off because they're not grateful because you went out of your way to do this great thing for them.
And after a while, it does cause a problem in your relationship. It gives you resentments up to here. One of the first meetings I was ever at, Pam said, and you know I had that particular problem with that. I did that excessively, but you take away their dignity when you keep doing and you don't give them the opportunity to ask you when they need help or if they want you to do something. And it was wonderful doing that because at that time, I was driving my son back to work because he lost his license.
And before he ever, he barely got into the car, when I take him over here, I say, now Mike, do you need to go anywhere tonight because I'll be glad, you know, it's like, let the kid ask you and why are you hauling him around after he has friends and he can walk or whatever. And when I did that, he would get so angry at me and I just, you know, but I continued to do it until he said that you take away their dignity and allow them to ask you for something.
And I don't, I don't do it anymore. I know another thing she brought up too. She brings up some pretty good things like, say if they're worried about something and you have a tendency to pick up their feelings and not even knowing it. And it's true. And she said, no, do they sit and pick up your feelings when you're feeling down and out? No, they go about their business. But if you see them, you know, like, wow, what's wrong with them?
And then you're in a mopey mood, but they're not going to be in a mopey mood because you are. What's wrong with you? And then they're out the door and it's not going to, it's not going to affect them the way it affects, you know, you with the alcoholic. Even if you ask for, you know, I feel really bad today. Could you, could you talk to me about, you know, just like you said, I don't have time.
[00:20:00]
You know, and then you pick up on theirs right away. Right away. And then I got a big reason. I hate that. I don't know. I hate that. He didn't say what's wrong. He never once said he ever said that. I think mine's pick up on that it's something wrong, but he just refuses to even ask or to be concerned. It's like, well, I can look in your face and tell it's something wrong with you, so I want to run in the other direction.
I don't want to hear about it. I don't know if it really irritates me. Which means he doesn't, he wants you to deal with his problems, but he doesn't want to go out of his way to help you deal with yours. I hate that. Here's another good one. Doing more than a fair, than a fair share of work after our help is requested. Going, I guess that would fall under the category of going overboard. Even when they ask for something, do what they ask you to do, but you don't have to go all the way over the hill to do it.
Because it's the same as the one right before it. You tend to, we tend to do more than what we should have done in the beginning because we're always being so helpful. We're going to be this knight in shining armor. He's going to love me and he's going to appreciate me and nine times out of ten, he ends up resenting you or using you. Because you take their dignity away and it's almost like telling them that they can't do anything for themselves.
Most of the time they can't. It's like, oh, you'll never find someone else to do what I do for you. And a lot of times they didn't ask you to do it in the first place. Not only that with me, I do it at work too. And I work in a classroom setting and it's a shame I'm off from work because of an injury. And the superintendent had calls coming in from parents because my clients refused to adjust to anyone else but me because of the way I ran my classroom.
You know, everything was always done 100% plus. It wasn't good enough for that 100%, but I always had to put that extra plus with it. And I used to wonder, how come I give 100% plus, how come this person isn't giving me 100% or 100% plus? And you feel deprived and used because they're not giving as much as you're giving. And nine times out of ten, they didn't ask for you to give that 110% that you're giving.
Well, here's another good one then. Constantly giving more than we receive in a particular situation. I still do. I still catch myself doing that, giving more than I receive. Although I have backed off quite a bit, you know, from being in the program and learning that I don't have to be that way. I still end up giving more than I get. And I am upset because I feel like, look at all I've done for you, and you can't even do this for me.
I go to work every day, and you mean to tell me you can't even take the meat out of the freezer and throw it out? When I come home, I can just cook and be done with it? I mean, it does give you a real bad resentment. Then you get to the point where you can't stand the attic. Amen. You get to the point also where you pick up the attic's behavior. You do. You start to behave like an addict. Because I caught myself.
Exactly. You start to have the same mentality that that addict or alcoholic has. Why is that, though? Because being around them all the time? Being around them. And plus, they're in a bad attitude way. And that puts you, like you noticed the other week, when he's feeling bad, you're feeling bad. When he's depressed, you're depressed. So you can't help but pick it up. You're right there in the environment.
And if you don't pick it up, you learn how to hate their guts. But you know what I find the hardest? My brother drinks. He's a weak alcoholic. My mom doesn't realize that. My brother walks in 2 or 3 in the morning and says, oh, he came home at midnight. No, he didn't. My husband says, I get a phone call at 2 o'clock in the morning. I'm home alone. Your brother's riding off to the neighbor's lawn. He's been in the house the correct time.
But he doesn't drink. And he doesn't have a problem with my son. And it's always my problem because he's always drunk. And you worry. Dragging my brother up the steps, he weighs 170 pounds. Trying to drag him up all these steps. Get him in the house. Got him partway on the bed. Couldn't get him the rest of the way. Didn't know if his car was in park because I don't drive stick. Had to call his car and say, your brother, your daddy is drunk.
I don't know if I got his car in park. And I can't get him into bed all the way.
[00:25:00]
But my mom still denies my brother has problems. And when I would go out dancing, my brother was very close to me. He'd always come where I was and he would get drunk. Embarrassed. He wanted me to take the keys. I couldn't get him because he'd get very violent. There was a cab driver there that wanted to take my brother's keys and said, you know, I'll take you home and leave your car here and your sister will come back, you know, the next day with you, although I get up at 4 o'clock and go to work every night.
And he wouldn't do it. And he walked out and they were blaming me for letting my brother walk out, but I couldn't get his keys. And I was ending up inside the dance crying because they were blaming me for not getting the keys to leave for my brother. When he was at the house of correction, I would go to work, come home, drive my brother to the house of correction so my mom could see my brother after work.
See, it's all falling on you. I hate to say no to my mom because she's 83. And I figure something happens to my mom because my brother's drinking. I'm taking guilt and saying if I would have went over there and done this, this wouldn't have happened to my mom. But she cannot see this, you know. And now I try not to complain to my mom as much as I used to because I'm afraid that it's always coming from my healthier brother.
And I'm tired of doing this. And my sister doesn't live six blocks away, but I live across the alley, so I'm the one that always gets it. And I can't always drag her to go to my husband's dad. I have to do this all by myself. And I'm tired, but I don't know how to say no to my mom. When you keep coming back, you learn how to say no. I'm tired, but I'll give you this. I hope so. And when somebody says, will you do me a favor?
I say yes. I don't even know what the favor is. We all do. We all do. That's what they would call dependent. One of those nice people syndromes. When you do, when you keep coming back, you learn to say, well, it depends on what you want me to do. Or I'll think about it. I have a lot of stuff all over me, and I tell my boyfriend, why did you say something? Because I'll lose my job if I can't say anything.
Fear. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Well, fear is a bad one. Oh, yeah. That's, I'm thinking of what it was. Fear was involved in one of these. Yeah, it was insurance. We'll get to that one. I can't remember right off the bat. Another problem that codependents have is fixing people's feelings. I don't want you to be mad, so I agree with you. I don't want you to be upset, so I'll do what you want me to do. I know that they pissed you off, so I'm going to be extra nice to you.
Anything and everything we can do to fix another person's feelings, whether they're not mad at us or the world or whoever, codependents will go out of their way to do. I think the reason why, too, for that is so they won't use, you know, trying to get them in a better, trying to keep them in a passive mood. So they won't go out and use. But usually, if they want to use, they're going to use. Or if they want to drink, they're going to drink.
They don't care what you do. But you're trying to show them that you really care, and you really don't want them to do that. It don't matter. But you've got to remember, they didn't ask for that nicety. You volunteered it. My husband just got out of the intensive care unit. My son was not old enough to drink. And they called me, and I went to get my son. And I went in their house, and I drugged him outside, and he was actually having a seizure.
He was foaming at the mouth. His body was jumping. His dad, I'm living with death every day with his dad. And here this kid is having a seizure. I said, please go call the ambulance. I said, I can't do anything. When they got him to the hospital, he had 0.38 of alcohol content. So here I am dealing with this son having a seizure. My husband could die from the stress of this kid drinking and using marijuana and everything else.
And the ambulance driver was very nice because I was in the ambulance, and I was sobbing uncontrollably. And he goes, please don't feel bad. He said, I have two sons at home. He said, one is really good, and he said, the other one is doing what your son is doing, and I might be in the same position here tonight. But he didn't have someone standing next to him wondering if your husband is going to die seeing your son doing this.
And then going home, I couldn't get him home because my son was really out of it. So the police officer was nice enough to help me get home with my husband, who's dying, and my son. But I had to sit by his bed for 24 hours to make sure that he wouldn't swallow his tongue or nothing else would happen to him. So I had to sit by his bedside and watch this. You know, as co-dependents, we go through a lot.
We take a lot until we learn to say, I'm not going to do this anymore, you know. To hell with this, you know. No, no, N-O, no. And when you say that no, and of course somebody's eyebrows, they rise, and you're like, you're saying no to me? Yes, I'm saying no to you. I am not going to enable you to do anything anymore and stick to it. And you know, you feel lousy about it, but you have to stick to it. You really have to stick to it.
[00:30:08]
And I was wondering, how come they didn't have a program for us to go in a hospital for 30 days or… Oh, I'm sorry. I mean, seriously. Mr. B., can you speed up a bit? You have to worry about a little bit. I've been to other meetings, but this is the first one. But this year has helped me even more understand what I was doing, because I didn't know I was doing this. I was being the really super mom, the wonderful daughter, who had never said no to anything.
The adoring mom. I didn't want my mom to die, because my husband did, and I did everything for my mom, and she asked me to for my brother, because I didn't want anything to happen to my mom. And I still have those feelings. I said to her, I wanted to… I didn't want to commit suicide. I didn't want to be around this anymore. I was tired. You know one thing, too, you forgot about yourself, which…
At some point, you have to start taking care of yourself. The little things, the little things like painting your nails or taking a bath, sometimes it's hard to do that without everybody knocking on the door. Mommy, I need this. Dana, where are my socks at? You know? Just don't answer the phone. I've got a hand machine now, which my son called, and that's the nicest thing, because I know he has it.
He's like the rest of us. I don't have to talk to… My mom is one. I particularly don't want to talk to my mom, not because I don't love her. It's because she wants me to do everything. My brother lives with her. My brother eats her food. When my husband was dying and my kids were small, I had to do all these things for myself, because my husband couldn't do it. I was over there cutting my mom's lawn, shoving it in the sidewalk, getting up at 4 o'clock, taking all these kids in.
I still went grocery shopping, not for my mom, for my brother, who lives there. And mom, even my younger sister, who takes the turn, mom will call me and say, Sandy doesn't want to make out the groceries. Will you come and make it out? Sometimes I work seven days a week, and I don't have time to do these things. My sister does them every Saturday and Sunday. And when it's her turn to do them, I just go and make out the groceries, so it'll be ready, because she doesn't want to do it.
And then my mom tries to do it, who has osteoporosis, and she tries to look down the basement steps. When she fell down the basement steps and broke her arm. So I feel real guilty, and I'm always running over there to try to do it. Well, you really got it bad. How many meetings a week do you go to? I just started, because Ron made me go, because I didn't think I needed to. What? Oh, good. Why did you go?
Because you ended up in the crisis. I'm telling you. That's the only way you're going to get to understand that you need to take care of yourself. I talk to people at DePaul, but this is the first one that you gave me. This next one. Oh, God. This one. Every one of them. You've got a hundred percent. But you don't realize what you're doing. We've got a good saying at our meetings. We've all done those things.
We don't realize what we're talking about. She sounds like the way I used to be. And the fact is that because we come to meetings. I mean, I went to a meeting at night for three weeks once, because I was feeling really bad about my life. And a friend thought I needed that. And now I go to at least two, sometimes three. If I would have met Ron, that's a problem. I wouldn't even know I have a problem.
Sure. And even now, if he wanted me to come here, I can say, no, I'm scared. I want to stay up by the window. Yeah. I'm not going to find my way around. I think we've all been in that position at one time or another. I said, Ron, I was just at the doctor. My blood pressure was 158 over 98. I said, it's going to go up. I didn't want to come. I didn't want to come. I was really talking to myself. I didn't need the meeting.
I thought I didn't need the meeting. OK. We've got a good saying for our Friday night meeting. Let it begin with me. Because it has to start somewhere. Sure. And if you want another person, I found out the best way to get another person well is if you take care of yourself. Because once they see you getting better, they're either going to do one or two. They're either going to stop coming around you.
If they're living with you, they're going to get out of your way. Or they're going to get the help that they need. But I think family members need this, too, because they don't know. My mom, if I start saying no to my mom, she's not going to think I'm a wonderful daughter. She's going to think I'm wrong. No. No. She won't. But what about what you think about yourself? What this is that I have to do for me.
Exactly. And I'm not saying it would happen, but maybe if you refuse to do all these things that you do, who knows that he might wake up and take some responsibility. I know. At some point, you have to stop and think about what you think about yourself. Of course, we care what other people think about us, but the most important person is yourself. 90% of the times when we do not make changes in our life, we rather stay in a bad situation because we're comfortable with that situation.
We're afraid of change. But we don't know what's out there.
[00:35:02]
If we say no, we don't know what's going to happen. But you can always say, it's not going to be as—you can weigh it out. Is it going to be as bad as I am here right now? It's got to get better. So that's why I like our state letter. It has to begin somewhere, so why not let it begin with me? It has to start a beginning. And detachment, get your book, read about detachment, because there's a way of loving and detaching away.
You're attaching yourself away from that alcoholic, that mother. My mother was the same way. I told my mom I was going to a convention, and she said something that really made me feel good. At first, she did all this program stuff. You don't have the problem. Your husband has the problem. Or, you know, why do you need to go? You know, the problem just did not begin with that husband. It began a long time ago at home.
And when she started seeing the change in me, she said, you should talk to the rest of your sisters and see if you can get them to go to a convention. That's a big plus. You know, I said, oh my God, here, my mother is the biggest codependent in the world. I noticed the change, but it has to begin somewhere. You can start with yourself. It sounds like to me that you're under a lot of stress, too. You know, when you carry a lot of stress.
And stop being guilty. Yeah, that's right. Stop beating yourself up. And when my son was drinking, I did the same thing. I would try to make sure I picked him up from work so he couldn't use my car. Try to make sure that he had his friends over to my house. Because I don't drink. I don't smoke. There's nothing in my home. Even my husband, who knew he wasn't supposed to drink on the weekends before he got really bad, because of his heart condition, would drink.
I would go with him when he was in the van. But that didn't make any difference. I would see him drinking soda. He was still drinking. And he used to come home at dawn. I just didn't go anymore. And he used to say, you know, somebody else drove their car home, and it wasn't me. And I'm not drunk either. I said, well, who the heck was behind the wheel if it wasn't you? But he actually had someone else drive the car home.
He was drunk. It's typical. We use the same 12 steps that they use. And it helps out, because the first one is admitting that we're powerless. And that's the biggest step for any co-dependent in the world, that you're powerless. Because we have a tendency to think that we've got all the money and we can fix it all. We will put ourselves in situations where we can control it. Or think we're controlling it.
Let's make that very clear. Think we're controlling it. Because the alcoholic in the attic are the biggest manipulators and controllers that you'll ever find. For everything that we thought we were controlling, believe me, they turned that wheel around on us, and they were actually the controllers. My husband was dying, and my son was using marijuana and drinking. I would try to sit up all night to make sure that I was doing everything right.
So my husband wouldn't hear him, and then my husband would get upset, and he would go down and yell at my son, who was out of it. My husband could yell all night. My son didn't know what he was saying. If he asked me something the next morning, what is that? My son doesn't know. But here I am worrying about my husband having a heart attack because he's yelling at this kid who doesn't know what my husband is saying.
Anyhow, I thought, oh, my God, here's one that got drunk. They didn't get caught by the cops, and here's another one. I might be dying 9-1-1 because he's going to end up dying because he's yelling at this kid who doesn't, you know. So my husband used to sleep. I used to put him on the couch and make sure because I could tell by the sound of the key which one of my kids it was. I could tell by the sound of the key which one of my drunk kids it was.
You have shaken the focus completely off of yourself. The focus is going in so many directions until you're lost somewhere in between. And one thing we do learn in this program is how to put the focus back on ourselves where we become important to ourselves again because somewhere in the line we forget that we are important people too, and we put everybody else above us, their needs, their wants, and all of that.
At some point, you have to stop and bring it back to yourself. And the thing of it is, when you get tired of it, you'll know. It's just like when I got tired of it. I don't know when it happened or how it happened. I just knew it was gone. My mom's name was Vest. A long time ago, I'd be running back and forth. My mom would call. I would run. I took care of 7 to 12 different kids, and my husband was home because I couldn't go to work.
My mother would call, and I would try to run in between these kids going home or whatever. And my mom's name was just my god, you're like the roadrunner. I didn't know what he meant until today after all these years, and he's been dead a long time ago.
[00:40:00]
I don't know why he called me the roadrunner. The minute somebody called, I was running. I wasn't getting my things done the way I should because I was too busy running for everybody else. Was you sleeping at all? Because it sounded like you weren't sleeping either. No, sometimes I was stuck with my husband 24 hours because he couldn't breathe. He wanted to go to the hospital because his face was dying out.
But he doesn't need to be in the office. Why your blood pressure is like this? Because I went through the same thing. I ran my blood pressure up, and that was my turning point for me because I felt that my health was more important. It made me stop and realize that what I was doing, I totally had to focus off of myself. It was just everybody around me, my kids, just everything. And you have to bring that focus back to yourself.
Yeah, these ladies fight, and I get along with everybody, so I'm like the one that's in the center. You're the peacemaker. You're the peacemaker. Yeah, okay, yeah, okay. And this young girl at the start of class says, you are so wonderful, you never say anything to anybody else. Sure, they feed that. They feed on that. Oh, wow. We'll learn more about that later on. I forget which one of us has that.
We also have two that kind of blend in together. Doing people's thinking for them and thinking for another person. I and my addict used to have a thing about saying, well, I don't have to tell her what I'm thinking. She already knows. He knows what I'm thinking. We assumed that we knew what each other was thinking because it was what was rolling in our minds, but we were doing each other's thinking, and we'd always agree with each other, too.
If he said, well, what were you thinking, I'd say such and such, and he'd say, I knew you were going to say that, and I would do the same thing to him. So if somebody asked me something about him, I'd say, well, I can answer that for him because I know what he's going to say anyway. That's how deep the codependency that went in. Another one is suffering people's consequences for them. When he got picked up for drug abuse, you just swore I was in prison just as bad as he was because I didn't go out the house.
I was on a constant depression. I mean, it was pathetic, and I did feel a lot of his consequences. If he called home and he was upset, I was immediately upset. I went out of here, I ran off, and I tried to get the money to get him out. Anything that he was feeling, I felt right along with him. Solving people's problems. I tried to solve a lot of my addict's problems, a whole lot of them, but for me it didn't work because my way of solving them and maybe the way that he wanted to solve them sometimes would conflict with each other, and that creates problems too.
A whole lot. Oh, I take it you tried to solve some of your addict's problems. Oh, yeah, a lot of them. I learned how to keep my fingers off. That's because we've been in the program long enough to know what is our business, what isn't our business, what's our responsibilities, what they are not, and when you learn that, you start feeling a lot better because you can look at them and say, hey, that's your problem.
Deal with it. You have to give them that opportunity to deal with their own problems, or they'll never grow. You'll take their growth right away from them. They stay an addict even if they're sober because they never grow. They're not going anywhere. My brother never will. He's in his fifties, and when he had to go to the hospital, I was crying because I was taking him there. I was crying because he had to be there.
Not him. It was his fault. Was he crying? No. Well, I was the rest for him. He wasn't a nobody. Yeah, you're all upset. I mean, he'd go to work, and I'd drive him to my mom's, drive him to the house, correction, drive home, and every day this was the same problem. Oh, he didn't get to stay there? He got on the work release program. He had to spend the night there. Oh, he should have caught the bus.
Yes. See, that was not your… That's not your responsibility. He put himself there. He said again, my mom said, but if you take your brother to the house, he can go to work, and he can have him continue, and then you can take him back to the house, so I'll get to see him. You got a bad… They really got you bad. It has a good book. Co-dependent. No more. And it tells about enabling. Yes. That is where our discussion comes from, Codependent No More. If you want to change your way of thinking and get out of the mode that you are in, it is a good book to have.
[00:45:06]
It Is going to be hard, it is going to be one week you are going to be all the way up here and the next week you are going to be 50 paces back, it looks like for every one step you take forward, but it is hard because now my younger daughter who just got married, who I didn't think was ready for marriage, came over and she goes, Mom, you aren't going to believe this, but I have $17,000 in debt, what?
Oh, that is her problem, that is not your responsibility, did you help her get $17,000 in debt? She still owes me for a car that I bought way back when and I just did to rob, the fellow that I am going with is really responsible for getting here because I didn't think I had a problem, okay? None of us did, you bet, and I said to my honor, she won't have to pay me anything back, I said, I really do need the money, but he said, no, don't butt me.
$10 a month, even if she doesn't have any money to be spent, but her responsibility, she came home with this to me and tried to make me feel sorry for her. Does she buy a house? No, I don't know what they have, I said to her, I don't know what she has. They are not using drugs like cocaine or anything are they? If they were $17,000 in debt, somebody would have killed them by now. If you have credit cards, you can have a cash advance with you.
And they were living with me for a while, so I couldn't stand it because he would come in my house, they were supposed to help me because I had surgery and I couldn't shovel. And my husband would say, well, I was shoveling anyhow for surgery, I'd come home, I'd be home and he'd come in and he'd turn on the TV when I had the radio, I'd end up, I'd go up to my room and I'd go, hey, this is my house and I'm going to my room because my daughter's boyfriend.
So she moved out, didn't have anything to do with me, and finally helped me because his mom was paying for everything. But I didn't know she was ready to get married, but I left her. And now, and my friend says, can she come back and live with you? And I said, no. Good. That's a step. Tap on their back. Yeah. And my daughter's having problems with her marriage and she knew just because her daddy had died in the New Year's Eve and in January, her husband's fetus died in October, so we're canceling the church, the trolley, everything.
Now she's back with this guy. She got married when she should have waited for a while. Now she's got this baby. She goes, mom, I think I want to divorce him. Oh, my God. This is your daughter? Well, if she gets a divorce, she hopefully will be able to support herself and her child and be able to live on her own. But, you know, I'm feeling guilty. Like, God, you know, she's got this baby. She might not have any place to go.
Maybe I should take her. No. You need to stop in the middle of their conversation once in a while and lay some of your stuff on them and say, what's happening to me? And this is what I want and this is what I need. On our next question, it says, not asking for what we want, need, or desire. And that's one thing that's really bad for co-dependence. And I still have a lot of problems with that because I have a tendency of I assume that you should already know what I need and what I want, what my desires are, because I've always given to you.
But they don't. Unless you make yourself clear, they don't. And somewhere in the middle of their conversation, you ought to stop and say, well, you know, I'm feeling such and such today. And I sure would like it if you do such and such for me for a change. Stop them dead cold in their tracks. I bet that would put a shocker on them. Because you, yeah. Because you never say, I never say no. Well, see, that's part of the first corner on the triangle, being a rescuer.
Here's more traits for it. We rescue whenever we take care of other people. At the time we rescue or caretake, we may feel one or more of the following feelings. Discomfort. Awkwardness about the other person's dilemma. Urgency to do something. Pity. Guilt. Saintliness. Anxiety. Extreme responsibility for that person or problem. Fear. A sense of being forced or compelled to do something. Mild or severe reluctance to do anything.
More competency than the other person we are helping. Or occasional resentment at being put in this position.
[00:50:01]
We also think the person we are taking care of is helpless and unable to do what we are doing for him or her. We feel needed temporarily, which is a common trait for a codependent, feeling needed. I am not referring to acts of love, kindness, compassion, and true helping. Situations where our assistance is legitimately wanted and needed, and we want to give that assistance. These acts are the good stuff of life.
Rescuing or caretaking isn't. Caretaking looks like a much friendlier act than it is. It requires rescue victim people who we believe are not capable of being responsible for themselves. The victim actually are capable of taking care of themselves, even though we and they don't admit it. Usually our victims are just hanging around that corner of the triangle, waiting for us to make our move and jump on the triangle with them.
Does that give us any idea of what the first corner is about? I know I fit into each one of these corners perfectly. I've changed a lot of things that I've done over the last year or so. I feel a lot better about myself because a lot of times where I wouldn't say no, or I ain't going to do it, or I don't feel like it. Now I can look at him and say, hey, I don't think so. And go on about my little business.
He looked at me the day before we got ready to leave and he said, what am I going to wear? I said, I don't know. Did you take something out? And I put on my clothes and I left. So I'm sure that we all know just about where we fit in on the rescue corner of the triangle. For the next corner, we go from, I think it's from left to right, which would be the high part of the triangle, to persecution, which is Dana's part.
Hi, my name is Dana. I'm a codependent. Hi, Dana. So we move into the next corner of the triangle. After we rescue, we move to the next corner of the triangle, persecution. We become resentful and angry at the person we have so generously helped. And I can remember that so well. You know, you go out your way to do things. Like my husband would go spend all his paycheck and then my pay would be to pay the bills and buy food.
And he'd come in like nothing ever happened and eat and watch TV. And you know what I mean, like nothing ever happened. And he was reaping off my benefits, as I say, you know, because he wasn't putting nothing there. That's how I feel. And I was getting really resentful about it. You know, I can do this on my own. I don't need you to come in here. And you know what I'm saying? Eat up my food and use my electricity, my water.
I was paying for it. It was mine then. In other words, you didn't need nobody to help you be unhappy. And I was really unhappy and this person was making me really unhappy. We have done something we didn't want to do. We have done things that we didn't want to do. That was not our responsibility to do. It's like taking care of, you know, lying to the kids. Well, where Daddy at? Well, he had to work late, knowing that he's not at work.
And at the time, the kids, you know, they grow up and they know things. You know, they go, Mommy, I know he's not at work. He's fusing, isn't he? You know, I have a 3-year-old at the time, and she even knew what was going on. And that's painful, and it affects them, too. You know, and to this day, she's 7 now, and she still comes in the bedroom. Like, if he's not there at a certain time and she wakes up and comes in the room and he's not there, she says, well, where Daddy at?
She'll wake me up and say, where Daddy at? You know, she still does that. She still does that, and she's 7. So that's a, I guess she has to outgrow that. We ignore our own needs and wants, and we get angry about it. And that's true, which I still do sometimes. To competent matters, this victim, this poor person we have rescued, does not appreciate enough of the sacrifice we have made. The victim isn't behaving the way he or she should.
This person is not even taking care, even taking our advice, which we offer so willingly. This person is not letting us fix that feeling.
[00:55:02]
Something doesn't work right or feel right, so we rip off our halo and put our pitchforks. Get an attitude real bad. And we should all know that one real good. After you've done everything that you think you could humanly possible do to make them stop using, stop behaving the way they've been doing. And you sit there and you think, I did all this for them, and they don't even care. They go right back out and use.
I've made it convenient for them not to use, and they're still doing it. Well, you done gone right. It's time to take off the halo and pull out the pitchfork. He can double himself. Let me tell you that when my daughter came back from Virginia, and she came back, she was married to a drug dealer. And that's why she married him, because he had all the drugs she wanted, so she married him. And she didn't love him, but she loved the drug, of course.
Something he had. Right. So I, being the caretaker, the caregiver that I am, when they came back, I had a house for them all set up for them to move in, trying to be the good mother. And so I ended up beating her. She was about 21, and she went out, and she was still using. And I knew something wasn't right, but I just, you know, just didn't want to admit it. And I just got fed up one day, and I ripped off the halo, and I ran across the street.
Put that pitchfork. And I ran into her house, and I beat her up. She didn't hit me back. She just lay there and screamed, and I beat her with my fist. I was just like, you know, I wanted to go to the mental institution, and maybe everything would be okay, but it didn't work. It didn't work that way. It's just like one day I went to work, and I said, let me call and see how we were doing. I was worried about him.
So I called the job, and they said, well, he didn't come to work today. His wife called him up. I said, his wife called him up. And I was at work, and her attitude just changed. I told my supervisor, I said, look, I don't feel good. I said, I think my blood pressure went up. I need to go home. She said, what's wrong? I said, I just don't feel good. And he had the car. He was supposed to pick me up from work, but I called my sister.
Her boyfriend came and picked me up from work. I said, look, I know exactly where he's at. Take me over there. I said, just drop me up on the corner. You don't even have to pull in the driveway. Just drop me off at the corner. My sister went. And I go into the house, and I just looked at him. I said, you know, it's a shame that I can get up and take care of my responsibilities, but you can't. And before I knew it, I had my heels off.
I took my shoes off and just started beating the shit out of him. In front of everybody. I just didn't care. That's how mad I got. With her high heels. Now, when I went to work, I had this halo, and I was happy. And then all, you know, like Pam, you know, I had the pitchfork in my hand when I walked in and out. Typical codependent action. And you feel bad about it. As a matter of fact, I feel good after I've done it.
Sometimes people don't notice or choose not to notice our previous move. Sometimes we do our best to hide it. Sometimes we let loose with the full force of our fury. We participate, particularly do this with family members, which is true. Something about our family tends to bring out the real us. So whether we show or hide our, I can't even see this, I need some light over here. Partly hide our aggressions and resentment.
We know, yes, I can't see as it is, I need glasses. We know what's going on. Most of the time, the people we rescue immediately sense our shift in mood. They saw it coming. It's just an excuse they needed. Because my husband used that. We would argue that being, well, I can go out and use. She's mad already, so it ain't going to make no difference. Or if he's in a bad mood, that's a good reason for him to go use.
The sun shines, the sun doesn't shine. It's their turn in the persecution corner. This may proceed, happen at the same time as our feeling of danger. Sometimes the victim responds to our anger. Usually it is a response to our taking responsibilities for that person, which directly or indirectly tell him or her how incapable we believe he or she is. People resent being told or shown they are incompetent, no matter how loudly
[01:00:18]
they plead incompetent, and they resent us for adding insult to the injury by becoming angry with them after we point out their incompetence. When we know what persecution is about now, don't we? I know I've been in that corner the real good. Last month was a good time, like, when we were on the way to the store, and he said, you want to go get something to eat? My little funds was running short, so I wrote a check, and I thought, well, I owe this girl at work two dollars, I need a pack of cigarettes, and I'll just have a dollar for popcorn when I'm done, coffee, and we gets in the car, and he said, well, I thought we were going to go up to Wendy's, and I automatically took the money and dropped it off into the air, and he said, you don't even have to throw the money at me, I don't even need it.
I want it now, just take it back, and before I knew it, I had went off the deep end. I was hollering at him and screaming at him, and he turned around at me real calm, and he said, Pam, you ain't got to talk to me like that. You ain't got to treat me like that. See, the shoe was on the other foot then, but I had already went over the deep end, and I wasn't done yet. Maybe you need to let go like that. Did you feel better afterwards? I felt kind of guilty. How did I feel? Guilty, the way you talked to me about it.
I felt bad about it because I couldn't figure out why I did it. There was no reason. All he did was say I thought we were going to go to Wendy's, and off the deep end I went, and I couldn't figure it out, and at first I did feel guilty because he looked like this lost puppy, and he kept saying, you don't have to talk to me like that, and then typical co-dependent, I decided I'd fix it and smooth it over, and it'd be all right, but he had already sensed the mood change, and he was like, uh-uh.
No, you meant what you said in the beginning, so that pissed me off, and I told myself, well, fine, then have it your way, and I did. I knew he knew what I was doing, and by the time I realized what I was doing, I knew I had to make an amend, so I immediately tried to laugh it off, but that didn't work, and I finally had to end up apologizing, but by then his little feelings were crushed, and I just sat there and looked at him, and I said, oh, your feelings are hurt now. You can't take an apology, and he looked at me, and he said, oh, I'm not allowed to have hurt feelings because I'm an addict, but I did. I felt bad after I did it, but then after a while, I felt kind of good. At least he knew how I felt about it, and I didn't want to go to Wendy's. I guess I could have just said that from the beginning.
Well, persecution. We can do that real well as co-dependents. Now we move to the next triangle. It's the down corner. That's where we fall from. We go from rescue over here to persecution, and we go down to the victim's corner, which we gave to Sharon. Hi, I'm Sharon, and I'm a co-dependent. I'm a victim. I'm an experienced victim. I do that role real, real well, and I'm working on it. It's time for our final move. We head right for our favorite spot, the victim corner, at the bottom of this.
Improvise. Adapt. Overcome. Okay, and I'm going for a rescue. Feeling the helpless, hurt, swallowed shame, self-pity, abandoned. We have been used again. We have gone unappreciated again. We have been used again. Okay. And her father ain't looking now. Yeah, he just wrote two times. We try so hard to help people, to be good to them. We moan, why? Why does this always happen to me? I wonder why. Another person has trampled on us, shocked it to me. We wonder why we forget. We wonder why we're forever the victim, probably if we did not stop rescuing and caring.
[01:05:06]
When Pam told me I had to do the victim part, I went to the library because I wanted to know the definition of a victim. Go girl. Because I, too, always wonder why. Why is this happening to me over and over and over again? And I'm searching for answers, and I couldn't find them because it was the most obvious answer in the book, because I put myself in that predicament. When you've been victimized, it's something out of your control. It's out of your control that regardless to where you're at or what you're doing, you have no self-will involved in it at all.
I was a victim when I got shot because I had nothing to do with that. I was minding my own business and taking care of my own affair. I wasn't a victim when I was running up and down the street looking for my husband, trying to keep him from using me. I wasn't a victim when I got in front of the dope man and told him, you better give me my car or else I'm going to do something to you. But I felt like I was the victim, but I wasn't. I was putting myself inside his business where I should not have been.
And it's a big difference of being victimized and putting yourself in the predicament. Like only can this a regular leader? And we have that tendency to do that. And Billy's getting hurt. It still comes down to the same thing where you're tending to other people's business, not letting them be their self and suffer their own consequences. Caretaking, biggest caretaker in the world. My job, I'm a caretaker.
One part of it, I have two jobs. It goes back to the rest of your doing more than what you're asked for. I make good money on the first job. And here I go out and get a second job. Why? Making it easy for the animals. Making it easy for the animals. Donations to the drug dealers. Trying to keep that faith on. That, oh, nothing is going on. Everything is just fine and rosy. We're just on top of the world here.
Stop the rescuing and stop being a caretaker and you'll stop being a victim. There you go. Many co-dependents at some time in their life are true victims of some sort of abuse and neglect. Abandonment, addiction, or any number of situations that may victimize people. We were at the same time truly helpless to protect ourselves or to solve our problems. Some things come our way, some things we do not ask for.
That's the definition that I found in three different dictionaries. It's something that is not asked for and something that just happened to come our way. But when you go looking for it, you're not the victim, ladies. Gentlemen, you are not the victim when you go looking for it. When you chase up and down the street after that addict or that alcoholic, you are not the victim. You're sticking your nose where it should not be.
See, we can talk about that because in our group we learned quite a bit about minding our quote-unquote business and finding out what was our business and what wasn't our business. It was the, and it hurt us tremendously. This is sadly true, truly sadly. This is sad, truly sad. Get it right. But an even sadder fact is that many of us co-dependents begin to see ourselves as victims. Our painful history repeats itself.
And it does. I've been married three times. First time. It's sad. It's a big sign that I wear on my head. I'm a co-dependent. Come and get me, baby. It is. These are the types of men that I attract. My first husband was a drug addict.
[01:10:01]
Didn't want to work. He wanted to pluck his guitar and smoke his reefer and do whatever elsey type of drug of his choice that he was doing. My second husband was a stone-cold alcoholic to the point where he'd take me to work and forget about come picking me up. When I left him, I had been gone for a week, come home to get some more things, and he thought I just came in from work. He was bad. He was.
He did. He thought I just came in from work. He was bad. He was. He did. He thought I just come in from work. He said, oh, you went to the grocery store because I had a bag in my hand. That's bad, sure. And my husband that I'm married to now, well, he's an addict. And, I mean, the pattern is there. And that's the honest to goodness, too. Do we go for the same type of friends, the friends that's going to use you up?
Oh, go get Joyce. She'll do it. I'm going to call Joyce. Joyce, I got this work I can't do. Can you do this for me? You know, you're so sufficient. Uh-huh. And that was me, too. You know, the worst clients in the whole village. Oh, give them the shares. You'll straighten them out. I like it. You know. You eat it. Yeah. But, you know, it's the truth. I'm going to get down to the last paragraph of my life from here.
The triangle that shifts the roles of rescuers, persecutors, victims are visible process as we go through the world change and the emotional change come over us as certainty and as intensely as if we were reading a scripture. We can complete this process in seconds. Experience the only mild emotions as we shift roles. We are major explosion. We can. Okay. We can and many of us will do rescuer 20 times in one day.
And I counted before I started in a program here. I was going to a counselor, and that was one of the exercises she had me do. Every time that I had to rescue someone or take care of someone, I had to mark it down. And since I'm in a program, this program in honesty, I had care, take, and rescue 75 times before 3 o'clock, and I got up at 8. 75 times. That means going out of my way, doing something for other people, not being able to say no, tending to someone else's business.
My mom said, oh, you go to bed so early. That's because I got up early, taking care of everybody's business. I was exhausted from taking care of everybody's business. I never got any of my things done, but I was exhausted from taking care of everybody else's business. And another thing that is true is when we keep doing this, we do, we get that, a lot of resentment builds up. And then they wonder, how come, why is she acting like that?
You know, and what's wrong with her? And it's because we've been exhausted ourselves from taking care of everybody else's business. And you're mad because none of your business has been taken care of. You have done nothing for yourself. I think we're just getting at the point where we do do something for ourselves. Even if it's just small, little, minute things, I'm just getting to the point where I have learned how to stop doing for other people that can do things for themselves and start doing for myself, taking a little time out for myself.
Last week, I came home from work, and all I wanted to do was come in, get dinner, take a bath, and lay down and relax with this book. When I came in, the kitchen was dirty, the dining room was dirty, and there wasn't anything out of the freezer. So I stood in the kitchen and I washed the dishes, and the more I thought about it, the more upset I got. So when I got done with the dishes, I got in my car and I disappeared.
[01:15:04]
I mean, I did not come home until it was about eight-thirty something, nine o'clock. But at least I got away and I did something for myself, and I felt so much better when I went home because I didn't have the resentment that I had before. Whereas if I had stayed home sooner or later, I would have said something that would have pissed him off, and he would have said something that would have pissed me off, and by the end of the night, we wouldn't have been speaking to each other. You know, as clover tenders, we pick up patterns of doing things, and our family picks up the same pattern, and they expect this routine to happen all the time. They don't realize you get tired, you know, you're a human being and you need to take time out for yourself, and they should be considerate sometimes to just give you a break, but it's just going to work like that.
So if you don't take out the time to take time for yourself, your family, you know, you're in that pattern, and they know you're going to come home and you're going to do what you know you're the same pattern. She's going to do this, right? It's just like my clothes. I said, well, you know what? I'm not taking nothing upstairs. I'm just going to leave it down here and see what's going to happen. You know, they go to get towels. There's no clean towels. I said, yes, it is. They're downstairs in the basement in the basket. I didn't bring them up. Why couldn't you just bring them up? I said, I couldn't even go down there and get them. You know, it's just like, but you always do.
You know, I said, why didn't you do it this time? I know before I started, you know, working on getting myself feeling better, when I went to the grocery store, I bought things that my husband liked, and I bought things that my daughter liked, and I looked at things that I liked, and I didn't get them. It cost too much, or I'm not going to have time. And I bought for them, and I care, you know, I was a caretaker, and everything's going to be fine. You know, I came home with everything I liked today, you know, and that's just another example.
I know, like you were saying, I used to buy this certain brand of cereal, and I said, well, I'm going to try this brand, a cheaper brand. Same cereal, but a different name on the box. That's all it is. And my husband thought he would have a hizzy because it wasn't the name brand. And then he tasted it, oh, this don't taste too bad, after he didn't, you know, blew up about the cereal. You know, it wasn't necessary. Well, it don't taste too bad, after the fact, you know, after eating the last thing. I was sitting there, and you were saying that about they get in your pattern. I was sitting at home, and my husband and I were having a discussion, and he told me, he said, well, if I go back out and use, he said, you'll be sitting right here doing the same thing you generally be doing. Oh, that was the one that killed me.
They know you. They know. Did you get your pitchfork? I got the pitchfork, and I said, okay, I want you to keep believing that. If that's your excuse to go out and use, do it. I don't care. Went upstairs, tried not to cry on the way up the steps. Disappeared for about two hours, and then I came back. Please, are you cooking for us? No. It's time for me to break habits. I'm not cooking. If you want to eat, cook it yourself.
That was the first time I said no to him, and we've been married for three years. I said, this is kind of good. I should have been saying no a long time ago. I mean, it was just like, you know, like I remember you saying you have a thing about saying no. I've been saying no ever since, and you know, I don't feel guilty about saying it, because they know your habits. It's like, oh, reliable, and the worst things we heard.
Hey, those broad shoulders of yours. Well, ladies, gentlemen, and co-dependents, caretaking doesn't help. It causes problems. When we take care of people and do things we don't want to do, we ignore personal needs, wants, and feelings. We put aside ourselves. Sometimes, we get so busy taking care of people that we put our entire lives on hold. Many caretakers are hurried and overcommitted. They enjoy none of their activities. Caretakers look so responsible but we aren't. We don't assume responsibility for our highest responsibility, which is
[01:20:06]
ourselves. We constantly give more than we receive, then feel abused and neglected because of it. We wonder why, when we anticipate the needs of others, no one notices our needs. We may become seriously depressed as a result of not getting our needs met. We don't know what to do. Yet, a good caretaker feels safest when giving. We feel guilty and uncomfortable when someone gives to us or when we do something to meet our needs. Sometimes, co-dependents may become so locked into the caretaker role that we feel dismayed and reject when we can't caretake or rescue someone when someone refuses to be helped. Many of us do not understand we are responsible for and what we are not responsible for. We may believe we have to get into a tizzy when someone has a problem because it is our responsibility to do that. Sometimes, we become sick of feeling responsible for so much that we reject all responsibilities and become totally irresponsible. That kind of complies with what you were saying about just getting fed up with everything and wondering when is somebody going to meet our needs.
Well, maybe if we slowed down once in a while and gave somebody else a chance to do something for us, maybe some of our needs would get met. I know for me, I can go to the store. You can hand me a thousand dollars right now and I guarantee you I'll go to the store and I'll buy for every one of the kids in the house. I'll buy for Glyph and I'll come home with an empty bag for Pam. It's almost guaranteed, but this last time when I got my vacation check and my income tax, Pam went out and got her some stuff. I still got stuff still in the bag in the closet that I have not even taken the price tags off of. Ain't looked at it since I bought it, but I'm like, I'm going to start doing things for myself too. Buying, you know, little things, you know. Before, I would never think about buying myself nothing. I think you all go through that because I was there, but then it comes a time where… I don't ever want to go back there.
And me neither. I like looking in the closet and saying, well, I can wear this or I can wear that. Whereas before, I could look in the closet and say, well, all I got is them. And me, I might be ready. Especially when you think about why I ain't got it because he used and he used all the money. Now, all the money comes here, honey. Put it right there and we'll work out everything else. It doesn't… The program and the roles have changed quite a bit. Kind of like Sharon was saying about breaking patterns. The pattern has broken and I don't want to go back there no more.
And if you're not careful, you will flip right back into it without knowing. It's just like it's an everyday fight for them to stay sore. It's an everyday fight for us to stay in the mood that we're in and stay out of the caretaking mood and let them take care of their own business. If you can put a fourth of the energy that you have put in caretaking for other people, doing for other people, into doing something for yourself, that's a start.
It's a beginning. And that fourth will come a little bit more and a little bit more. And at first I used to say, oh, this program is such a selfish program. I'm not going to feel for anybody. I'm not going to… I'm going to walk around with this attitude. Look like I'm smelling all the time with my nose up in the air. But it's not about that. We have some great lyrics. I like the just for the days. I read those all the time. The meditation. And it helps you get through those rough times. It seems like no matter what's happening, when you open the book and turn to the page, there's always something there that applies to what you're going through.
And for me anyway. And for… your name is Audrey? I will get you that… I know… what's that… what's the name of that book? Codependency. Codependency, no more. I'm going to mail it to you. And what's the other one we have? One day at a time. I'm going to get those two books. I'm going to mail them to you. And Beyond Codependency. Get us your address. We can get you all copies of it.
[01:25:04]
I'm just going to get them and mail them to you. It may feel strange at first because it's like old patterns are hard to break. Very hard to break because you do them all the time. That's just like a habit. A habit is the worst thing in the world. But we don't break habits. You just replace one habit with another habit. You learn how to replace that caretaking role with still a caretaking role but taking care of yourself first. And that's the best type of habit to have when you get into the habit of taking care of yourself first. Because if you're not taking care of yourself, you cannot take care of anyone else the right way. That's what they mean by we assume to be very responsible people. But in reality, we are irresponsible because we do forget the highest responsibility of all, and that's ourselves. However, at the heart of most rescues is a demon. Low self-worth. I have that one real bad. We rescue because we don't feel good about ourselves. Although the feelings are transit and artificial, caretaking provides us with a temporary hit of good feeling, self-worth, and power. Just as a drink helps an alcoholic momentarily feel better, a rescue move momentarily distracts us from the pain of being who we are. We don't feel lovable, so we settle for being needed. Ain't that true? We don't feel good about ourselves, so we feel compelled to do a particular thing to prove how good we are.
We rescue because we don't feel good about other people either, sometimes with justification, sometimes without. We decide other people simply cannot be held responsible for themselves. Although this may appear to be true, it simply is not a fact. Unless a person has brain damage, a serious physical impairment, or is an infant, that person can be responsible for him or herself. Sometimes we rescue because it's easier than dealing with the discomfort and awkwardness of facing other people's unsolved problems. We haven't learned to say, it's too bad you're having that problem. What we do need from me, what do you need from me?
We learn to say, here, let me do that for you. Many co-dependents have been taught other ways to be caretakers. Maybe someone taught us these lies, and we believe them. Don't be selfish, always be kind and help people. Never hurt other people's feelings because we make them feel bad. Never say no, and don't mistreat personal wants and needs because it's not polite. We may have been taught to be responsible for other people, but not responsible for ourselves.
Some women and men were taught that good, desirable wives and mothers were caretakers. Caretaking was a good husband. Fathers are caretakers, superheroes responsible for meeting every need of each family member. Caretaking breeds angry lovers. We may become angry parents, angry friends. We may become unsatisfied, frustrated, and confused Christians. The people we help either are or they become helpless, angry victims. Caretakers become victims.
Caretaking is an act and an attitude. For some of us, it becomes a role, an approach to our entire lives. And to all of the people around us, caretaking is, I believe, closely associated with martyr, a people pleasing another accusation hurled at them, at us. Martyrs, according to Ernie Larson, screw things up. We need to keep sacrificing our happiness as well as others for the good of some unknown cause that doesn't demand sacrifice. People pleasers, according to Ernie, can't be trusted. We lie. And as caretakers, we don't take care of ourselves. We can learn to recognize a rescue, refuse to rescue, refuse to let people rescue us, take responsibility for ourselves and let others Do the Same, Whether We Change Our Attitude, Our Circumstances, Our Behavior, or Our Minds, The Kindest Thing We Can Do is Remove the Victims, Ourselves, I like this do's and don'ts,
[01:30:05]
I like that, I think that you have one of the do's and don'ts in yours too, yeah, on the do's and don'ts list, it says do forgive, do be honest with yourself, do be humble, do take it easy, attention is harmful, don't play, find recreation and hobbies, do keep trying whenever you fail, do learn the fact about drug addiction and alcoholism, do attend co- or non-meetings often, do pray, don't be self-righteous, don't try to dominate, nags, scold, and complain, don't lose your temper, don't try to push anyone but yourself, don't keep bringing up the past, don't keep checking up on your addict or alcoholic, don't wallow in self-pity, don't make threats you don't intend to carry out, don't be over-protective, don't be a doormat, these are some of the things that can help you when you're just starting a program in co-dependency, the do's and the don'ts.
Tomorrow when we come back, I'm going to bring, I don't have so many more plans, but I have this one particular one from Hazel in the house, and it has these little booklets in it, and one is called Accepting Ourselves, the other one is called Setting Boundaries, the other one is called Letting Go, and Living Our Own Lives, and they're really nice, and they're, you know, daily reflections that you read every day, and I enjoy these, I've even made some copies and blown them up, you know, for my meetings here in Akron, and so I'll bring that to anybody who wants, you know, if you guys want it.
If you want to be a group, you can. Oh, no problem. Definitely. Yeah, they're really nice. Now that our time is almost at an end, I'd like to ask Joyce to read the promises for us, and Pat to lead us in the Lord's Prayer. My name is Joyce, and I am a co-dependent. Hi, Joyce. The promises. We will lose interest in selfish things and gain interest in our fellows. Self-seeking will slip away. Our whole attitude and outlook upon life will change.
Fear of people and of economic insecurities will leave us. We will intuitively know how to handle situations which used to baffle us. We will suddenly realize that God is doing for us what we could not do for ourselves. Are these extravagant promises? We think not. They are being fulfilled among us, sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly, but they will always materialize if we work for them. Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name.
Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.