My name is Teddy, and I’m a codependent. (However, I can only speak for myself, not for other codependents.) [In fact although I might share this with a spiritual director, I think a CoDA would be too sensitive.]

“We made a searching and fearless moral inventory.” In a way I want this whole catalog to be an inventory, at the very least of thoughts and values, and not just caprices, and this for me is a very moral sort of thing. But as my response to this book I will do a little Step Four, and incidentally reading that will do more I think for whether you like the book, than a sterile debate about the relative merits of “Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions”, and Louise Hay.

What follows has to be prefaced by saying that there are plenty of classically bad people in the world; one has to try to feel a little bit for the codependent in the throes of dysfunction, whoever they are, preening themselves on the fact that they are not classically bad, but classically good, perhaps. Also, where I mention other people or institutions it is not meant to be blaming, as though we were separate and unrelated, but simply to observe how we have been bad to each other, since we are all bound up together, and we’ve been bad.

…. I realize that there’s a cracker theory of kindergarten, but some of them are really quite conformist. Good Little Boys aren’t rebels, and ‘the sting of sin is the law’. Good Little Boys let the teacher decide if they’re worthwhile, and work hard on earning their stickers. They tend to get them, but somehow things are always in doubt. (The thing about crackers is that, like most people, they are often almost right about everyone except themselves. People in other countries can be crazy, and the classically good can be bad. But what can the cracker say for himself? “I would have gone to church if I wasn’t drunk.”) But it wasn’t all the teachers’ fault. I remember once she said to me, as I was trying to get through another volume of Encyclopedia Brown, Boy Detective (not being quite old enough for, The European Conquerors: Napoleon), “This is the time set aside for socialization; why don’t you socialize?” This irritated me. I was almost as ambivalent about whether relationships could be worth it, as I was about whether or not I was good.

Of course, even to say that it started when I was very small is not completely true; there’s my parents to consider. My mother is more classically codependent; fussing and worrying and nagging and driving people to drink by being Good. My father is less obviously that way; although he’s very controlling about religion (and something of a censor—very codependent) he doesn’t really talk about religion as much as he wants you to think he does. Most of the time he just tries to act unlike himself, the way he is at his core, in all seriousness, and under stress. But as a child when we played Conquest of the Empire and all that nonsense (we could only talk about war, sports, or war games, or occasionally religion), a lot of times he would let me win—sometimes he goes to lengths to act as though he were a loser, when he’s not sitting in the cathedral chair—which set me up to fail and flatter and deceive sexually latter on. Also, despite myself—I honestly consider myself less judgmental—I sometimes burn with passionate hate for lies…. They ought not to be bad! They have no right!—and even when I don’t want to; I don’t want to!; I just burn with hate…. I stand by, helplessly watching myself pump out the autotoxins, killing myself.

…. Anyway I later blamed my parents for divorcing when I was a child; I blamed my mother for marrying a poor step-father; I blamed my father when I blamed my mother and my mother when I blamed my father. All through middle and high school this went on, becoming worse and worse, getting into trouble at one point because of passive aggressive anger directed at a teacher, but ignoring this incident I seemed okay to others, until in college my grades became bad, which had previously been mostly good, (although I wasn’t ambitious or even dutiful necessarily, and I spent more time on video games than books, avoiding rather than learning). For several years I would shuffle between living with my mother and living with my father, making (sometimes stupid) plans and breaking them, doing little productive work. My step-father divorced my mother and we moved, but I continued to blame her for things. I embraced a new and more romantic form of codependency, (although I had always been of a rosy turn of mind, although I hadn’t realized because I was so avoidant and determined to avoid pain and seem outwardly good), listening to (usually bad, occasionally misunderstood) pop music, embracing (guilt and) sexual fantasies without holding back, and daydreaming about romance a lot. When life didn’t work out I blamed my parents, and the world. I became more and more perfectionist about things I had no control over. Eventually in my 20s I started hallucinating and had to be sent to the hospital.

I was diagnosed as schizoaffective and sent to a mental health program. I remained delusional for some time, living in odd and usually disturbing dreams, and remained a delusional romantic; I had at some point developed problems accepting people of different backgrounds as well, although perhaps these had always been there and gradually simply been worsened (or elevated in importance) during the period that I gradually became more and more romantic/mentally ill/anti-intellectual (yet also overthinking things)/disenchanted with family and life. Various things happened. I went to program; I went to college; I went to the hospital. Little changed. I moved into a group home for people with mental illness. At first the change seemed to make little difference. Eventually I decided that I needed to change. A few ideas from program started to get past my walls of defenses, despite my not always being a good client. Around Easter of my 27th year, I decided to give the spiritual ideas of my mother and the Christian ideas of my father a try. I was in therapy at the time. I also got a part time job after therapy ended or around that time. It took years of reading, working through my anxiety and other feelings, and trusting in God and what is, for change to eventually come. Many unhealthy ideas lingered for years. Although my reading did me good, and spending nontoxic time with my parents, I started to think of the purpose of life as avoiding suffering, and everything as being a technique to accomplish this. As I write this (Dec. 2021, before Christmas) I still struggle with issues of control and avoidance.

Edit: As I post this, this week I have had some problems with my mom acting out due to my inability to set boundaries with her in the past.

Yet another [a: Melody Beattie|4482|Melody Beattie|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1271957484p2/4482.jpg] book. Luckily this one was far superior to [b: Stop Being Mean to Yourself|24918915|Stop Being Mean to Yourself Four Commitments to Self-Kindness|Lisa Zahn|https://s.gr-assets.com/assets/nophoto/book/50x75-a91bf249278a81aabab721ef782c4a74.png|44571411] and more along the level of helpfulness that books like [b: Codependent No More|720298|Codependent No More|Melody Beattie|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1390621839s/720298.jpg|706540] occupy. Or perhaps a nice mixture between that and [b: Choices|17727276|Hard Choices|Hillary Rodham Clinton|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1402198745s/17727276.jpg|24806264]. It's a good workbook, with an ample bibliography at the end to help anyone delve deeper into whatever area of focus they feel would be most helpful for themselves.

The Twelve Steps are commonly viewed as ways to break addictions such as Alcoholism or Narcotics abuse. The Twelve Steps related in this book are a way to reframe your world so that you can learn to live with, and correct, Codependent Behavior. Each chapter details a Step and how to Work it effectively and incorporate it into your own life. Each chapter ends with Activities. This is a complete workbook, an even includes glossaries, groups, books, and other helpful resources at the end.

I would be hardpressed to criticize this book at all. I believe that it is a valuable resource and that most people would be able to benefit from the advice therein. Even if you do not suffer from codependent behaviors, reading this book could help you understand better the people in your life who do and how to relate with them more effectively. ( )

Eines der Bestseller, die den Sprung über den Ozean geschafft haben und viele Auflagen im deutschsprachigen Kontext erlebt haben. Eine Betroffene schreibt anschaulich über ihren 12-Schritte-Weg als Co-Abhängige. Die Spiritualtiät ist allgemein religiös geprägt wie es in der A-Bewegung üblich ist. ( )