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Codependency Treatment at Step Away Treatment Centre

At Step Away Treatment Centre, our alcohol and drug rehabilitation treatment programmes take into account all of the important aspects that a successful addiction recovery necessitates.

One of these aspects is family or spousal codependency.

But what is spousal codependency?

In this instance, we are referring to the term often used to describe the codependent behaviour of a spouse or family who has a loved one who is an alcoholic or addicted to drugs.

Codependent behaviour, can be described as choosing to play an exceptionally passive and care-taking role in your relationship with your addicted loved one.

Codependent relationships often entail you, the codependent spouse, spending the majority of your time and effort monitoring, controlling and attempting to improve the feelings of your addicted loved one.

This imbalance is unhealthy for both yourself and your addicted loved one, often resulting in emotional exploitation of self and ultimately, your loved one’s addiction worsening because of your enablement.

Codependency and your relationship with an addict

When you have a loved one, friend or partner who is an alcoholic or who is addicted to drugs, it is only natural for you to want to reach out and help them.

You may feel that by “supporting” them enough, you could possibly help them find their way out addiction and into a happy life of recovery.

On the other hand, you could feel that by not helping them, your lack actions could actually result in them relapsing back into their addiction.

In order to avoid their addiction relapse, you then align your key goals with making their life easier and keeping them happy.

However, in reality, the majority of your time is spent failing miserably at trying to keep things together, leaving you desperately searching for any type of validation and inevitably forcing you to try harder.

This is the cycle of spousal codependency.

Step Away Addiction Rehabilitation Centre South Africa

Codependent families and spouses frequently misinterpret their enabling actions for compassion and “love”, subsequently reinforcing and enabling their loved one’s addiction.

At Step Away, we believe that in order to treat addiction effectively, we need to broaden the scope of our addiction treatment, by not only treating the addict but also the addict’s family.

For more information about our treatment programmes or rehabilitation centre, please contact us.

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