Rescuing Another Person Never Makes Us Lovable

“Every time we take on someone else’s responsibility, we are keeping them stuck, and in the process making a hostage of both of us. It is not easy to let the addict mature, but we must. We are harming him or her every time we step in and bring order to the chaos he or she created.”

Karen Casey, Codependence And The Power of Detachment

Codependents often struggle with an inner-need to rescue other people from their problems. The motivation for a codependent is simple: If I can rescue this person, he/she will need and love me. What the active codependent fails to understand is two-fold. First, no one is going to love us based in what we “do” for them. People either love us for who we are, or they don’t. Second, it’s impossible to rescue another person from him/herself and his/her problems.

It’s especially impossible to rescue another addict from his/her problems. Active addicts don’t really want to be rescued from their addictions. They often do want to be rescued from taking responsibility for acting-out, however, and this is where we codependents get into trouble.

For example, let’s say we have a younger brother who completely loathes himself and who medicates away his self-hatred at casinos. Gambling gives him an instant high, makes him feel empowered and somewhat good about himself for a brief few hours. Problem is that, as an addict with a bottomless pit of self-hatred inside of him, he doesn’t know when to stop rolling the dice. So he wins big, then turns around and loses bigger.

A few days later, this brother is on our doorstep. He’s acting unusually nice, then pretending that we owe him a favor. He's here to collect. And what does he want us to do? He wants us settle his gambling debt of $2,000. He’s our brother and we feel responsible as he begins to put on the old sob routine. We want to rescue him and make everything better. We foolishly tell ourselves that he’s learned his lesson and this will never happen again. So we give him the $2,000.

Brother Dear leaves happy, but with no real gratitude. Why? Because it was all a game of manipulation for him. He used us, made us responsible for his behavior and debt, and we fell for it. He can now take that money back to the casino, wipe out his debt and start a new line of credit—all at our expense—and knowing that when he racks-up another huge debt, he can return to us with a new sob story and we’ll bail him out again.

Before we know it, Brother Dear is at our door again. We know what it’s about. After all, he never shows up unless he’s in trouble. He has no other use for us. This time he needs $5,000 to cover his debt. What do we do? We say “NO.”

Luckily, we’ve been attending CODA meetings and we’ve learned that we can’t be responsible for or rescue our brother from himself. He doesn’t want to change and he doesn’t want to be responsible for his behavior. We have failed him in the past by assuming responsibility for his behavior, and we realize now that he will never get better until he is forced to be responsible for his own behavior. So we tell him “Sorry, I really can’t help you this time.” The Bank of Big Brother or Big Sister is now officially closed.

Shock storms across his face and he immediately starts attacking us for being a lousy sibling. He tries to remind us of all the things he has supposedly done for us in the past. He uses shame and guilt to the hundredth degree. We feel bad inside, but we stick to our new-found principles. We know that buckling under will only make matters worse for him and us. If we help him, he will be a hostage to our behavior and we will be a hostage to his behavior.

So we send him away empty handed and force him to be responsible for his own behavior, knowing that we did the right—though difficult—thing. If he isn’t able to raise the money, he may have to go to jail. That’s OK. It isn’t our fault. It’s his fault. He’s responsible for his behavior and maybe some jail time will force him to hit bottom and realize that he has to change and finally get his life together. Maybe, for the first time, he will finally take ownership of his life and make it into something better.

But this type of true recovery will never happen for him as long as we are all too ready to rescue him  from himself. We have to first understand that our caretaking is harmful and that it’s all about us and the fact that we still mistakenly believe that if we can rescue someone we will become lovable.

Rescuing never makes anyone lovable. In fact, it actually makes us despicable. Rescuing is bad behavior. It’s never good or honorable, unless you are a Firefighter or Police Officer. So we all need to stop thinking that our behavior can make us acceptable and lovable. It cannot. We are lovable and acceptable just being who we are. PERIOD!