Recovery Helps Us to Be Responsible for Hurting Others

Codependents primarily hurt others through the codependent’s insatiable need to control other people’s lives. A codependent thinks that someone else, aside from themselves, should be responsible for the codependent’s happiness. The primary means of control for a codependent is manipulation of the other person.

Manipulation can take on many faces, like people-pleasing, caretaking, shaming, withdrawal of affection, or using guilt. Sometimes codependents control others by using phrases like “I’m only doing this for your own good,” which actually means “I’m only doing this for MY own good.” Or “If you really loved me, you’d do this or that for me,” which actually translates into “If I really loved myself, I’d do this or that for myself, instead of trying to manipulate you into being responsible for MY happiness.”

The codependent person is an emotionally hurting person. And it’s really true that hurting people hurt other people; often times without realizing that they are doing so. Before Recovery, I never thought of people-pleasing or caretaking as manipulative. But I also never realized the real reason why I was using these dysfunctional behaviors. I didn’t understand that I was people-pleasing and caretaking to earn the other person’s affection. I wasn’t consciously aware that I was doing it all for my OWN good, not the good of the other person.

Inside, I hated myself and felt totally unlovable. And so I was a deeply hurting person who manipulated and hurt others out of total desperation to be loved by someone, and to finally be happy. Recovery taught me that only I could make myself happy— and that would require improving my own self-love.

While the first three steps of the 12 Steps help us to rekindle self-love, Steps 4 and 5 help us to acknowledge our manipulative behaviors, or character defects, to own them and to take responsibility for them. Steps 8 and 9 provide us with the ability to apologize, make amends and seek forgiveness from those we manipulated for our own selfish good.

In Recovery, it’s important to realize our character defects, to take responsibility for them and to work on changing them. This requires practicing all of the 12 Steps, in addition to relying on a Higher Power and the help of a support group. It often takes the help of a therapist, too.

Once we are better able to take responsibility for our own lives and happiness, it’s easier to take responsibility for our past hurtful behaviors. It easier— and essential— for us to be able to say to others “I’m sorry for hurting you while I was hurting.”