Self-Care Is the Cure for Any Codependent-Crazy Relapse!

Ah, it’s another beautiful day in recovery! Well, until we meet someone whose neediness triggers all of our old behavioral patterns.

Let’s say we’re having lunch with a friend and she has brought along a coworker. We feel an immediate attraction (attachment) to the coworker. Seems he’s just ended a bad relationship. As we listen to him speak, all of our caretaking sensibilities (or should I say nonsense-abilities) start rising from the grave within our souls. The more he speaks, the more we are convinced we can rescue him—and we aren’t even consciously aware that this is what is actually going on inside of us.

As we munch on our sandwich, we begin projecting all of our old codependent neediness onto him. Suddenly he is as codependent and as needy as we want him to be. And we are convinced that we can use what we have learned in recovery to make him OK.

We begin spilling out recovery jargon, telling him about the latest Melody Beattie book we’re reading, and helping him to see that he’s suffering from not feeling good enough about himself.

As he begins to relate to some of what we are saying, we start salivating inside our souls. Finally, we’ve found that person we can save. We will be someone’s savior after all—and he’ll need and love us forever!!!

Or maybe not. We all know how this story ends. And it doesn’t end any differently if you are new to recovery, 30 years into recovery or if you have never heard of recovery. It’s a doomed situation from the start.

We cannot rescue another person. All of us who have been in codependent-recovery for any period of time have learned this lesson. And yet, sometimes we still forget. I think this usually happens when we get lax at working the spiritual end of the program. We stop nurturing ourselves in all of the right ways: reading, journaling, walking, opening up with friends who are safe for us, praying and eating healthily.

When we stop taking care of our own needs, we start looking outside ourselves again for someone we can rescue—and who, in return, will rescue us. It will never happen.

Everyone must rescue him or her own self. We are the only persons who can rescue ourselves.

If you are feeling needy, get back to the 12 Steps, to meetings and to taking good care of all of your needs. It will keep you from falling off the cliff and tumbling back down into the murky waters of the Codependent Crazies!