Counseling for the person abused by addict/alcoholic
April 25, 2012
Verbal abuse as well as physical abuse can be caused by an addict to those around him. Counseling provides help for the abused person, allowing her to gain control over her life in getting the help she needs to protect her from the abuse. The abuser wants to be enabled and will be angry if such action is withheld, and he is confronted. Codependency runs rampant in the addict’s family system and needs to be dealt with by intervention or by the one suffering abuse staying away if possible from the abuser. Getting counseling is a must for the person wanting to recover from codependency and from having to suffer abuse. It is a very serious process and needs to be taken seriously. Denial will not accomplish anything but cover over the problem and make it worse. This is dangerous to the person being abused. Denial is pretending it all isn’t happening or “isn’t that bad”.
Co-dependency brings on negativity
April 19, 2012
Co-dependency brings on negativity. People afflicted with this condition are usually chronically angry (although it may not “show” because it is covered up by extreme niceness), anxious or depressed. It is my take that those who are free of co-dependency are upbeat, optimistic, and grateful. A Harvard review brings out that people who with a better sense of well-being tend to have less heart attacks and better health all around. It also mentions that people who have some control over their lives and are invested in their care have better outcomes in life. Get help for co-dependency. I have and it is a fantastic life.
Enabling the Addict/Alcoholic #2
March 14, 2012
2) Maintain the self image of the person being abused by the addict. There is often a lot of shame connected to being abused and being with an addict. How would the abused “look” to others would if he/she admitted there was a problem? Would people blame her or look down on her for being in that position? She might feel guilty thinking she did something to cause the addict to be addicted. This is especially true for parents with children who are addicts. They might think they did or didn’t do something they should have done that caused the addiction. They might think if only they could be different, then the addict would stop the behavior. The fact is they didn’t cause it, they can’t control it, and they can’t cure it. There is a lot of information available, especially in Twelve Step Programs that can give them information about the disease and their part in it and how it is affecting them. A counselor can teach them knowledge about addiction of all kinds. They need to come out of isolation, so they can learn about the disease and learn it isn’t their fault. Enablers need to see they are codependent.
Enabling the Addict/Alcoholic #1
March 11, 2012
Since I have a client who has been enabling her spouse in addictive behavior and now finally sees how damaging that behavior is to her, I was curious what motivated her to continue to make excuses for the addict for so long. The next few days I will go into reasons why a person would block out the addict’s behavior or just go on praying for him as a way to avoid doing anything about it without taking action.
I will give five reasons over the next few days.
1) Depending on the severity of the addiction and the addict’s temperament, the enabler might be afraid of the addict’s violence and be anxious about the harm the addict might do to her. The enabler might even feel her life is in danger if she confronts the addict in any meaningful way, such as giving an ultimatum of treatment/meetings or else she will leave the person. This is generally more threatening to a woman than to a man, but woman as well as men are known to be violent if confronted with their addictions and become aware that corrective action is about to be taken. The enabler might also be afraid the addict will do something to hurt her. Therefore, it is best to do nothing without the backing of a counselor who is adept in matters of addiction and tough love.
Codependency is a matter of life and death
March 8, 2012
Codependency is a matter of life and death. This may be a harsh judgment, but it is not just something that is interfering in one’s life; it is taking one’s life away. The seriousness of it can be stressed by the addictions that come from it as well as the physical illnesses that are caused by it. High blood pressure, skin diseases, breathing issues, back pain, body pain and aches, headaches, gastrological problems, and other physical illness result from untreated codependency. Anxiety and depression, extreme sadness, guilt and remorse, and difficulty grieving in a normal way are all results of it. Anger and resentment become part of daily life and people find themselves unhappy with negative attitudes. Many people do not realize the seriousness of the disease of codependency and need to be reminded. It is essential to seek help from a qualified codependent counselor who can help the codependent sort out his or her part in the family system.
Coaching and Marriage Counseling
February 19, 2012
After going through unproductive and harmful marriage counseling of my own many years ago, in the beginning of my practice, I developed a kind of marriage counseling and coaching that has proven to produce 99% positive results. The one couple in which it failed was not meant to be together, in my view, because it was a chronically abusive relationship.
The way I work is to talk confidentially with each partner (spouse/parent/child) individually as many times as is necessary to get from that person what is really going on in the relationship and what issues he or she are putting on the other person. Then, in a controlled, safe environment (no abuse, no yelling, no walking out of the room or hanging up the phone) I lead the participants in a two plus hour session to share things with each other. I introduce structured ideas that I asked them to share, and then I have each share something that is really bothering them in the relationship while looking directly at one another. Each person may only reply “Thank you. I hear you”.
The process proceeds from there to some kind of resolution and goals for that particular session. Then we repeat the process of individual sessions until another joint meeting is indicated. This process may be repeated two or three times or many times depending on the severity of the problems and the willingness of each person to be fully clear about his or her needs, wants, and concerns.
I love doing this work, because I love to see people work out their difficulties so they can be happy together again and are able to feel the closeness of clearly resolved issues. At the end of this process, their codependency becomes interdependency.
Free from Victim Thinking
January 8, 2012
In childhood children are dependent on the adults in life to take care of them. They are influenced by the way those adults think and behave. Therefore, many children are victimized and that is real and needs to be given attention. Many situations are denied as abusive and those children grow up to have victim thinking (and behavior) not realizing they were abused. Usually something happens to intervene and they are pressed to face their past. My suggestion is to face and process out (theuraputic term) their abusive experiences and begin to understand how they allowed themselves as adults to think in victim ways and allow themselves to be abused or be abusive themselves. They need to get rid of the painful memories in childhood through therapy and begin to see positive ways of thinking through coaching. We all grow up our own way by the choices we make and those lead to other choices. To finally come to the place where you can choose to think in a positive way and see that you are no longer a victim (unless you allow it)but a person who chooses how to live and in what way and with whom (people who will be positive for them). This is freedom from codependency one day at a time. This is freedom from addiction in the moment. This is to really be an adult believing in a higher power to guide them every step of the way.
Self-esteem and Codependency
November 4, 2011
Self esteem and codependency are linked closely. Lack of self esteem is seen in persons high in codependency. They have trouble making decisions and sticking to a project. They look at all the things they don’t like about themselves and save very little time to thinking about all their assets . This is where a counselor or coach can come in and really help. One can help the codependent to really turn their life around and start seeing all the positives in themselves and their potential. With weekly commitment to goals they can quite quickly start feeling better about themselves. Depression, anxiety, guilt, shame, weight gain or anorexia can be absolished. Anger can be dispelled: distinguishing between old, useless anger and new appropriate anger and what to do with it in a constructive way. They fall prey to addictions and loss of spirituality. Without self esteem a person is not going to get what he/she wants and will continue in a pit of saddness. Get yourself some help if you fit into this blog information!
What is counseling and coaching?
September 27, 2011
Counseling helps individuals and families understand what is going on in their environment and in the individual. It helps them explore their feelings, thoughts, and motives. It has them look at their core beliefs to see if they are working for them in a positive way. It helps them understand and make decisions about boundaries and limits and what is healthy and what is dysfunctional. It looks at dysfunctional behavior and challenges that. A counselor can help people make sense out of what often seems like chaos. It is a confidential experience where trust is built so individuals can confide in the counselor and be honest with him/her about what is really going on in them. It helps people make decisions about their lives. They begin to see they are not victims but have choices, not only in their behavior but in their attitudes. Coaching is about making goals and reaching them. This can be contained in counseling but is not the entire purpose. Counseling can also look at spirituality and religion as a source for help.
7) Anger resulting from giving too much. . .#7
August 11, 2011
7) Anger resulting from giving too much to others and not refueling yourself. Of course, giving and caring people abound. They respond to the needs of others in every part of their lives. But a problem can occur for such people when they have little ability to give to themselves. Deep resentment grows within them and often results in unexpected outbursts that are really the message: “I’m giving so much to everyone else. Why isn’t anyone giving anything back to me?”
I have gone through six previous misuses of anger in these blogs. To gain more insight into a person’s uses of anger, a first step is to identify several recent occasions in which the person became angry for questionable reasons. Then look for a pattern. Are there particular circumstances involved? What occurred immediately before an angry outburst? Who else was involved? Were there any specific feelings present, other than anger? Does the anger seem to arise at any specific time of day? Any consistencies one can find will help narrow the search for an unresolved issue generating anger that is being unfairly directed at others. Once the pattern of anger is clarified, identifying the emotional use (of which I have given 7) can then follow.
All forms of misused anger are destructive to relationships and to the sense of self. Marriage counseling is usually needed for couples, and grief and loss counseling can be helpful if that is an issue. Bereavement counseling may also be helpful if the person has lost someone or something important to her. Life coaching can be helpful to anger management, and of course abuse counseling is crucial for the victims’ of such anger. Misused anger can certainly affect one’s spirituality and one’s relationship to a higher power. It affects the person’s ability to assert oneself in a healthy way in getting one’s needs met. It can bring on addiction, requiring help to sort out the chaos. It is codependent behavior.
