codependency

The down economy has given new life to a term not used frequently since the Carter administration, the misery index. “The misery index is an economic indicator, created by economist Arthur Okun, and found by adding the unemployment rate to the inflation rate.”

The economic and social cost of the escalation of these two figures increased the suffering of the country and this index became a way to measure and describe the misery without resorting to an Andy Rooney diatribe. Hearing the term again has made me think about using it in another way when dealing with addiction or more specifically, enablement.

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Only I can change my life. No one can do it for me. ~ Carol Burnett

Addiction free but sandwiched between the alcoholism of her parents and the struggles of her daughter with drug addiction, my first thought for the title of this post about comedienne Carol Burnett was The One That Got Away, no punctuation.

Immediately upon typing the words I realized my mistake and added the question mark, embarrassed that even for a moment I had forgot that no one escapes from the pain, loss, and tragedy of an addicted family member. Carol Burnett may have escaped catching the family scourge, but there is no doubt that she still suffered the consequences.

I had chosen Mrs. Burnett as tonight’s topic in response to reader feedback on a previous William Shatner/Al-Anon post asking for more stories of the same persuasion. The TDA reader, in a relationship with an alcoholic, is also suffering the consequences that include stress and preoccupation draining the creativity and ambition from her work. So I thought it would be both extremely appropriate and a personal pleasure to extend a TDA Salute to Carol Burnett who not only survived, but is still flourishing in a creative, artistic career and has been a pioneer of recovery advocacy.

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Alcoholism and drug addiction are persistent conditions that in most cases start during developmental years. A chronic toxicity of not only the substance abuser, usually family and loved ones are also poisoned by long term exposure to the condition. Not in the sense that it is contagious, although since it runs in families addiction often develops from using drugs and alcohol as coping mechanisms- but by issues of codependency such as stress, fear, guilt and remorse.

Too often all involved in this desperate circle lose perspective, and begin to accept this condition and circumstances as normal. A good day becomes one in which nobody goes to jail or comes home almost comatose, but comes home.

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I have a hard time believing that this video was considered a good idea even in the age of leisure suits and disco. The same could be said about the maladaptive and contradictory behavior of a codependent, a good example being this letter to an advice column.

Every six months or so, he comes to my house drunk and raises Cain in front of the kids… He never says he's sorry and it causes fights that could be avoided if he just wouldn't drink… If I try to make him leave, he does more in front of the kids, and he has been known to hit. How can I make it clear to him I've had enough… I have called the law before and that just makes matters worse.

I know it's easy to criticize, but that's sort of my point.

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Hat Tip TDA reader Screedler who suggested this after the post Famous Al-Anon’er: William Shatner

William Shatner’s wife, Nerine, died in 1999 after passing out and drowning from a mixture of alcohol and valium. Shatner came home to find her at the bottom of their backyard swimming pool. It was the sad end to a decade of struggle that he had willingly entered into after marrying a known alcoholic who he hoped "would give up alcohol for me."

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I will be posting some of the e-mail from the mailbag occasionally that I feel can be useful to others. Taking notice of the new button in the right column, I invite you to push it if you would like to share a story, seek an experienced viewpoint or just plain rant… please, go ahead and ask the alcoholic.

Dear TDA-

Name Withheld

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“Captain, that’s not logical.” Dr. Spock said it often to Captain Kirk, but Leonard Nimoy also said something similar to William Shatner before his wedding.

He said just one sentence, 'Bill, you do know that Nerine is an alcoholic.' I'm not sure what Leonard expected me to say. 'I know she is,' I told him. 'But I love her.' Leonard didn't speak for a minute and then he said, sadly, 'Well, Bill, then you are in for a rough ride'."~ The Age

Nimoy was not channeling his Vulcan character, as a recovering alcoholic he knew first hand the potential pain Shatner could face. Nine years later Shatner came home to find his floating face down in the pool, dead from an overdose of alcohol and valium.

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The original 1956 version of the Invasion of the Body Snatchers where aliens with an ultramundane agenda take the place of humans in society has often been considered by film buffs to be a political allegory of the cold war communist threat and paranoia of the time. The nature of the film insures an almost timeless interpretation to the fill-in-the-blank fear or threat of the day as remake after remake has been considered a reflection of the issue da jour.

While there is not a remake in the works that I know of that would prompt this TDA interpretation, for reasons I will keep to myself it seems an appropriate time to post.

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From our good friend over at Married To My Ex whose ability to relate her perspective of dealing with her addict husband is well worth a front page status. Warning, I run a PG rated site but will often allow language to exist below the fold that I feel is pertinent to the piece.

Once in an Al-Anon meeting I picked up that book, the one with the daily quotes in it. I read it and it all seemed to really fit in my life. I think it might have been there, or on some website maybe, where I read about ultimatums. It said that if I issued one I better be prepared to lose it and accept the consequences. I wish I had read that after I set those boundaries (what I called ultimatums then). What I know now is that I was not prepared to back up what I said. I really meant what I yelled, "It is either me or Vicodin!"

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