Couples Therapy for Addiction Recovery

Addiction and Relationships

Addiction comes from trauma. Abused and neglected children become adults who often struggle with regulating their emotions and don’t know how to self-soothe. So often, they turn to addictions to cope. Every person brings their lives and experiences into a relationship, and sometimes addiction is one of those experiences. If you are a loved one of an addict, please realize that their negative behavior is not something they are purposefully and consciously doing TO you. Instead, these maladaptive, negative behaviors are something they are doing to themselves. As a result, their behaviors are definitely affecting you and causing you trauma. They can’t show up and be present for you if they can’t show up for themselves.

Addiction and Codependency

Codependency refers to enabling and controlling behaviors, poor boundaries, a lack of self-care, and focusing on others’ needs instead of one’s own. And while the teaching of codependency can be immensely helpful in dealing with individuals who have a chronic pattern of these traits, labeling every partner of an addict as “codependent” is damaging. It implies that there is something wrong with the codependent person because they have been impacted by a person struggling with addiction. Experiencing trauma reactions such as hypervigilance, increased anxiety and depression, re-experiencing the event, emotional numbing, need to control, or irritability as a result of a loved one’s addiction and behavior is not codependency. Sadly, partners of individuals struggling with substance or behavioral addictions often get assigned the label “codependent.” Sometimes the hypervigilance and controlling behaviors of the partner are related more to re-experiencing traumatic feelings triggered by memories from the effects of their partner’s addiction. If this sounds familiar, I want to remind you that you are not alone.