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Codependent No More, <\/em>by Melody Beattie<\/p>\n Hazelden, 1987.\u00a0 231 pages.<\/p>\n Sonderbooks Stand-out 2008:\u00a0 #5, Personal Growth<\/p>\n Starred Review<\/p>\n Codependent No More <\/em>is by now a classic work on codependency.\u00a0 If you want to understand what people are talking about when they mention “struggling with codependency,” this book is a good place to turn.<\/p>\n My friend Doris Rauseo gave me this copy of the book when I was a newlywed.\u00a0 Interesting.\u00a0 I have a feeling she saw many codependent traits in me which I was oblivious to.\u00a0 Though I did read it and thought it had some good ideas.\u00a0 However, 20 years later, I found the book in my moving boxes, and reading it now as an abandoned wife, I could suddenly see myself clearly.<\/p>\n Who is a Codependent?\u00a0 The author describes in the introduction how as she became a codependent she began to understand them better:<\/p>\n “I saw people who were hostile; they had felt so much hurt that hostility was their only defense against being crushed again.\u00a0 They were that angry because anyone who had tolerated what they had would be that angry.<\/p>\n “They were controlling because everything around and inside them was out of control.\u00a0 Always, the dam of their lives and the lives of those around them threatened to burst and spew harmful consequences on everyone.\u00a0 And nobody but them seemed to notice or care.<\/p>\n “I saw people who manipulated because manipulation appeared to be the only way to get anything done.\u00a0 I worked with people who were indirect because the systems they lived in seemed incapable of tolerating honesty.<\/p>\n “I worked with people who thought they were going crazy because they had believed so many lies they didn’t know what reality was.<\/p>\n “I saw people who had gotten so absorbed in other people’s problems they didn’t have time to identify or solve their own.\u00a0 These were people who had cared so deeply, and often destructively, about other people that they had forgotten how to care about themselves.\u00a0 The codependents felt responsible for so much because the people around them felt responsible for so little; they were just taking up the slack.<\/p>\n “I saw hurting, confused people who needed comfort, understanding, and information.”<\/p>\n In this book, Melody Beattie manages to convey comfort, understanding, and information.\u00a0 She helps you understand what codependency is, and helps you understand why sometimes being helpful ends up being hurtful.<\/p>\n Best of all, she offers hope of recovery:<\/p>\n “Codependency is many things.\u00a0 It is a dependency on people — on their moods, behaviors, sickness or well-being, and their love.\u00a0 It is a paradoxical dependency.\u00a0 Codependents appear to be depended upon, but they are dependent.\u00a0 They look strong but feel helpless.\u00a0 They appear controlling but in reality are controlled themselves, sometimes by an illness such as alcoholism.<\/p>\n “These are the issues that dictate recovery.\u00a0 It is solving these problems that makes recovery fun.\u00a0 Many recoveries from problems that involve a person’s mind, emotions, and spirit are long and grueling.\u00a0 Not so, here.\u00a0 Except for normal human emotions we would be feeling anyway, and twinges of discomfort as we begin to behave differently, recovery from codependency is exciting.\u00a0 It is liberating.\u00a0 It lets us be who we are.\u00a0 It lets other people be who they are.\u00a0 It helps us own our God-given power to think, feel, and act.\u00a0 It feels good.\u00a0 It brings peace.\u00a0 It enables us to love ourselves and others.\u00a0 It allows us to receive love — some of the good stuff we’ve all been looking for.\u00a0 It provides an optimum environment for the people around us to get and stay healthy.\u00a0 And recovery helps stop the unbearable pain many of us have been living with.<\/p>\n “Recovery is not only fun, it is simple.\u00a0 It is not always easy, but it is simple.\u00a0 It is based on a premise many of us have forgotten or never learned:\u00a0 Each person is responsible for him- or herself.\u00a0 It involves learning one new behavior that we will devote ourselves to:\u00a0 taking care of ourselves.\u00a0 In the second half of this book, we’ll discuss specific ideas for doing that.”<\/p>\n This is a helpful, encouraging, and liberating book.<\/p>\n Here are more quotations that struck me as I read it:<\/p>\n http:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderquotes\/?s=Codependent+No+more<\/a><\/p>\n Buy from Amazon.com<\/font><\/a><\/p>\n This review is posted on the main site at:<\/p>\n