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From the book The Mishap Lineage: Transforming
Confusion into Wisdom.

“The essence of compassion is to copy how you relate with your child (in your relationships with others). The problem is how much you want to be the head of the family or the ringleader of your friends. You know, if that ambition is not there, but you have a genuine willingness to share, that is precisely the concept of sangha, or the Buddhist community, in traditional terms. You are willing to be friends with everybody, but at the same time you are not particularly taking credit. You don’t make people depend on you. Everybody can stand on his or her own feet. The ideal of helping is to make others independent of you. You help them to become more independent rather than making them addicted to you.”

Per their website The Institute for Addiction Study:

” is a center of learning and training where innovative strategies relating to addiction are developed and shared that foster the acceptance of addicts as full and valued members of society.  At the Institute, we search out, review and present the latest information in addiction science in order to:

• provide a conduit through which knowledge can flow from research to families and individuals in need

• create treatment that is effective, humane and seeks to return the addict to his or her full potential with dignity

• advocate for the welfare of addicts and promote policies that treat addiction as a disease and addicts as patients”

We want to challenge current thinking about addiction in order to inform individuals, groups and families of the current controversies within addiction treatment so they can make informed decisions about recovery….

One of the ways that the Institute approaches these objectives is by questioning whether addiction is a disease or a choice. The Institute approaches their position in part from neurophysiologic research. With the help of this research, the Institute then concludes that addiction is in fact a disease while also noting that this position does not take away responsibility from the addict. In an article written by Dr. Kevin McCauley, an Institute team member, he states

“Do addicts need to take responsibility for managing their addiction? Certainly. But so do all patients. So do patients with multiple sclerosis and schizophrenia. The problem I have is in holding one group of patients more responsible than other groups of patients. Most people will take responsibility to the exact extent that they know how, or are supported. That is what good medicine is all about.”

Please note that this is just a glimpse of what is in their website. Other information includes: books to read, articles, other web resource material, etc.. Definitely, a website you may want to peruse.

But before I go on, I’d like to explain why understanding these concepts may be important to you. If you are a parent reading this blog, most likely your family is or has been in deep pain – I know that we have been. One way to look at the concepts of “codependency” and “enmeshment” is that they address those parts of ourselves and our families that can keep us in pain and can keep us from moving forward. By understanding your family’s tendencies, in my opinion, you become a better parent and are, therefore, in a better position to support your family’s needs.

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Codependency

I became aware of the term codependent in the 80’s as I was told that I could be a “codependent”.   What I didn’t realize at the time was that this was a relatively new term.

Per Answer.com (http://www.answers.com/topic/co-dependent), the word origin of “codependence” is 1987,

“In the 1980s, even if we did not wake up with a hangover, we learned that waking up next to a significant other (1953) with a hangover is a hangup in itself. The hangup of the non-addicted is addiction to the addicted. Get it?

If that’s confusing, maybe we needed a new word. So we put it this way: In such a situation, we suffer from a condition known as codependency or codependence. That is what we learned from the 1987 publication of Melody Beattie’s book Codependent No More, along with countless articles on the subject. We discovered that we had grown up in dysfunctional families (1981), where one of the adults was addicted to a substance like alcohol or drugs or to a behavior like gambling, sex, watching television, or even exercise, and the other adult was addicted to the addict. By helping the addicted one get through the day, the non-addicted family members were being codependent.

Since so many people can be said to exhibit some sort of addictive behavior, we discovered how normal it is to come from a dysfunctional family and be codependent. The codependency spreads because it makes children dysfunctional, leading them to enter dysfunctional relationships as adults, either as addicts or as their co-dependents. etc….”

In and around the same period (1986) the support group Codependent Anonymous (CODA) was created to help those impacted by codependence.  Per their website (http://www.codependents.org), “Co-Dependents Anonymous is a fellowship of men and women whose common purpose is to develop healthy relationship.  The only requirement is a desire for healthy and loving relationship.” CODA’s website has a lot of information including sections on patterns and characteristics of codependence, support groups, the 12 steps and traditions, patterns of recovery, etc.. What I find particularly helpful is that CODA meetings are held quite frequently so if you are going through a particularly stressful period (as we are as parents when our son or daughter is struggling), given that the access to meetings is so frequent, you can attend (or try out) a meeting and quickly find yourself surrounded by others and not feel alone in your struggles. As a note, if a CODA meeting is not available in your area, an Al-Anon meeting is also helpful (See http://www.al-anon.alateen.org/).

Enmeshment

I found various definitions of enmeshment on line with the one I liked the best from a website dedicated to children with challenges (http://www.childrenwithchallenges.net/definitions/E.html).   Their definition is extensive and includes the impact of culture and developmental disabilities. As such, it begins to address family dynamics that may have been or may be present . The definition states that enmeshment is:

“a term describing a pattern of family relating characterized by strong allegiance and closeness, few or extremely permeable hierarchies and boundaries, and little individual autonomy. Often such a pattern of relating has strong ethnic and cultural origins. When culturally determined, this pattern is less often pathological. When a family is enmeshed to protect itself from psychological pain, that family can become extremely toxic and pathological.

Often a family member must become symptomatic in order to prompt the family to secure help and enable the opportunity to grow. Families who have children with developmental disabilities often develop enmeshed patterns as a way of protecting the child and themselves from hurt. This protection can become a stranglehold, with neither the child nor the family able to mature.”

I found this particularly definition helpful because I believed that most families didn’t set out to create the chaos that sometimes has become of their lives. Rather, due to a variety of circumstances including lack of knowledge, behavior patterns can be repeated generation after generation.  As such, I consider it important to learn and to work on creating a new healthier family system.

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I hope this information is of use to you. As always, should anyone have any comments/information please feel free to comment.