What, me addicted?

   Addictive behaviors work. They provide temporary relief for intense physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual agony. We co-dependents have our own favorite addictions.

   To most of us, the word addiction brings to mind images of down and out souls whose lives are lost to drugs and alcohol. But that group actually represents only a fraction of the population whose lives are hampered by addiction. If we must do the numbers, it is generally accepted that about 10% of the U.S. population is addicted to alcohol alone, throw in other substances, and you get to about 15%.

Please consider this startling figure, however.

   Beyond the 10%, for every individual addicted to alcohol alone, there are four others who are intimately close to that person who are addicted to them!

   Because of the sick payoffs from rescuing alcoholics (see addictive agents #2, #4, #7, #8, #9, #11, #14, #15, #16, and #17 listed below), and because an alcoholic cannot survive without being propped up by those four other people (some call them co-dependents, some call them co-alcoholics), alcohol being swallowed by only one person soon creates a sick system where everybody pays a monumental personal price. Everybody in this system has to live in a state of powerful denial. In other words, as I write this, I am describing over half of the U. S. population!

The following excellent definition and listing of addictive agents is taken from Serenity, A Companion for Twelve Step Recovery. 

"Addictive agents are those persons or things on which we form an excessive dependency."

    1. Alcohol or drugs

    2. Work, achievement, and success

    3. Money addictions, such as overspending, gambling, hoarding.

    4. Control addictions, especially if they surface in personal, family, and business relationships

    5. Food addictions

    6. Sexual addictions

    7. Approval dependency (the need to please people)

    8. Rescuing patterns toward other persons

    9. Dependency on toxic relationships (relationships that are damaging and hurtful).

   10. Physical illness (hypochondria)

   11. Exercise and physical conditioning

   12. Cosmetics, clothes, cosmetic surgery, trying to look good on the outside

   13. Academic pursuits and excessive intellectualizing

   14. Religiosity or religious legalism (preoccupation with the form and the rules and regulations of religion, rather than benefiting from the real spiritual message).

   15. General perfectionism

   16. Cleaning and avoiding contamination and other obsessive-compulsive symptoms.

   17. Organizing, structuring (the need to always have everything in its place).

   18. Materialism.

    How did you do? If you are a relatively healthy person, physically, emotionally, and mentally, you will list about eight of these. If you are a co-dependent, you might suffer from some or all of them!

If you read something here that gave you one of those life-changing awarenesses, PLEASE...go for help. It it readily available right near you in your community. Just call 1-888-4-AL-ANON to learn about finding a meeting, or visit www.al-anon.alateen.org