# Read the first page of Codependent No More by Melody Beattie Read the opening of Codependent No More by Melody Beattie free, no signup. Tools for leaving compulsive caretaking behind and rebuilding boundaries and self trust. - Page: https://uncovered.ink/read/codependent-no-more-melody-beattie - Genre: Relationships - Year: 1986 - ISBN: 9781035024100 - Read it blind (cover and title hidden): https://uncovered.ink/?b=9781035024100&s=read-page - Buy: https://bookshop.org/a/125786/9781035024100 - Borrow: https://search.worldcat.org/search?q=9781035024100 ## The opening @@CHAP@@ Introduction My first encounter with codependents occurred in the early sixties. This was before people, tormented by other people’s behavior, were called codependents, and before people addicted to alcohol and other drugs were labeled chemically dependent. Although I didn’t know what codependents were, I usually knew who they were. As someone who struggled with alcoholism and addiction, I stormed through life, helping create other codependents. Codependents were a necessary nuisance. They were hostile, controlling, manipulative, indirect, guilt producing, difficult to communicate with, generally disagreeable, sometimes downright hateful, and a hindrance to my compulsion to get high. They hollered at me, hid my pills, made nasty faces at me, poured my alcohol down the sink, tried to keep me from getting more drugs, wanted to know why I was doing this to them, and asked what was wrong with me. But they were always there, ready to rescue me from self-created disasters. The codependents in my life didn’t understand me, and the misunderstanding was mutual. I didn’t understand me, and I didn’t understand them. My first professional encounter with codependents occurred years later, in 1976. At that time in Minnesota, addicts and alcoholics had become chemically dependent, their families and friends had become significant others, and I had become a recovering addict and alcoholic. By then, I also worked as a counselor in the chemical dependency field, that vast network of institutions, programs, and agencies that helps chemically dependent people get well. Because I’m a woman and most of the significant others at that time were women, and because I had the least seniority and none of my co-workers wanted to do it, my employer at the Minneapolis treatment center told me to organize support groups for wives of addicts in the program. I wasn’t prepared for this task. I still found codependents hostile, controlling, manipulative, indirect, guilt producing, difficult to communicate with, and more. In my group, I saw people who felt responsible for the entire world, but they refused to take responsibility for leading and living their own lives. I saw people who constantly gave to others but didn’t know how to receive. I saw people give until they were angry, exhausted, and emptied of everything. I saw some give until they gave up. I even saw one woman give and suffer so much that she died of “old age” and natural causes at age thirty-three. She was the mother of five children and the wife of an alcoholic who’d been sent to prison for the third time. I worked with women who were experts at taking care of everyone around them, yet these women doubted their ability to care for themselves. I saw mere shells of people, racing mindlessly from one activity to another. I saw people pleasers, martyrs, stoics, tyrants, withering vines, clinging vines, and, borrowing from H. Sackler’s line in his play The Great White Hope, “pinched up faces giving off the miseries.” Most codependents were obsessed with other people. With great precision and detail, they could recite long lists of the other person’s deeds and misdeeds: what they thought, felt, did, and said; and what they didn’t think, feel, do, and say. The codependents knew what the other person should and shouldn’t do. And they wondered extensively why they did or didn’t do it. Yet these codependents who had such great insight into others couldn’t see themselves. They didn’t know what they were feeling. They weren’t sure what they thought. And they didn’t know what, if anything, they could do to solve their problems—if, indeed, they had any problems other than the other person. It was a formidable group, these codependents. They were aching, complaining, and trying to control everyone and everything but themselves. And, except for a few quiet pioneers in family therapy, many counselors (including me) didn’t know how to help them. The chemical dependency field was flourishing, but help focused on the addicted person. Literature and training on family therapy were scarce. What did codependents need? What did they want? Weren’t they just an extension of the alcoholic, a visitor to the treatment center? Why couldn’t they cooperate, instead of always making problems? The alcoholic had an excuse for being so crazy—he was drunk. These significant others had no excuse. They were this way sober. ## Books with a similar feel - [Emotional Blackmail by Susan Forward](https://uncovered.ink/read/emotional-blackmail-susan-forward.md) - [Women Who Love Too Much by Robin Norwood](https://uncovered.ink/read/women-who-love-too-much-robin-norwood.md) - [Your Erroneous Zones by Dr. Wayne W. Dyer](https://uncovered.ink/read/your-erroneous-zones-dr-wayne-w-dyer.md) - [No Excuses! by Brian Tracy](https://uncovered.ink/read/no-excuses-brian-tracy.md) - [Why Has Nobody Told Me This Before? by Julie Smith](https://uncovered.ink/read/why-has-nobody-told-me-this-before-julie-smith.md) - [Dare to Lead by Brené Brown](https://uncovered.ink/read/dare-to-lead-brene-brown.md) --- Source: Uncovered (https://uncovered.ink). A short sample shown for reading and discovery. Rights holders can request removal at https://uncovered.ink/takedown.