Taking care of myself is a big job.
No wonder I avoided it for so long.
—ANONYMOUS
The year was 1986. Pioneers such as Janet Geringer Woititz, Robert Subby, and Earnie Larsen were trying to convince people that the non-drinking person in a relationship with an alcoholic got just as out of control, was in just as much pain, and needed just as much healing as the alcoholic.
Al-Anon groups across the country and the world were quietly trying to bring hope and healing to this same group of people: the codependents.
The message carried by all the pioneers of codependency recovery was the same: Not only can we lovingly detach from other people and take care of ourselves, it is our primary responsibility in life to do that.
To a world that believed in control and victimization, this message was revolutionary. So was the word codependency.
My computer refused the recognize codependency as a legitimate word as I tapped out the manuscript that was yet to be entitled Codependent No More.
Addictions and recovery sections did not yet exist in bookstores.
Codependents were having a difficult time finding the help and healing they needed.
Ground was just being broken.
Now it’s 2001.
The World Health Organization reports an increase in illicit drug use. The National Association for Children of Alcoholics reports that about 43 percent of the U.S. population has been exposed to alcoholism in their families. And about one out of every eight American adult drinkers consumes alcohol problematically or alcoholically.
These figures don’t include the number of families affected by physical or mental illness, sexual addiction, abuse, neglect, and the myriad of problems that can lead people to cope by behaving codependently, giving themselves and their loved ones less of a chance for living a full life.
My laptop computer now recognizes and offers a suggested spelling for the word codependency. The world recognizes it, too. The word, or at least the symptoms and the treatment, appears regularly in novels, television shows, movies, and normal conversations between ordinary people. The addictions and recovery section at the bookstore is overflowing.
The purpose of this preface is simple: I want to say thank you. First, I want to thank the numerous experts and authors who brought groundbreaking information to people who were still suffering. These individuals include Janet Geringer Woititz, Earnie Larsen, Sandra Smalley, Pia Mellody, Robert Subby, Brenda Schaeffer, Gayle Rosellini, Mark Worden, Sharon Wegscheider-Cruse, Terence Gorski, Terry Kellog, Patrick Carnes, John Bradshaw, Rokelle Lerner, Anne Wilson Schaef, Robin Norwood, and Charles Whitfield.
I also want to thank organizations such as Al-Anon and Codependents Anonymous, and publishers such as Hazelden, that bring their healing philosophies and words to millions of people.
I want to thank each person who has the courage to push through and past the set of coping behaviors we’ve come to label as codependency—who learn what it means to take care of themselves.
“Nobody taught me how to take care of myself,” a fifty-year-old woman told me recently. “I didn’t have enough money to go to therapy, but I had enough to buy a book.”
Codependent No More has had several different jackets since Hazelden originally published it in 1986. But many people, including me, remember with fondness that original book with a bright yellow cover and black lettering.
Happy fifteenth birthday, Codependent No More.
And thanks to all of you for naming that pain and making an extraordinary miracle an ordinary one.