Are you "helping" the alcoholic? Find yourself doing things all at the expense of your own life, sanity, and maybe even safety?! You are not alone. Please don’t fall into shame and self-blame. What I learned from loving an alcoholic for 15 years was profound. I learned that I wasn’t loving MYSELF while I was actively loving HIM. (I was active in my own codependency.)

This woke me up. I was self-harming while in the thick of my codependency. Did you know that this condition was once called “co-alcoholism” - at one time in history?! I was shocked since I never drank any alcohol!

Know this:

Self-awareness is a MUST!

Self-preservation is a MUST!

Self-protection is a MUST!

The key is that once we awake to our own self-delusion and self-destruction, we don’t have to self-abuse or self-sabotage—any longer! We can have major shifts in our thinking, beliefs, and mindsets that contribute to making better choices or discovering our choices. Choice is our power. When we finally learn our lessons and see our worth and value, we embark on the all-important path of personal growth and can become the hero we need.

With a serious commitment to recovery, solid support, and understanding, healing can happen for victims of narcissistic abuse. To answer the call for freedom and healing, we get courage through connection, expand our understanding of the narcissist-empath (codependent) dilemma, and use wisdom. We can bravely step into a new chapter with a new, upgraded version of ourselves —and out of our former lives tied to a toxic, selfish narcissist.

If you love an alcoholic, then you probably have tried Al-Anon, a Twelve-Step Program for friends and family of alcoholics. It’s anonymous, it’s free, and meetings are virtually everywhere. Meetings take place by phone, virtual, via chat, and in person. The Al-Anon program is a spin-off, sister-program/companion program to the AA (Alcoholics Anonymous) and the original Twelve Step program. It has helped millions of people and families stuck in the alcoholic-codependent dilemma. 

It’s helpful, valuable, and can be a sanity-saver. I, myself, have used and relied on the program. Al-Anon adopted its twelve steps from AA. What I often wonder is, was that the right idea? Should we have our own program geared more towards what we deal with