Besides the poor writing style, this book is meaningless. If you are human you are codependent. Period! Sometimes, when we take care of our beloved ones, we put our basic needs and interests aside. This behavior may create some destructive inner patterns and put the entire life on hold. It’s a path that nobody wants to take. Codependents: don’t trust themselves. don’t trust their feelings. don’t trust their decisions. don’t trust other people. try to trust untrustworthy people.” From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of It Starts with Us and It Ends with Us, a novel about risking everything for love—and finding your heart somewhere between the truth and lies. Don’t remain as a victim, because caretaking is one form of oppression. Nobody is saying that you shouldn’t show signs of empathy, but you should bring your real intentions into line with your urges.

Gary Chapman wrote in The Five Love Languages that “our most basic emotional need is not to fall in love but to be genuinely loved by another, to know a love that grows out of a reason and choice, not instinct. I need to be loved by someone who chooses to love me, who sees in me something worth loving.” The word 'react' is important here. However you approach codependency, however you define it, and from whatever frame of reference you coose to diagnose and treat it, codependency is primarily a reactionary process. Codependents are reactionaries. They overreact. they underreact. but rarely do they 'act'. p 38 You have learned that you will never learn everything there is to know," he replied. " And you have learned how to stop the pain".” A codependent person is one who has let another person's behavior affect him or her, and who is obsessed with controlling that person's behavior.”

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The longer this lifetime goes, the more convinced I am that our primary responsibility in life is to find a way to make peace with ourselves, our past, and our present—no matter what we face and no matter how often we need to do that. They tend to victimize themselves as as they are believed to be an easy mark for any form of abuse.

In all honesty, there are innumerable definitions about codependency. All of them are focusing on the consequences of codependency and less on the actual causes that fuel this should. We call it a disease. It's sort of hard to rate self-help books so I'm just going to rate this one on how helpful it was to me in particular. I would say it was 50% helpful. Simply reading its descriptions of codependency was really instructive. Lately, I've been hearing the word codependent used a lot, and most people are not using it correctly (for example, I've heard several people use it to describe couples who can't go out without each other, and that's not really what it means). Codependency has a very wide definition, but the best way that I understand it after reading this book is that codependent people let the negative behaviors of those around them affect their own feelings and behaviors in a negative way. As a result, codependents become controlling, moody and often adopt a martyr syndrome that never fixes anything. The book, which is geared towards family members of alcoholics, clarifies a lot of these unhealthy behaviors and gives tips on how to be self-aware and how to manage our emotions, which I find to be helpful, even if it's not groundbreaking scientific work or whatever. Okay, enough of explanations. I thought the concepts covered in these books were eye-opening and instructive. I think it's a great paradigm to explore. However, I think a better book could be written. Codependent No More is essentially the Go To book about codependency. I found it well written, but somewhat rambling and repetitive. (Somewhat like this blog?) Just as I found myself intrigued by a concept, the author would go into some lengthy story that only partially made sense to me, as somebody who has never dealt with an alcoholic or chemically dependent person. I actually enjoyed Beyond Codependency more because it dealt more with solutions to the problem than lengthy descriptions. Once I "got it," I "got it" and was bored with further detail in the first book.Another one of our shortcomings may be that we don't ask for the help we need because we don't want to burden anyone. We think we should be able to handle everything by ourselves, no matter how hard is it or how bad we feel. But if you need support or just an evening out with a friend, ask." I am capable of developing and maintaining healthy and loving relationships. The need to control and manipulate others will disappear as I learn to trust those who are trustworthy. Self-care does NOT correlate with the position you have in society, nor does it reflect what others think of you. Moreover, it signifies our sincerity in handling relationships and the pressure of the issues that may crop up. 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.” From a medical perspective, some early symptoms are visible and, if detected, can be attributed to the rise of codependency in a person. Those signs link to depression, isolation, and suicidal urges.

I was very skeptical at first, as the author is a firm believer in the 12-step program, whose principles I do not adhere to nor find useful. Tell about the changes that have happened - to women, to people in our country, to you, since you wrote that book," she suggested. Melody Beattie is an American author of self-help books on codependency and a household name in addiction and recovery circles. She endured a difficult period in her adolescence, fighting aga... Relieved to end the daily batterings but fearing reprisal, the woman looked up at the guru. To her surprise, the guru smiled. " Congragulations." he said, " you have graduated ". You know now everything you need to know." In this Blink to Melody Beattie’s Codependent No More, you’ll learn some hard truths about the nature of codependency, as well as steps you can take and attitudes you can adopt to begin traveling down the path to recovery. In time, you’ll learn to better cope with your problems, trust yourself, and actually begin to feel your own feelings instead of someone else’s.The book contains many quotes from the Twelve Step model and makes many references to God and a Higher Power. The Twelve Step references seemed appropriate at first but I didn't expect to see chapter(s) dedicated to the program. While the parts about the Twelve Step Program offer a good preview for those considering meetings for codependents, it started feeling like a sales pitch. I could have done without so many theistic references, and even though the author states that these references are spiritual but not religious, they felt religious. A friend, Scott Egleston, who is a professional in the mental health field, told me a therapy fable. He heard it from someone, who heard it from someone else. It goes: As long as it doesn’t pry into other people’s lives and prevent others from doing that too, it’ll be fine. If you put your interest upfront, you don’t have to feel ashamed, because there is nothing wrong with being a little selfish. Being dependable is a good thing in relationships, but like all things, there is a balance. How much do you give to your partner, and how much do your wants and needs remain a priority?

Suppose you’re not clear or familiar with something like codependency. How could you be aware of negative codependent behaviors and the commonly believed good intentions behind them that may negatively impact relationships?Glennon Doyle, We Can Do Hard Things podcast Melody Beattie is an American phenomenon . . . she understands being overboard, which helps her throw best-selling lifelines to those still adrift What’s not good? When “a person who relies upon a codependent does not learn how to have an equal, two-sided relationship and often comes to rely upon another person’s sacrifices and neediness.” Going Forward to a Healthier Relationship Also the heavy emphasis on 12-steps and God was really off-putting to me. I think the title of this book should have reflected the fact it was primarily geared towards alcoholics and/or children of alcoholics. The fact that she mentions other groups doesn't matter much if 90% of the book is spent referring to codependents as people who have encountered some form of addiction. After the lists, I actually put this one down but I did skim ahead a bit to see if anything else was of interest to me (nope). On the inside, codependents have this innate urge to ingratiate themselves with society and are portrayed often as benevolent and kind. As stated in the book, the progressive nature of codependency can define it as a disease.