Respect, more importantly for a codependent, the lack of internal self respect.
This is the central issue for all addictive behaviors (and codependency is an addictive behavior).
Internal Self Respect is missing from an addict, it's insidious in that an addict is not really aware of what's missing.
How would you know if you were missing something if you never experienced it?
A codependent could accidentally do functional behavior and never know it?
You might have hit it by mistake and couldn't recognize it.
This lack of self respect is going to be the dominant theme of all my recovery blogs for the next few months.
How does a less than functional person work towards being functional?
baby steps- if all you do is one thing that works towards self respect every day... it compounds like bank interest, after 30 days you do not have 1 item 30 times... what you have is a critical mass reached wherein you couldn't go back to that old addictive behavior pattern if you wanted to.
Last year I posted this article to Repair Manual 4 Self Destructive Behavior:
http://repairmanual4selfdestructivebehavior.blogspot.com/2008/06/being-punitive-is-counter-productive.html
As addicts ( http://crackaddictionrecovery.blogspot.com ) we're already beating ourselves up... we're world class self depracators.
For example, when I was still using, I'd spent most of my cash... http://cocaineregrets.com, but I saved just enough to buy socks. the next week when I'd gotten paid, I repeated the above, but I bought myself underware...
each little symbolic stand you take toward treating yourself with respect will accumulate, there will be a critical mass reached...
more coming, I've got to answer this phone call
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This article is for informational purposes only.
Please contact a licensed professional in your area
if you are in crisis or require mental health services
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