Addiction, Codependency & Love Martyrs | Why Saving Them Is Destroying You

What does that mean? A love martyr. I'm going to love you. I'm going to fix you. I'm going to make you the way I know you have to be or I'm going to die trying. And there's a clinical term for that, by the way. You know what it's called? A Jewish mother. By the way, the clinical term, by the way, is a codependent. I learned on one at one moment I haven't had an epiphany. And I realized that I could double my comedic repertoire in one moment when I realized that all of the codependent jokes they tell in recovery are identical with the Jewish mother jokes that the Jews tell. So you can just swap them. And then I doubled my comedic repertoire. Like yeah, codependent jokes, Jewish mother jokes, the same the same jokes. Like how many Jewish mothers does it take to uh screw in a light bulb? Don't worry about me. I'll sit in the dark. Or um codependent one. What's the last thing a codependent sees before he dies? Somebody else's life flashes before his eyes. Okay, so basically you're talking about somebody who says, "Honey, I'm here for you. I'm going to fix you. My life is about you. I have no life. No, I don't deserve a life. My life's on hold because I'm I'm taking care of you and uh and I'm going to die trying to fix you." And uh it's painfully painfully painfully true. I mean, when I say I'm going to die trying to fix you, I don't I don't mean it as hyperbole. And I don't know what the, you know, medical examiners write down as cause of death when people go to their grave having put their entire life on hold trying to save somebody else from their own dysfunction. But it's a serious, it's not a joke. The misery, the living hell on earth. I get a lot of calls still. I get a lot of calls from people who are dealing with addiction in the family. I never asked for this. I never put out I never put up a shingle. I'm not an expert by any stretch. I wrote a book on addiction and recovery. But it's all this and I make it very clear that that's what it is. But nevertheless, I get a lot of calls. People call me with questions about addiction and I try to send them to the appropriate help. 80% of the calls I get are not from addicts. They're from friends and family or mostly family of addicts. And it's very difficult to answer a question to the person who's trying to fix somebody else's problem. But let me just tell you classically what happens. They'll call me up. They'll say, "We have a problem. It's my mother, my father, my wife, my husband, my son, my daughter, my brother, my sister, whoever it is. They're out of control. We tried this, we tried that. We went to experts, we spent all this money, we don't know what to do. What What can we do? I've had this call so many times of, you know, I'm used to it. What I've realized is probably the most efficient way to streamline the conversation is I ask I ask a question because I know I can't give solutions to somebody about somebody else. So what am I supposed to tell the person who's calling? They're calling about somebody else. I'm supposed to what I can only offer the person who I'm talking to something that they can do for themsel. I can't offer you something to do for somebody else. You know there's free choice, right? Free choice. Free choice is the freedom to choose your own behavior, not to choose other people's behavior. No matter how right you think you are, no, no matter how right you know you are. And even if a voice from heaven will come forth and and confirm that you're right, your free choice still only extends to your own behavior. You can't you can't choose how somebody else is going to behave. Even if you're watching them spiral into destruction. So I asked the question. I asked them, "Let me ask you something. I'm sure that you're not calling me right now on a good day, right? You're picking up the phone. You're calling out for help. You're probably at a low point right now. Maybe even the lowest so far. Probably a lot of insanity, a lot of drama going on right now. A lot of fear, panic, dread. And I say all of these things because I'm just for a couple of reasons. One is I'm trying to let them know that I'm not minimizing the situation. I know how crazy it is. But secondly, I I'm I'm I'm telling them to save time because every story is the same story. I mean, the the details might be different, but the same story. the roller coaster, the the the the raised hopes and then the crash and then the the the disappointment and the betrayal. It's the same story every time. So I say, I know you're going through insanity, through drama. Sometimes I call it the roller coaster. I know you're on a roller coaster. So my question for you is this. If there were a way that you could get your serenity back, get your life back, even if your loved one doesn't change, would you be interested in that? Now, I'm going to ask you something. Let's say that I've had that phone call 100 times. I would guess it's a lot more than 100, but for easy math, let's say that I've had that conversation a 100 times. How many times out of a hundred do you think the answer is? Yes. I'm interested. Let me hear about that. >> 100%. >> I'd say I'd say five. >> So, this is a realistic crowd over here. I heard zero and I heard five. I'd guess it's somewhere between zero and five. Yeah. >> 100. Present the word of >> No, it's between zero and five. >> Yeah. It's not zero. No, it's a few. Maybe three or four out of 100. But 95 96 97% easily easily will say to me, "No, no, I'm not interested. No, that's not what I want." And even if you reiterate it to them, you know, just to make sure they understood the options behind door number one, I mean, I don't mind I I don't mean to to trivialize it. I'm not trying to be funny, but Okay, option number one is you continue on the roller coaster. the insanity of trying to fix this person. And option number two is you get your life back. You get your serenity back. You get yourself back and they say, "No, no, I don't want that." Okay, so that's a love martyr and it's no joke. People die from this. Like I said, I don't know what the medical examiner writes as the cause of death, but people die from this. They go to early graves from this. They drive themselves and their entire family and sometimes entire community insane. And it's not from a lack of love. It's from an abundance of love. The love that says, "I know what's good for you and I must make sure that that's what you get." I mean, it sounds so simple. Live and let live. Live and let live. Sounds simple, but there's it becomes an obsession. I call it being addicted to the addict. You know, just like the addict is obsessed with getting that next fix that makes you feel like life is okay. Life is okay, right? For a second, for however long the high lasts. So, being addicted to the addict means there's that one moment where you feel in control, right? Where you, you know, you check their cell phone messages or where you called someone and who says, "I saw where they are." or you go through their you go through their their wallets while they're asleep and whatever it is the detective work that you have to play to to feel like you have that control like you're keeping tabs on them like you know KGB stuff you know what's h oh oh that moment that illusion of oh they're safe oh they're okay oh and it's and it's it's being addicted to the addict is addicted to that feeling that momentary fleeting false feeling that everything's okay everything's under control when the truth is no it's not under control I mean not under your control. It's under God's control. And the recovery from this obsession, this addiction to the addict is to detach and release that person to the love and care of God who is in control. You know, they say detach is an acronym. D E T A C H. Detach. Don't even try and change him or her. Let go. And let go is not abandonment. Let go is let go of expectations. A lot of people I hear, they get so burnt out they become hardened. Their hearts become hard and then they say, "Well, you know what? I was a people pleaser and now my my recovery from being a people pleaser is I have to be a jerk." They don't say I have to be a jerk, but sometimes they do actually, but they you know, no, I have to say no. It's toxic for me to say yes. And and that's unfortunate because what was doing harm was not the kindness. It wasn't that you were being kind to someone. It was that you were being kind in exchange for the illusion of control. The kindness wasn't really gratuitous kindness. It wasn't for fun and for free. The love was a manipulative way of feeling like I can assure myself that this person is going to behave the way I know that they need to behave. >> Always. >> Yeah. Every single time. 100%. By the way, never believe a categorical statement. No. But enough of the time. It's all everything's on a spectrum. Everything's on a continuum. The question is how far how far along the continuum are you? And that of course is for each person to examine in consultation with someone who's objective, a spiritual guide, someone who knows your life. And sometimes we really do reach a place where our motives are clean and we can give lovingly with no strings attached. Rabbi Akiva was able to do that. His students weren't. We can aspire to it. But to the extent that we're lacking and that we're still controlling instead of truly loving or using love manipulatively to control, then we should be aware of it. We should be aware of it and we should consciously try to cut it out. Stop it. Let go.