Part 4: Working Ourselves to Death

Portraits of Workaholism

The old saying that addiction is a cunning, baffling and powerful disease certainly rings true in the case of work addiction. Work addiction can manifest in many ways by infiltrating one or more parts of a person’s life. This entry will explore three of six common expressions or forms of workaholism. Notice how sneaky a work addiction can be and how, if left unchecked, it will piggy back on just about any area of a carrier’s life.

The Paid Workaholic:
This is the most traditional form of work addiction. It can affect both “White Collar” and “Blue Collar” workers. Paid Workaholics have figured out that their productivity on the job has many rewards. The harder they work the more kudos they get. People acting out their work addiction on the job will receive all sorts of perks that can include financial gain, promotions and more responsibilities. This, in turn, may drive the Paid Workaholic toward levels of production that are difficult to sustain for extended periods of time. Thus, the Paid Workaholic creates an unsustainable job situation that will eventually unravel. When this happens, the Paid Workaholic experiences a tremendous letdown. The mantra of the Paid Workaholic is, “I am what I do.” So, when a Paid Workaholic doesn’t produce as much and can’t seem to have success, this is taken personally and might eventually lead the Paid Workaholic into recovery.

The Fitness Fanatic:
When work addiction invades the fitness center, it often produces a Fitness Fanatic. Like any other fanatic, the Fitness Fanatic is a person marked or motivated by an extreme, unreasoning enthusiasm for his or her cause. The Fitness Fanatic finds that an over exaggerated and almost compulsive dedication to his/her particular form of exercise(s) produces results. These results give him/her a definite advantage over and above others (superiority) and thus reinforces the hunger for more. The mantra of the Fitness Fanatic is “I am my results.” Thus, the fitness fanatic perpetuates his or her addiction by always doing more. When a Fitness Fanatic hits plateaus in making progress, this often leads him/ her into a mild depression. If a Fitness Fanatic gets injured while exercising, s/he may continue to exercise in spite of obvious negative consequences.

The Hurried Sick:
Work addiction may permeate every area of life and produce a form of workaholism best described as the Hurried Sick. The Hurried Sick workaholic is constantly overbooked. S/he believes that mass production is the name of the game and so s/he will not leave any room in the calendar for mistakes or hang-ups in his / her itinerary. Thus, the Hurried Sick person often finds him/herself needing to be in two places at the same time. This type of behavior may seem unrealistic and self-defeating. However, the mantra of the Hurried Sick is, “I am only as good as the pace I keep.” Thus, the fast pace of the Hurried Sick produces the desired effects of anxiety, worry and a full-flowing adrenaline rush.

These three forms of work addiction do not have any respect for race, ethnicity or socioeconomic status. Any person coming from dysfunctional family of origin conditions can gravitate toward a work addiction just as easily as they might gravitate toward an addiction to an ingested substance such as alcohol or nicotine.

If you are working yourself to death, The Bridge to Recovery can help you put the brakes on your addiction. For more information about our program, please call 877-866-8661 or visit our website at http://www.thebridgetorecovery.com/.

Stay tuned for our next blog entry as we explore three other forms a work addiction might take.

Part 2: Working Ourselves to Death

In our last reading, we looked at some of the characteristics of those who are work addicted. Now we will take a look beneath the surface and explore why one might be working him or herself to death. Much of our addictive tendencies begin when we are young. While growing up, there might be other influences on a person’s life, but the strongest influence, for better or for worse, is the family of origin. When children are growing up in families where certain dynamics exist, it can be an incubator for addiction. Here are some of the most salient contributing factors to the birth of an addictive process like workaholism.

Inordinate and Consistent Preoccupation of the Family’s Primary Caregivers : Some workaholics grew up in families where one or both parents were overly preoccupied with some activity, thought process or addiction which prevented them from being fully present. This kind of preoccupation is indicative of some degree of emotional cutting off or cutting back. In other words, members of the family have unresolved issues that prevent them from being fully present. This type of environment can have an adverse effect on the children growing up in it because it leads them to believe that they themselves must be the problem. If that is the case, the children tend to think they must win their parents’ approval. Thus, an addiction to doing in order to earn love begins forming in a child’s life.

Unexpressed Trauma experienced by the Family of Origin: There are times when a family will experience some type of significant loss, trauma or severance of relationship and not have the resources to deal with it in a healthy fashion. Some examples of this include but are not limited to:

• Death
• Lengthy or major illness
• Divorce
• Abandonment
• Bankruptcy
• Termination of employment creating economic hardship

One way people attempt to work through the pain of loss is by becoming busy and refusing to talk. Busyness keeps a family’s mind off the loss they’ve experienced. When you stay busy, you don’t have to talk. When busyness and silence are modeled to the children as a way to cope with pain and loss, then it can naturally download into the next generation as they seek for ways to cope with any of the pain and losses they will experience.

Rigid Rules and Roles: The family adopted some form of demanding and yet self-defeating rules and roles that seemed normal but nonetheless, hindered the free flow of personal creativity, spontaneity, freedom, growth and appropriate expressions of love, nurture and respect among family members.

All three of these can contribute to the making of a workaholic. If you grew up in a family with any or all of the abovementioned, then there is a chance that you too might be struggling with an addiction to work. The Bridge to Recovery is a residential treatment facility specializing in treating people with codependent tendencies and process oriented addictions like workaholism. For more information on how we can help, give us a call at 877-866-8661 or visit us online at www.thebridgetorecovery.com.

Part 5: You Might Be a Codependent IF...

We have been exploring five contributing factors to codependence. You might be a codependent if you grew up in a family system where there was an untreated addict or codependent. Additionally, you might be a codependent if you grew up in a family where there was abuse of any kind. You might also be a codependent if you grew up in a family system where your primary caregivers abandoned you. Now we will explore the fifth contributing factor.

5.) You might be a codependent if you grew up in an enmeshed family system.

In relationship to human behavior, enmeshment is a way of relating where there is a lack of personal boundary space. This lack of personal space is not only physical. It is also mental and emotional space.

Enmeshed people lack a sense of personal identity. Typically, they have difficulty recognizing where one person begins and another ends. They suffer from a condition that some experts refer to as an undifferentiated ego mass. That is, they are unable to think or act independently. They are so linked together that when Person A in the relationship does something embarrassing, Person B is the one who feels embarrassed.

It may also mean that there is little to no room for any sort of disagreement. Thus, each person says “yes” in the relationship all the time. When this happens, more and more “self” is given up for the sake of the enmeshed relationship. Enmeshed people may be locked together and be completely miserable. When that is the case, the relationship is intense and can be both verbally and physically abusive.

Enmeshment is one way of reacting to abandonment. Thus, the compulsion to enmesh is typically fueled by intense fear and anxiety about losing someone. Primary caregivers who enmesh with their children may have been abandoned when they were children or may have been currently abandoned by their significant other. Whatever the variables may be, the tendency toward enmeshment is always enacted upon out of fear.

People who were raised in family systems where there has been enmeshment may lean toward codependence because they have not been given the space needed to mature and to cultivate personal identity. Thus, they remain dependent on the ones with whom they are enmeshed. The Bridge to Recovery can assist people from enmeshed family systems. One major aspect of our work is guiding people toward finding their unique identities apart from others and to recapture the internal experience of treasuring one’s own preciousness.

The Bridge to Recovery helps people break free from the pain in adulthood caused by unresolved issues, wounds and trauma in childhood. To learn more, give us a call at 877-866-8661 or visit us online at www.thebridgetorecovery.com.

Part 2: You Might Be a Codependent IF...

In the last blog entry, we set forth five contributing factors to codependency. They are as follows:

• Growing up in a family system that was / is governed by an addict.
• Growing up in a family system that was / is governed by an untreated codependent.
• Growing up in a family system where there is / has been abuse in any or all of its different forms.
• Growing up in a family system where there is / has been some form of emotional or physical abandonment.
• Growing up in a family system that was / is enmeshed.

Our last blog entry also focused on the first of the abovementioned five. This blog entry explores the second contributing factor:

2. Growing up in a family system where there’s an untreated codependent. Let me remind you that one way to talk about codependency is by describing it as the experience of being an immature child in an adult body. When you slow this description down and allow it to sink in, there are a few observations one might make.

First, it is described as an experience. In other words, it is something that is known, felt and familiar. However, because you find yourself right in the middle of the experience, it is difficult to believe that there are other ways of putting life together. The experience, for better or worse, becomes familiar and therefore reassuring. The experience seems normal.

Second, it is described as the experience of being an immature child. Knowing, feeling and being familiar with immaturity is what seems right and normal to the codependent. Please note that immaturity is not a value judgment. When someone is immature, it does not mean that he or she is a bad person. It simply means that there is more growing up to do. So, in that sense, the experience of being an immature child speaks to the fact that you were deprived of the resources you needed to go on to maturity. Put in another way, you were not nurtured appropriately by your adult caregivers. When you lack maturity, it means that you lack the resources to view and act upon life’s circumstances as a grown up.

Perhaps one of the best ways to view this experience of being an immature child is to pay attention to children. My son is seven years old. When he is deprived of something he wants like a toy or to play video games, he predictably acts like a child. And as a child he is liable to do a number of things. I have observed him throw stuff at the wall, pout, beg on his knees and express himself quite loudly. His reactions are typically “over the top” and very much like the reactions of any immature child. If all goes according to plan, my son will continue being nurtured and given the resources needed to grow up. Then by the time he reaches adulthood, he will be able to navigate deprivation as a grown up. Let’s envision what that might look like.

Twenty years from now, I can envision my son as an adult being able to accept his circumstances as they are given to him. I can also envision him being able to make the needed adjustments to his attitude and actions in order to handle life on life’s terms. I can see him reaching out to others to express his feelings both moderately and appropriately. If his anger is heightened, I can envision him being able to express it and not let it fester. I can also see him taking the necessary measures to delay gratification and being willing to wait for other opportunities. This is how I can envision my adult son handling being deprived of toys and video games.

When a person is an untreated codependent, as an adult s/he will often find him or herself reverting back to childish ways of thinking and behaving whenever s/he feels deprived. This is especially true when trying to raise a family. If you grew up in a family with one or more untreated codependents, then you yourself may be operating out of the experience of being an immature child in an adult body. There is help for people with codependence and codependent tendencies. The Bridge to Recovery offers medium to long-term residential care and treatment for people who are sick and tired of being governed by their insatiable neediness due to a lack of childhood nurturing. WE CAN HELP. Visit our website at http://www.thebridgetorecovery.com/ or call us at 877-866-8661.

Part 1: You Might be a Codependent IF...

If you came through The Bridge, then chances are you were awakened to the reality that codependence is the experience of being an immature child trapped in an adult body. This makes plenty of sense because when our growth in childhood is stunted by any number and combination of phenomena, our attempts to go on to maturity will be frustrated.

They will remain frustrated until we consciously begin the process of growing up. This blog entry is a simple reminder of some of the common experiences that can make people vulnerable to codependence and lead them straight toward the experience of being that immature child trapped in an adult body. Over the next couple of weeks, I will expand on these. For now, I will simply list them all and then write in more detail about the first.

Here are some of the prevailing experiences that if left unexplored, they can lead toward a lifetime of codependence:
1. Growing up in a family system that was / is governed by an addict.
2. Growing up in a family system that was / is governed by an untreated codependent.
3. Growing up in a family system where there is / has been abuse in any or all of its different forms.
4. Growing up in a family system where there is / has been some form of emotional or physical abandonment.
5. Growing up in a family system that was / is enmeshed.

These are all key ingredients that can contribute to a person's codependence. Now, let's spend a little more time taking an indepth look at #1.

1.) If you grew up in a family system that resembled a dictatorship run by its sickest member, then you may be a prime candidate for codependence. Growing up with an addict of any kind is stressful and it leads one to believe he / she is not worthy of time, love and attention. When the addict in a family system is the overbearing focus, it can be an emotionally crippling experience for other family members in that system.

Growing up in the home of an addict can lead you toward the experience of being an immature child in an adult body because your value as a person is brought into question on a consistent basis. When that is the case, you are forced to grow up too soon in order to get your needs met. It is important to remember that this phenomenon is not just reserved for people growing up in homes where the addict is addicted to ingested substances (i.e. -- drugs and alcohol). The addiction could be to any person, place, process or thing that happens to require inordinate amounts of attention and preoccupation on the part of the one who is using it.

If the addiction prevents the addict from engaging in intimate and nurturing relationships and fulfilling his / her routine responsibilities, then this can pose a unique set of problems for the rest of the addict's family members. These problems will ultimately manifest in a predictable form that many experts call codependence.

If you suspect that you grew up in a family of origin where an addict was "running the show", there is a good chance that you are encountering life situations that you find overwhelming, highly stressful and quite unmanageable. This is due to the fact that you were forced to grow up too soon. Thus, you are having the experience of being an immature child trapped in an adult body. The Bridge to Recovery can help. For more information about our program, please visit us at http://www.thebridgetorecovery.com/.

Watch for our next blog entry as we discuss how growing up in a home with an untreated codependent can actually perpetuate your own codependence even after you have left your childhood family system behind.