What goes around comes around, an energetic dynamic you can mobilize

It is very important to have all this very clear because the temptation will be to ask the psychologist to take the toolbox and go directly to fix the patient, the husband, who has not asked to be fixed. Actually, he has not asked for any help yet. In this example, the codependent wife rightly asks support to manage better the emotional storm that her husband's alcoholism is generating. It could be argued that it is the dependent husband who is asking for help but not explicitly and should not be left out of therapy. How many people get to say they have done everything they ever wanted to do in life, like their entire bucket list? Amanda's last eight days were spent in an amazing hospice facility, the Ryan House in Phoenix. We created a galaxy of stars on the ceiling of her room, and they had a pool, a movie theater room, and a beautiful kitchen. She loved it and asked why we hadn't brought her to this place before because it was so happy there. I don't know, sweet girl, I said. But I'm glad it's a happy place for you now. Family flew in from New York, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Albuquerque, so that Amanda could spend her last days totally surrounded by people who knew and loved her. The Ryan House was so accommodating and even let our family sleep there. Each night, when we gathered in the kitchen to prepare a meal, we fed anyone else who was staying at the Ryan House or had friends and family visiting because that's just the Italian thing to do. Amanda fought for nine months until she passed away, two weeks before her thirteenth birthday. The assumption had been that the ill chose to end their lives because they were in terrible pain. But Breitbart and his colleagues found that wasn't always the case. Instead, those who desired a hastened death reported feelings of meaninglessness, depression, and hopelessness. They were living in an existential vacuum. When Breitbart asked patients why they wanted a prescription for assisted suicide, many said it was because they had lost meaning in life. Breitbart knew he could treat depression--there were medicines and well-developed psychotherapies for that--but he was stumped when it came to treating meaninglessness.

Then, in 1995, he began to see a way forward. He was invited to join the Project on Death in America, which aimed to improve the experience of dying. Breitbart and his colleagues on the project--who included philosophers, a monk, and other physicians--had long conversations about death and the meaning of life, peppered with references to people like Nietzsche and Kierkegaard and Schopenhauer, Breitbart said. What I suddenly discovered, Breitbart explained, was the importance of meaning--the search for meaning, the need to create meaning, the ability to experience meaning--was a basic motivating force of human behavior. By identifying the fear consciously, you, as consciousness, weaken its structure. Now, identify what it is that you love. This will help shift your emotional state from one that is anxiety-ridden to one that is loving. For example: I am afraid that my family member will suffer or lack. What is it that you love? I love my family member. What can you do to demonstrate that love in light of the fear? I can ask them if there is anything I can do for them or provide for them so they are content and taken care of. Again, this is just an example. Do what works best for you. This statement is partly true, but no help can be experienced as an obligation. So, even in this case, the request for help must go through the main request for help which was that from the wife. How can it be translated into reality? Resorting to the patient, then to her husband, nobody should offer him direct help but should indicate that his wife is suffering so much from his alcoholism, and also that she had to start psychological therapy. So, only once that made it clear who asked for help, the psychologist will be able to ask the alcoholic husband: Knowing that your habits are generating so much suffering in your wife, would you like to join the therapy with her, in order to see how you can help her to get better? Would you like to discuss in therapy how she is experiencing it and what can you do in this sense?

If at that point, the alcoholic husband (patient) wants to participate in therapy, the therapy will make sense. He will see his alcoholism without forcing him, and he will be not acting as a mere poor victim to be saved in the name of codependency. Otherwise, the codependent compulsion of the wife who tries to save her husband will be further enhanced by the intervention of a specialist who will be dancing to the rhythm of codependent's pattern. It may seem like a detail but in fact, it's not. It was a remarkable time even though I hardly remember it. I do remember laying on top of her in her hospice bed, nose to nose, telling her it was okay to go to heaven, that she could go be with Jesus now. When she took her last breath, she almost had this little smile on her mouth. I was looking at her, sobbing, and I was thinking and speaking to God. Okay, you took Lazarus up in three days if you want to bring her back right now, that's the miracle we want. I actually thought that in that moment: Like okay, you can bring her back now if that's what you need for this story, for this testimony of yours. Bring her back. Of course, He didn't. Later that year, a friend of mine, Joni Di Mino, introduced me to Michelle, who had founded the Mother's Grace Foundation. It was the first time since the whole thing began with Amanda's first diagnosis that I met another mother who had been through something like me. We were not taught this stuff at medical school! Breitbart became convinced that if he could help patients build meaning, he could decrease their suicidal thoughts and urges, protect them from depression, improve their quality of life, and make them more hopeful about the future. In short, he believed he could make their lives worth living even to the very end. He developed an eight-session group therapy program where six to eight cancer patients come together in a counseling workshop. Each session, in one way or another, helps build a meaning mindset. In the first session they are asked to reflect on one or two experiences or moments when life has felt particularly meaningful to you--whether it sounds powerful or mundane.

The second session deals with identity BC and AD--that is, with who the individuals were before the cancer diagnosis and who they are after the diagnosis. They are encouraged to respond to the question Who am I? One woman responded saying, I am a daughter, a mother, a grandmother, a sister, a friend and a neighbor. I'm somebody who can be very private and not always share all my needs and concerns. I don't know the particulars of your situation. If it feels right and works for you not to touch the fear or to not identify the fear, then don't. If it feels like you would be putting yourself in harm's way by offering support, I don't encourage it. Just be sure you are noticing the fear if some part of you feels the fear has any level of grip. FINDING WHAT WAS LOST If a fear does come, your presence, your awareness, will notice it. Awareness is like sheep-herding using the most sensitive and soul radar/sonar. The radar/sonar (your presence) indicates when there is a lost, entangled lamb (fear) by creating a blip (uncomfortable emotion) on your radar/sonar equipment (consciousness). If you (the soul) notice the blip intently, then you can gather the lost lamb (fear) back to you. Finding a lamb is like finding a fear. The moment when asking for help from an alcoholic person is the most critical point regarding the chances of success. Especially, because in the first appointment with the psychologist he will say things that he will never repeat. He will never repeat it because if the first meeting goes well the second time he will already talk about other things. While, if the first meeting goes wrong he will assume that it is useless to talk about him with a specialist. As regards the relationship between codependent and alcohol, we can close by pointing out an aspect that could be useful for a codependent who is being questioned today, whether or not he should intervene in the alcoholism problems of an important person. First of all, when we are codependents and we are asking ourselves this doubt, it is already an excellent sign in itself, it means that we haves already started to recover from codependency.

Otherwise, we would be far from asking ourselves this question and we would have already launched ourselves headlong into trying to save the alcoholic. The help we can give as codependents can turn to the things and people that alcohol addiction is neglecting because of its problem. For example, if the addict is neglecting a business, we can look for ways to collaborate and to deal with it to the extent that is possible. If the alcoholic person has young children, we can take care of their primary needs. Up until that time, I had been existing in such a lonely place. I had lost friends I thought I would never lose. It's hard to text people and keep them up to date on what's happening because you just don't want to talk about it more than you absolutely have to, and people don't always get that, no matter how well-meaning they are. It's always bad news, no matter how you spin it, so I didn't want to repeat any of it out loud. Besides, I needed to process things for myself. My husband and I shared things on Facearticle, but I wasn't in a place to make fifty phone calls a day and repeat the same information over and over again. Unfortunately, some people were offended when we didn't return their calls or text them back, but we didn't want to continually talk about it. We couldn't! Amanda's cancer, and all that came with it, had overtaken our lives, and in what little spare time there was, I needed a break. I needed silence and solace and peace, and that can never exist in a whirlwind of phone calls and texting and reporting the latest news. I also have been working on accepting love and affection and other gifts from other people. She reflected on how the illness was changing who she was: I don't like to receive care, but I'm beginning to,. That I'm more accepting of people wanting to do things. In the third and fourth sessions, they share the story of their life with the group. When you look back on your life and upbringing, they are asked, what are the most significant memories, relationships, traditions, and so on, that have made the greatest impact on who you are today? They also discuss their accomplishments and points of pride, and what they still have left to do.