Leaving the Enchanted Forest: The Path from Relationship Addiction to Intimacy PDF
Preview Leaving the Enchanted Forest: The Path from Relationship Addiction to Intimacy
LEAVING THE ENCHANTED FOREST The Path from Relationship Addiction to Intimacy Stephanie Covington and Liana Beckett We dedicate this book to our readers. May it become a pathfinder’s companion on the journey to the personal rediscovery of an intimate, separate self in wholesome relationship. Contents Acknowledgments Introduction Prologue: Once Upon a Time Part I: The Path into the Forest 1. The Love Potion: Chemistry and Dependence 2. The Silver Cord: Family History Exercises 3. The Enchanted Garden: Rediscovering Your Inner Child Exercises 4. Spellbound: Past Roles in the Present Exercises Part II: The Path into the Light 5. Steppingstones: The Building of Relationship Exercies 6. The First Milestone: Friendship Exercises 7. The Turn Away from Enchantment: Love and Intimacy Exercises 8. The Gift of the Path: Recovery Appendices Notes Copyright Acknowledgments Copyright About the Publisher Introduction Much new ground has been broken in the addiction field in the past decade. Starting from a core of work on alcoholism and drug addictions, the echoes of this pursuit have spread to other, more diffuse addictions. In the past four years the public has come to realize that whether the “addictive substance” is alcohol, food, work, money, or another person, the underlying addictive process is essentially the same. Women, especially, have identified with relationship addiction. Many were jolted into realizing that the problems associated with their unhealthy dependence on their partners was anything but unique, and that their unhappy relationships had identifiable causes and predictable courses and consequences. But once convinced, these same women found themselves at a loss for healthier alternatives, for better frames of reference, for new models, for finer discriminations—for healing themselves and the generational cycle of family addictions and dysfunctional relationships. What is an optimally functioning family? What are the signs of a healthy relationship? What are its elements? Will I know a positive one when I see one? What do I look for in selecting a partner? Will I know a desirable one when I see one? What do I need—and how do I need to change—to be in a relationship that is both healthy and satisfying? These are legitimate questions, and they are universal. The complexity of our lives and times places tremendous stress on relationships. Today, people change jobs, home, and community more often than in the past. The more frequent willingness of professional women to relocate in pursuit of promotions and career paths adds a new dimension of intricacy to their relationships. And, living as we do in the United States of the late 1980s, we also live in an age of compulsivity, a frenetic activity-oriented climate that encourages and venerates excess, volume, and hyperbole. “Conspicuous consumption” may be an outdated term, but its reality is very much with us. Endlessly in pursuit of new highs, we drink, eat, smoke, pop pills, spend, and travel more per capita than anyone else on the planet. The legal mood-altering drug industry alone grossed $13.5 billion in 1985. And research shows that, despite the liberated 1970s, more people are having more sexual problems—the increase is particularly notable in difficulties of inhibited sexual desire. Small wonder. We attempt to numb the gaping void inside with the quick fix of sex, drugs, and excitement, when what we really long for is intimate contact with others and with our higher selves. Today, you don’t have to qualify as a relationship addict to find it difficult to maintain a good relationship. And you don’t need to have grown up in a dysfunctional family to wonder what makes for a healthy relationship or what makes the hard work of building a satisfying one worthwhile. The new focus on relationship addictions has sparked an intense scrutiny of all relationships and a public appetite for safe forums in which to discuss and work through issues of dependence and of unhealthy relating with the support of others with similar needs and goals. More people are going into psychotherapy with the stated goal to improve their relationships. Even people who come to therapy for other reasons spend much of the session working on relationship issues. Unhealthy relating is commonly rooted in one’s family of origin. Dysfunctional family systems come disguised in many packages; alcohol is merely one of many possible sources of dysfunction. One parent may have been emotionally unavailable because of extended physical or mental illness; another may have created an unstable, unpredictable environment because of emotional immaturity; yet another may have been victimized by economic and sociocultural deprivation and discrimination, with the family experiencing the severely stressful impact of psychological and physical deprivation of a society of plenty. Naturally, depending on these and many other factors, the degree of dysfunction also varies within each family. It must also be remembered that the concept of “dysfunction” is relative—it reflects the times and the social context. For example, relationships that would have seemed perfectly acceptable, perhaps even desirable, in the 1950s, may be considered dysfunctional or unhealthy today. All in all, there seems to be a void of information, of guidelines and models, not only for the people who tend to become addicted to others or whose partners are themselves addicts of one kind or another, but for all those who are struggling to have better relationships in a world characterized by turmoil and unpredictability. Leaving the Enchanted Forest is our attempt to narrow this gap. Models for new, healthier relationships are, in fact, around—not as many as we’d like yet, because the perspective is new and change is often difficult and slow. Also, because we live in an emotionally closed society and people want to protect their privacy, we are often unaware of the intricacies and challenges couples close to us are facing. We have known several of the couples we introduce in these pages personally and professionally; they have carefully and lovingly built lasting relationships that work for them and that support both partners’ growth. Their relationships are models—not in the sense of “blueprints” that can be duplicated like cookbook recipes, but rather of guides for a process that leads to individual solutions that work well for that particular couple. In writing this book, our primary aim has been to address the need of readers—especially women—to go one step beyond the awareness of being in unhealthy relationships in which they give away their personal power and sense of self. Many of you now are eager to develop new relationship skills and to channel creatively your newly discovered desire for self-empowerment and self-renewal. Leaving the Enchanted Forest addresses these needs by giving you the opportunity to review past and present relationships, thoughtfully reevaluate your personal beliefs and assumptions, and clarify who you are, what you need, what you want. For those who like structured activities to help them organize their thoughts, most chapters include exercises, writing activities, and experiential practices. These end-of-chapter activities can be used individually or by facilitators of groups for relationship addicts in recovery. The book also includes information we hope will round out what you already know about addictions and family systems—including distinguishing characteristics of optimal families. However, we wish to appeal to those of you who may not relate to an alcoholic or otherwise dysfunctional family of origin. Don’t put this book down because the terms don’t seem to fit. Much of the time we do refer to the chemical dependency model to make a point. It is an excellent analogy for relationship addictions, one that will resonate with many readers— especially chemically dependent women in recovery for whom relationship addiction becomes a substitute for alcohol addiction. It is also a model we are familiar with in our work and through our belief in the power of twelve-step groups to heal both the addiction and the spirit. However, we also believe the information, activities, and inner work that Leaving the Enchanted Forest stimulates stand on their own. In contrast to other, similar books, many of the vignettes we have selected illustrate subtler, often neglected manifestations of dysfunction. We believe our approach will be of value to anyone who wants to gain a fresh perspective on what it means to love oneself while loving another —and is willing to work to develop the skills that can make it happen. At stake is nothing less than your ability to invest a more insightful, healthy, powerful, and freely choosing self in your present and future relationships. Throughout, we have added a sociocultural dimension—looking beyond the family to factors inherent in the socialization of women that predispose them to dependent relationships. We have also chosen to move beyond the traditional relationship model of courtship and marriage. Over the past fifteen or twenty years, the structure of relationships has undergone major changes for large segments of our population. Some of our old traditions have been questioned; many of our psychotherapy clients struggle to find relationship options that suit them best, though they may be untraditional. Therefore, in order to reflect today’s extraordinary diversity of people’s lives, the vignettes and examples in this book describe a variety of relationship styles—including same-sex relationships. Because women identify much more readily with relationship addictions than men, the examples in the book are about women, and we have used the female pronoun throughout. However, this is not to deny that many men, past and present, are attached to women in addictive ways. The literature and opera librettos include many such male relationship addicts—Porgy in Porgy and Bess, and Don Giosé in Carmen, for example. (A notable difference is that, when the man is the addict, the woman he is addicted to is usually portrayed as an evil temptress.)
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