What if your loyalty to others led you to abandon yourself?
Exploring how codependent patterns can quietly fuel addiction—and what it means to reclaim your sense of self.
Addiction is often viewed as a personal battle with substances or behaviours, but it rarely exists in isolation. Beneath the surface of most addictions are complex emotional and relational dynamics that both shape and sustain the addiction behaviours. One of the most common, yet often overlooked, influences is codependency.
Understanding the connection between addiction and codependent behaviours can open new pathways to healing, not just for the person with the addiction, but for the people who love and support them.
What Is Codependency?
Codependency is a maladaptive behavioural pattern in which a person consistently prioritizes the needs, emotions, or behaviours of someone else over their own, often to their own detriment. It’s marked by enabling, people-pleasing, poor boundaries, low self-worth, and a deep need for approval or control.
Codependent behaviours are often rooted in early life experiences, growing up in a chaotic or emotionally unavailable environment, being parentified as a child, or feeling responsible for others' emotions or actions - much of which is present when a family is impacted by addiction. These patterns can become so deeply ingrained that individuals may not recognize how they influence their adult relationships.
The Cycle: How Codependency and Addiction Feed Each Other
Addiction and codependency often develop together in a toxic dance where each behaviour reinforces the other. Here's how:
Many people with addiction histories describe early life experiences filled with unmet emotional needs, inconsistent caregivers, or pressure to care for others at a young age. These conditions create a breeding ground for codependent traits, such as self-neglect, emotional suppression, and seeking validation through external means. Substances or addictive behaviours can become a way to cope with the internal pressure of managing others' needs while ignoring their own.
As addiction progresses, relationships often shift into survival mode. Loved ones may take on the role of rescuer, caretaker, or enabler in an attempt to “help” or “save” the person with addiction. While these intentions are usually loving, they can blur boundaries, reinforce unhealthy behaviours, and prevent natural consequences that are often essential for recovery.
Meanwhile, the person with addiction may become increasingly reliant on others to shield them from reality, deepening their own codependent patterns — needing constant reassurance, avoiding emotional responsibility, and manipulating relationships for their survival.
Both addiction and codependency involve attempts to regulate overwhelming emotions such as fear, shame, loneliness, and rejection, often without the tools to do so in healthy ways. Whether through substances or relationships, both parties may seek control, escape, or external validation rather than addressing their emotional wounds.
Recognizing the Signs of Codependency in Addiction
In the person with addiction:
Using substances to numb guilt, shame, or low self-worth
Staying in toxic or dependent relationships to avoid abandonment
Feeling responsible for others’ happiness
Avoiding conflict at all costs
In the loved one or caregiver:
Prioritizing the person’s recovery or stability above their own well-being
Trying to control or "fix" the person's addiction
Feeling anxious or resentful when their help is not appreciated
Believing their worth is tied to their ability to save or support others
Healing Requires Addressing Both
Recovery from addiction isn't just about stopping substance use. It's about learning to live in truth, build healthy relationships, and care for oneself. Similarly, healing from codependency means learning to set boundaries, practice self-care, and accept that we are not responsible for another person’s choices or healing.
If codependent patterns aren’t addressed, they can sabotage the recovery process for both the person with addiction and their loved ones. Many people relapse not because of the drug itself, but because of unresolved emotional pain, guilt, or unhealthy relational patterns.
Prevalence and Risk of Co-Occurrence
Research shows that addiction and codependency frequently co-exist. Approximately 50% of individuals with substance use disorders also display codependent behaviours, and up to 64% of family members of people with addiction experience high levels of codependency. Women are especially affected — some studies suggest up to 80% of identified codependent individuals are female.
In recovery settings, nearly half of all participants report traits of codependency, including emotional suppression, poor boundaries, and self-neglect. This co-occurrence can complicate treatment, as the relational dynamics that sustain addiction often persist — even in early recovery — unless explicitly addressed.
Recognizing this overlap helps clinicians and families tailor recovery plans that include relational healing, not just behavioural change.
(https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0022042616659761)
Moving Toward Recovery — Together
Recovery is a relational journey. Here are some steps for healing both addiction and codependency:
Therapy or counselling: A trauma-informed counsellor can help both parties explore the roots of their behaviours, develop healthier coping mechanisms, and create boundaries that support long-term recovery.
Support groups: 12-step programs or peer support groups offer safe spaces for loved ones, as well as those recovering from substance use.
Boundaries: Learning to set and respect healthy boundaries is a cornerstone of recovery for both people.
Self-connection: Whether it’s through journaling, mindfulness, or spiritual practices, reconnecting to one's own emotions and needs is key.
Mutual responsibility: Each person must take ownership of their own healing. Recovery is not something one person can do for another.
Addiction and codependency are not moral failings — they are survival strategies that once served a purpose but now cause harm. Understanding the deep connection between the two can bring compassion, clarity, and hope to those caught in the cycle.
