71: Discovering & Breaking Patterns of Underlying Drivers that Enable Addiction with Rene Eram
“There’s no ruler until that addict bottoms out and wakes up into their conscious self, their authentic self, and starts the path of recovery.”
Codependency is a confusing topic under addiction. Numerous ideas branch out that often lead to misunderstanding and eventually, increased harm. Today, Rene Eram joins the stage to enlighten some of the misinformation on codependency and expound on the subject from a different perspective. He explains the nature of roles played out in the drama and points out to these roles as both inherited where one comes out as dominant. These invisible patterns create an obsessive connection that often leads to betrayal, rejection, and abandonment. Rene also discusses the hang-over stage in this type of relationship and nurturing broken programming as a means of coping mechanisms. We all can be addicted to something but this conversation warns mainly on a much destructive form of addiction: progressive addiction. The goal of recovery is to neutralize codependency and move to your authentic self. Don’t miss out on today’s episode.
Highlights:
02:50 Fascination With Invisible Patterns
04:07 Invisible Patterns
06:09 Two Roles: Controller And Dependent
11:16 Codependent Mapping
20:26 Hang-over Stage
24:32 Inherited Pattern Of Codependence
37:12 Being Their Authentic Self
43:49 Self Rescue Mission
Where does love fit in along your journey to recovery? Join @TFRSolutionas he interviews Rene Eram on how to tackle codependency. #controller#dependent#authenticself#programming#relationships#codependency#authenticity Share on X
Resources:
Books
Podcast
Quotes:
21:58 “They’re more lonely in the relationship than they would be single… they don’t know how to move out of the relationship because it’s too painful to stay, too scary to leave.” – Rene Eram
26:47 “If there’s some tension in the relationship or something that doesn’t feel right…it’s easy for children to blame themselves.” -Jeff Jones
32:36 “That controller needs to feel in control to feel safe, so they don’t feel abandoned. That dependent role needs to feel rescued and connected, so they don’t feel bad.” – Rene Eram
35:08 “Families of the addicts learn how to neutralize their codependence…But little adjustments make a huge difference in the relationships.” – Rene Eram
36:26 “We have to take some work. We have to look inside. We have to start questioning our motivations and our behavior and how we’re communicating.” – Rene Eram
48:15 “This conditioning is not their fault, that it’s the way that we survived. We had to go into these roles to survive.” – Rene Eram
About Rene
Rene Eram has been clean and sober since August 1st, 1987. He lives in Idyllwild, California. Over his years of sobriety, he has created and taught a series of original workshops on spirituality, addiction, and codependence. Rene believes that he was an addict long before he ever took his first drink and have struggled with codependent relationships all his life. For the past two decades, it has been his mission to unravel the deep unconscious connection between codependence and addiction and describe in detail their mechanics and destructive networking. Rene is also the author of Addict’s Loop: A New Understanding And Workbook For Codependent Relationships and Addiction. His hope and goal are to help alleviate the disconnection and suffering caused by insidious, codependent relationships and explain how unconscious codependence creates addiction.
Got ideas? Perhaps a future podcast? Schedule time with Jeff here: https://meetme.so/jeffjones
Transcriptions:
Jeff Jones: So welcome everyone, this is Jeff Jones on podcast, Families Navigating Addiction & Recovery. And today I am here with Rene Eram, and I am just meeting him right now. I connected with him on social media or something, and saw that he wrote a book called The Addict’s Loop, which I’ve learned a little bit about enough to peak my curiosity and go, I’m really excited to have this conversation. There’s a lot that I can learn here. So the author of The Addict’s Loop, Rene Eram, his website is www.theaddictsloop.com, and he has a pretty significant Facebook page as well. So welcome Rene.
Rene Eram: Thank you Jeff for having me on your podcast.
Jeff Jones: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Thank you. So if you could start by just talking about who you are so people get a little better sense of who they’re listening to here.
Rene Eram: Well, I’ve been sober 32 years, and this was a full blown alcoholic addict for many years. So my education, my college education was pretty much, I majored in mixed drinks and beer, and minor in cocaine, and so it was through hazy smoke, my college education. But I bottomed out in my late 20’s, and got into recovery, and started my journey. So on about the seventh year of my sobriety, my recovery, I started to become fascinated with the invisible patterns, relationship patterns that were relapsing, 12-step members. And I became so fascinated that I went back to school and studied every model of addiction. Anything that was out there, I started to do workshops, and started to create a model, a CODA addiction model. And that led to my book.
Jeff Jones: Yeah. Wow. I really liked the way you frame that invisible patterns that you were seeing. So can you say a little bit more about what you mean by invisible patterns?
Rene Eram: Well, these were, what I’m seeing is unconscious patterns, at that time was just, they were mysterious because they’re not conscious, they’re unconscious, and they create a gravitation into relationships instead of a choice to be in relationship. There’s a very strong magnetic pole in these Co-Dependents patterns. So my goal was that, I mean, if you go into CODA addiction meeting, they start off the meeting reading 51 different maladaptive codependent patterns, and it’s very overwhelming. Co-dependence is very elusive, confusing, so what I wanted to do was to simplify it, really simplify it, and it took a lot of work but that’s what my book is about. It’s a simple model, and it works something like this, I found that there are two codependent roles that I’ve named the controller, and the dependent. So that controller is an unconscious programming, hereditary programming that we inherit. So that controller is kind of on the throne in the relationship dictating orders. And that dependent role is the subservient. So all these patterns, these maladaptive patterns come from those two roles that gravitate to each other and create a codependent relationship.
Jeff Jones: Yeah, thank you for describing something in a very simple way, which I know can be very complex. I know there’s many books out there about codependency, but it’s really hard to find a definition. So that’s helpful to simplify it, there’s one role that is the controller and the other is dependent. And the other thing I heard you say is there’s just like gravitational pull.
Rene Eram: Right. This is unconsciously, these two roles find each other, and the relationship begins with a lot of euphoria. It’s highly sexual, and then it flips, it turns. And what it is about is the destruction of the relationship, and it has a lot of pain underneath the programming. So it creates this very intense obsessive connection that always leads to betrayal, rejection, and abandonment, which is the addicts loop.
Jeff Jones: Yeah.
Rene Eram: So here’s what the work that I found and discovered in my workshops, I believe most of the population will inherit one of these roles. They’ll inherit the controller role or the dependent role. What I discovered in my workshops is that the addict inherits both roles. The addict inherits both the controller and the dependent role, and rotates them in the relationships. So what’s happening is the addict inherits the complete codependent relationship in their unconscious and uses it as a destructive coping mechanism. And it’s very normalized — little part to that is that, one of the roles is usually dominant. Like, I have a dominant dependent role with a backseat controller, or you’ll find someone that is a dominant control role that has that backseat dependent. So what happens with someone like myself pre-recovery was that I could be in relationships with a controller or independent. So either I’m going in as a controller and rescuing dependent roles in my relationships, or I’m going into relationships with controllers that are rescuing me. And the third part of that is to be with another addict. So now you have double rotation, you have the rescuing and being rescued off and on, rotating in the relationship with two addicts. And it just tears the relationship apart very quickly, it destroys it. So this is in the model that I’m trying to simplify that co-dependence will inherit one role, either the controller or dependent. Addicts and her are both roles and rotate them. And what happens between the role, between the controller and the dependent is the addict’s loop is created. So if you’re a codependent, you’re going to experience the effects of addiction was certain relationships. For instance, if I’m a controller role and I gravitate to a dependent role, I’ll experience the effects of addiction of an obsessive connection that can — rescue that dependent role. There’s this huge connection, and then the relationship flips that starts to unravel into betrayal, rejection, and abandonment until it completely destroys the relationship. So these roles, the controller, the dependent, these codependent role, and the addict are just part of our family trees. And this is part of our generational download, and these roles come down and just like pinballs tagged us, and we’ve normalized it so we don’t even realize that it’s going on.
Jeff Jones: Yeah. Oh, my gosh. When you say inherit, I assume like what I think about is growing up in a family and seeing the behaviors around me, and I learn behavior as opposed to a genetic inheritance. But that’s how I’m seeing it, can you say more about that?
Rene Eram: Well, I created a technique called codependent mapping. And what I’ll do with someone is sit down and write out their family, their family tree, usually starting with their grandparents, and a lot of people don’t remember their grandparents. They’ll start going to their mother and father, their step parents, their siblings, aunts and uncles, anybody that was a major influence in their life, and so we sit down, and then we start to code them. So we find out grandmother was a controller, and 90% of the time that opposite role be across from them. The grandfather is a dependent role, and we’ll get the other family from the father’s side, and we code the grandparents of the siblings. And then we’ll do the parents, we’ll code them. And then the siblings, and the interesting thing when I’ve done these, and I’ve done many of these maps is I watch how codependence how these roles are downloading. And what co-dependence does is it creates the loop in between the relationships. And I’ll give an example in a lot of siblings, let’s say there’s four siblings, if the first sibling is a controller, the next one is usually that dependent role, and then the next sibling is a controller, and then the next one is that dependent role. Or I’ll see the first two siblings are both controller roles, and the next two are dependent roles. But I rarely see three controllers or three dependent roles because codependence, the generational conditioning and downloading, once the destructive loop in the family system to destroy the relationships. So once we become aware of this that this has nothing to do with us, we can start to separate ourselves from our inherited role or roles, again, to neutralize the codependence and move into our authentic self to navigate our relationships in that, that’s the goal.
Jeff Jones: Yeah. Yeah, yeah. That is the goal. Just listening to you Rene, one of the things that I think of is like, in the beginning, the relationship is so magical and I feel so wonderful, and there is like this high, the euphoria that you mentioned, and then over time it’s like that euphoria isn’t going to last, and it’s like you’re almost prescribing, like, getting out your crystal ball and really putting teeth to a pattern that I think happens quite a lot and not just with significant addiction in the family. It’s like the reciprocal relationship, just in a lot of love relationships, I think I’ve seen patterns of what you’re talking about. So one of the questions that I have is, and you touched on it when you mentioned authentic self, but I was thinking where does love fit in here, and how to operationalize that in a very authentic way. Challenge, a big challenge here.
Rene Eram: It is a challenge. And like I said, for instance, we have to go to the root of the conditioning. And to me, it all starts in the what I call the childhood codependent matrix, and this is part of this mapping process. So once I have this map laid out, we look at, for instance, if the client inherited the controller role, we’re going to want to look at those dependent roles in the family because those will be the target for the rescue mission of the controller role. This controller is programmed to come in and rescue that dependent role, take on that dependent roles emotional life. They actually, that you learn to abandon yourself to rescue and save that dependent role. So there maybe the mom was a dependent role, and a sibling is a dependent role, will those create a charge where you, where the child’s conditioned out of their authentic self, and it’s normalized, and it’s disguised as love because the child’s honoring this family, and their parent, so they believe this is the right thing to do and they get fed back that they’re doing the right thing. So this conditioning, let’s say from this controller role that is being conditioned to rescue the dependent roles in the family is then repeated in the adult relationships. Now I’ve mapped, what I’ll do is I’ll map out the family tree, and then I’ll go into their relationships, their adult relationships. And what happens is that they’re carrying on that conditioning through their adult relationships and repeating the codependent cycle, or just the core connection where everything seems the amazing illusion that we’re equal, and we’re seeing the best sides of each other, and it’s just this grand performance inside the euphoria, right? The sex is great. I mean, it’s just all such a high, and then it starts to unravel, and the rescue mission starts, and once the rest of the mission starts, the rebellions starts. So that controller will attempt to rescue that dependent role, and that dependent role starts to rebel, starts to feel that they’re being nagged, that they’re walking on eggshells, that they can’t do anything.
Jeff Jones: Yeah.
Rene Eram: The controller becomes very judgmental and critical. So this starts to push the two people apart, and they just get further and further until it flatlines the relationship. And that dependent role will leave the relationship going, my God, I couldn’t do anything right. I’m always walking on eggshells. There’s such a nag. And then controllers like the persons you’re responsible, they won’t step up to do anything, they were irresponsible. They made, I did everything for them, and so they get to be a victim, and that dependent roles a victim because they couldn’t do anything right, and it destroys the relationship. So you’ll see this, somebody will go, that controller will just go through those dependent roles over, and over, and over, and not realize that this is all unconscious inherited codependents and it has nothing to do with them.
Jeff Jones: Yeah. What I really love about what you’re saying and kind of how I have framed some of this is just being aware of impersonal relational patterns from past generations that have been modeled, and picked up on, and then are playing out today in a relationship. And people identify with those patterns and take it very personally when in actuality there’s this impersonal aspect to it that they don’t see at all.
Rene Eram: It just plague our population.
Jeff Jones: If with everything that you’ve talked about, there hasn’t been a whole lot of, at least I haven’t heard, that in order for this loop to be active and functioning, it’s like there doesn’t really need to be active addiction.
Rene Eram: No.
Jeff Jones: But active addiction can amplifies it.
Rene Eram: Right. What happens with the codependent relationship is it creates almost a temporary addiction. You’re going to experience the effects of addiction with — and with another person. So you’re going along and you don’t have this compulsive obsessive craving to be with somebody that you’ve been in relationships with friends, some of the family, and then somebody comes along and flips that switch, and all of a sudden you’re doing stuff that you never, behaviors that you would have never done. You’re stalking them, you’re texting them constantly, you have this obsession to be with them, fear of abandoned mixed with euphoria, and you’re basically experience with an addict experiences with their drug of choice. And so you go through the euphoria stage just like an addict euphoria stage, and then it goes into the hangover, which is the betrayal, rejection and abandonment. It’s when the relationship flips, it’s almost like you’re sitting there, an addict sitting there. All the beers are gone, and all the cocaine being snorted, and all the drugs are gone, and all you’re left is the feelings of this hangover. So there’s a lot of relationships that just been in that hangover stage, and it’s sad because they’re disconnected. They’re more lonely in the relationship than they would be single. So they don’t know how to move out of the relation because too painful to stay, too scary to leave.
“They're more lonely in the relationship than they would be single... they don't know how to move out of the relationship because it’s too painful to stay, too scary to leave.” - Rene Eram Share on XJeff Jones: Yeah, yeah. Yes. I mean, Rene, one of the things that I think about here is kind of like warning signs of addiction when a family member is starting to have problems with their use of a substance for instance, and it could be illegal substance, or a prescribed substance, or whatever, but when warning signs occur, a lot of times they get overlooked, or rationalized, or something like that. And when I hear you talking about this loop and this reciprocal exchange of euphoria and then crash, and euphoria and crash, and it’s almost like I’m hearing that being attached to that cycle, it’d be really easy to miss warning signs of increased harm.
Rene Eram: Yes. And actually, you were just talking about that. I also see where heavy substance abuse starts because you want to get out of that hangover stage and you don’t know how because you’re stuck in the relationship, especially in a family relationship. If you’re a dependent role and you’ve got this tyrant controller role father that you can never add up to, never do anything right. Well, it creates this craving in you to try and please them to try and be seen that you’re always put down into that default setting of not being good enough, the subservient. And so just idling with those unconscious feelings is a perfect motivation to start substance abuse because you want to numb out the pain and you don’t realize where it’s coming from.
Jeff Jones: It sounds like it could be potentially perfect motivation to start therapy too.
Rene Eram: Perfect. I mean, that’s what I hope. What I’m trying to get in my message and my writing is this has nothing to do with who you are as a person. This is the inherited patterns of codependency and how they ravage us from the inside out. And then once we learn the programming in these codependent roles, we can begin to tag them, and become aware of them, and separate ourselves from, and that’s really for me, the internal shift that so important that our healers, therapists, psychologists, work, create model to help people come out of unconscious codependence and move into the wrong [inaudible]. Part of the condition is this, and again, let’s go back to that sample, I’m a dependent role and I have a controller role Father, my conditioning is to be never good enough, and to be craving to be seen. So what happens is that I start normalizing it, and I start the pattern. I’m looking at my father who I’m trying to love, and then if he’s keeping me in this subservient broken programming, then I’m going to protect that. There’s no reason for me to go, this is a problem. I almost start owning the pain of it going, it must be my fault. I’m the one that’s broken and this is normal. You want to start normalizing the pain. I don’t think about getting help, I just accept it.
Jeff Jones: Yeah. And I think for children, specifically who are looking up to a parent. Parents are their God and goddess, kind of thing. And if there’s some tension in the relationship or something that doesn’t feel right, I think it’s easy for children to blame themselves.
“If there's some tension in the relationship or something that doesn't feel right...it's easy for children to blame themselves.” -Jeff Jones Share on XRene Eram: Very easy, and the conditioning just continues. I mean, I remember with my father, i’ve been using the same example, my independent role wanted to be seen, and I remember him, I would go into him with a paper that I got it A+ on something that I just wanted him finally see me, you know, receive me. And I looked at it and he just, he went: “Okay.” And then he said: “Have you been working out because your arms look like they have been working out.” There was a point where I had an awakening and I realized it’s never going to work. I’m never going to be received in this codependent dying man. And I had to let it go, and I had to surrender that part of me chasing the dragon to get that high, to get that connection, to feel equal to my father, to his controller role to add up. And when I surrendered that, I actually started having a better relationship with him, because all the expectations fell. And I just realized, you know what? This whole thing of trying to be perfect to which is that absolute curse, I believe in excellent work, I do not believe in the word perfection because I see that is being used in this codependent dynamics. I use to fantasize if I’m perfect about this, or if I’m perfect about that, then I’ll finally be love, I’ll finally be received, then I have to be perfect, I have to get up there and hit the ball over the fence before I get that recognition, and that connection, and that can just destroys someone. It’s unfair, it’s a lie, it’s a generational lie. It’s unfair, it’s not real, and can break people.
Jeff Jones: Sure. So one of the things that I have seen, specifically when family members have their loved one in treatment and they’re coming to a family group or something like that, and starting to learn a little bit about the dynamics of what’s going on in the family, and just labeling them out of the gate as you’re codependent. What I’ve seen is I’ve watched people’s body language contract and arms fold, that initial label I’ve seen has been harder for people to hear anything else after that. I mean, one of the messages here that I think is so powerful that I would really like anyone who’s listening this to hear is, what you’re talking about Rene with the importance of people putting energy into their authentic self, and then being their authentic self in relationship with whatever’s going on in their family. So I’m wondering, can you say a little bit about what that might look like, or feel like, or how they could start to make movement towards that?
Rene Eram: Right. And I think what I’m trying to show in my work and in my book is that because it’s inherited, because it chose me and I didn’t choose it, that this process of separation is the focus and the paradigm shift. I see that same reaction that you’re talking about with people that codependent, my thing is like we’re all codependent. I mean, their Aborigines are codependent because they’ve created a generational democracy for thousands of years and a balance in their tribes that do not create a dictatorship. Co-dependence is an unconscious dictatorship, it’s hardwired, it’s fixed, that’s the programming, you can’t change it. It will not change into a democracy, it always returns to that dictatorship. Yet your codependent has nothing to do with you, and I think that’s the important part of this is that it’s interfering with you, and what’s happening, a lot of controllers come in with their dependent role partner. And that controller role is basically, like, I’m not changing anything, I need to feel in control and I’m helping this person, and this part is the problem. So when you have somebody like that that’s still living in their conditioning and their program, and it’s very difficult to start the separation when they’re protecting the programming. And that’s where we get stuck. That controller needs to feel in-control to feels safe or they don’t feel abandoned. That dependent role needs to feel rescued and connected so they don’t feel bad. And there’s a lot of things fueling that gravitation, like I said, we get stuck because it’s difficult to let go into what? What are we letting go? What’s gonna be there? I’ve said controllers have told me: “Well, that’s what I do. That’s the best part of me.” And it’s like, great, you can do that in your work, you know, there’s a healthy control, there’s a conscious control. We have the control a lot of the things in our life, we have to navigate a lot of things in our life. That to me is healthy, conscious control. Then there’s unconscious control which comes with the co-dependence, that’s destructive control.
“That controller needs to feel in control to feel safe, so they don't feel abandoned. That dependent role needs to feel rescued and connected, so they don't feel bad.” - Rene Eram Share on XJeff Jones: Yeah.
Rene Eram: Learn the difference. So going to your example of somebody that is an addict in the family, I think it’s just key that everyone in the family becomes responsible of how they’re fueling their addiction. They did not create, they did not create the addiction. I believe that it’s an inherited circuitry, like I said, that the addict inherits both these roles, but everybody is going to be FUELING those roles. The goal is not to fuel the codependence, but to nurture the addict’s higher self. So you want to be in there as I believe in you, I love you, I know you can get through this, I support you. And in doing that, we’re moving out of codependency, which would be either to over control the addict, or to enable them in different ways. That dependent role enabled them by not saying anything and bringing them drugs because they want to be like, that controller will be trying to micromanage them. So you just create an explosion and this fueling system of the addict to self destruct.
Jeff Jones: Yeah.
Rene Eram: So it’s so important that the families of the addict learn how to neutralize their codependence, and you don’t have to do, nobody’s going to be codependent, but little adjustments make a huge difference in the relationships.
“Families of the addicts learn how to neutralize their codependence...But little adjustments make a huge difference in the relationships.” - Rene Eram Share on XJeff Jones: Oh, gosh. Yeah. I mean, I could just see where, you know, increased awareness, and curiosity, and staying curious as things in the relationship or in the family unfold from one event to the next just being curious about these two roles. And what’s happening right now? What is it like, where am I at? Why do I feel? And start becoming more aware of some of these dynamics that are invisible, and unconscious, and highly problematic.
Rene Eram: Yes. And I think the most important message here is that it’s not your fault. A lot of this is this programming that we live by, and again, once we learn how it’s fueling our own codependents, we can start to become responsible for it. But we have to take some work. We have to look inside, we have to start questioning our motivations, and our behavior, and how we’re communicating.
“We have to take some work. We have to look inside. We have to start questioning our motivations and our behavior and how we're communicating.” - Rene Eram Share on XJeff Jones: Yeah. So I mean, this sounds like a wonderful information for like couples therapy. And I mean, it’s wonderful information for anyone, but I’m just curious, so from what you’ve seen in using this, what does the future look like? Like, when people start becoming aware of this, what have you seen as far as what people have been able to do with this information? Outcomes?
Rene Eram: What I’ve seen is people start to lead their inherited programming and behaviors, and enter into their authentic self. And in the authentic self, you’re conscious, there’s boundaries, you are honoring your truth, you’re aware, and you know, the codependence doesn’t go away. The goal is to put a muzzle on it and stick it in the corner. And we don’t want the codependence to be at point in our personality and our behaviors. So what I’ve seen is incredible transformation, people discovering their truth, discovering their authentic self, and what a gift because I’ve worked with people that were in their 80’s.
Jeff Jones: Yeah.
Rene Eram: I did some work with a man who came in, the gentleman said that: “You know? I don’t know who I am, and I’ve just gone through relationship after relationship and I just feel gutted, and I loss.” And I sat down with him and we coded his family tree, show that he inherited the controller role, and his controller role was charged by his sibling, a brother who was a dependent role. His parents were off busy working and so he became responsible for saving this sibling. And he did it for years. And what he did from there is he went out into his adult relationships, and I coded, there were 14 relationships, some were marriages, girlfriends that were exactly that programming, went out and found dependent roles to go and rescue because that’s how he had been conditioned. So when you’re in this conditioning, you never experience your authentic self because codependence tells you to abandon your authentic self, to create shame in your authentic self.
Jeff Jones: Yeah, I mean Rene, I can’t help thinking what a gift that was for a gentleman in his 80’s, to be able to see the thread through numerous relationships that he had, and be able to start to change that maybe, or just kind of come to the end of his life knowing, being more conscious about what goes on or what has gone on for him.
Rene Eram: Yes, there was an awakening for him, but is very tragic because he’s towards the end of his life. I want to see teenagers getting this, I want to see young adults to get this so they can start to work on this to start counter conditioning their inherited codependence, whatever role they inherit so that they can go on to have healthier relationships, authentic relationships, that would be an incredible shift to see, we deserve it. It’s about higher awareness, and what’s sad for me is to see people that have gone through their lives being shredded by their codependent role, and just really experiencing their pain over, and over, and over, and being completely confused, not knowing, not understand because they think they’re doing the right thing. Remember I said during the codependent conditioning in the childhood family matrix, you’re normalizing it. You’re going, this is what’s normal for me to try and be seen, and then be rejected and feel pain, and then chase after it again, that’s the loop. You go around and around that loop and you normalize, so you’re normalizing pain. When you go into these adult relationships, you don’t understand, it’s confusing because it feels normal.
Jeff Jones: Have you ever had the opportunity to go into a school or to present this material to a group of teenagers?
Rene Eram: I have, in a treatment center, and they get it right away. They’re very sharp, and there hasn’t been a history of progressing in their role, because I believe it’s business progressive, and I hope that they take the information with them and use it and start to change. It’s a courageous march.
Jeff Jones: Yeah.
Rene Eram: You’re going against programming, like I said, that you’ve normalized, and you feel you’ve been told that this is truth. This is the truth, this is real, this is all you have. And so you have to examine it. You have to take apart these relationships without the string in your family. Like I said, when I saw my codependent relationship with my father, yeah, I could have abandoned him. I could have said, I can’t do this anymore. I have to leave. It actually did is it took the expectations out of the relationship and it helped us. It helped me. He didn’t change. It helped me.
Jeff Jones: Well, it sounds like you were able to see authentically your dad without having to be pulled into whatever the dance was.
Rene Eram: Exactly. I saw him as stuck in his codependent conditioning and his role, and that was what was normal for him. So instead of turning on him, I really had compassion for him. I saw how stuck he was, how he needed his programming, and had to carry this programming all this life to feel safe.
Jeff Jones: I mean, it becomes a part of one’s identity of who one takes them to be in the world, perhaps.
Rene Eram: I agree. And that conditioning, you create an orbit around you with people that feed into it. He was surrounded by codependents and it worked for him. So a lot of my relatives, you know, it worked for him. All those dependent roles catered to him and it kind of fed his controller role to feel powerful or bigger than life. How is somebody going to surrender that? Being fed as a positive, that can happen in our families. That happens, we kind of feed the roles and make them more powerful, normalize the pain that the roles create. And unfortunately, it creates abandonment and distance us in relationships, but even that’s normalized. And unfortunately, it creates abandonment and distance us in relationships, but even that’s normalized.
Jeff Jones: Right.
Rene Eram: One thing I wanted to talk about was in my workshops, when I realized that the addict inherits both codependent roles, and when I’m talking about addiction, I talked about progressive addiction that consumes you, it just destroys your life, destroys your life and marches you toward death, it’s really a death March. There’s substance abuse, and there’s a lot of people in treatment from substance abuse, and substance abuse can kill you. But progressive addiction, I believe is from these two inherited role. And what happens is there’s a self rescue mission in the addict between the two roles. So you’re taking these two roles and you’re creating, for instance, my controller role under my addiction is basically saying to my dependent role on the back of my head that I’m going to save you, and I’m going to feed these substances, and I don’t want anybody interfering with it because I’m in control. And my dependent role is I’m a bottomless black hole in you, feed me, take care of me, rescue me.
Jeff Jones: Right.
Rene Eram: So this is where, for me, addiction starts as a choice. You know, two beers mysteriously turn into 15. How does that happen? A lot of people say, well, it’s a lack of willpower. I disagree. I’ve worked with so many people in recovery that have tremendous willpower but lost control of their substances. But what happens for me is that it almost starts as a conscious decision to start using the substances and then it moves into the unconscious undertow, the circuitry, which are these two roles trying to save each other with substances. So it’s like these two roles are in a basement, painted the windows black, there’s no measurement that a controller role will feed that dependent role to death because there’s no stop signs, it’s all about programming, rescue, rescue, rescue, and that entitlement of that dependent role is bottomless. So that for me creates this loop, creates the progressive addiction because there’s no stop signs, there’s no ruler until that addict bottoms out, hopefully, and wakes up into their conscious self, their authentic self, and starts the path to recovery.
Jeff Jones: Wow. Wow. Well, this conversation has really inspired me to get your book and learn more about the detail that you’re talking about. I mean, this is fascinating, and I really hope that people listening will do the same because you have a lot to offer, and I really appreciate the conversation. And before we come to an end here, is there anything that you wanted to say that we haven’t touched on?
Rene Eram: You know, I hope in my work and in my book that I bring clarity, I hope that people can see that this conditioning is not their fault, that it’s the way that we survived. We had to go into these roles to survive.
“This conditioning is not their fault, that it's the way that we survived. We had to go into these roles to survive.” - Rene Eram Share on XJeff Jones: Yeah.
Rene Eram: I didn’t wake up one day and go, God, I can’t wait to be an addict with two codependent roles in my head that are going to torture me for the rest of my life and pull in these codependent relationships, both roles that I can go to and create, double the pain, Oh, great. I mean, that was not my choice, but this is for me, codependent and addiction circuitry that we inherit, you know, my greatest hope is that there’s an awakening that we wake up and begin to separate ourselves from it, the journey into the authentic self is another podcast. Because that takes a lot of courage, that takes a lot of work. Remember, I was conditioned in my co-dependence to abandon myself. So when I ended up bottoming out of my unconscious co-dependence in my addiction, I was sitting in an empty shell of myself because I was conditioned out of it. I was told my authentic self does not work, is not lovable.
Jeff Jones: Oh, wow.
Rene Eram: Nobody wants it around, nobody would pay attention to it. But when I was in my roles, then I would get that attention because now I’m in the dance, like you said. And when you’re authentic self, you land in your authentic self, you’re a clean slate, you’ve got to start building a new foundation, but it’s a beautiful thing, and it’s the greatest gift I could give myself is my recovery. And especially besides the sobriety, to learn how to counter condition, my co-dependence and live in these balanced relationships, and I have to measure every relationship. I really do, I have to be very careful because I can still fall into it. It’s all there. I can get triggered right back into it.
Jeff Jones: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Wow. Well, thank you very much for your time here, this conversation, and going into all the details, and minutiae, and the programming, and how to get out of it. So thank you very much.
Rene Eram: Thank you for having me on, Jeff, appreciate it. And the best to you and your work.
Jeff Jones: Thank you.