026: The Prodependency Model with Dr. Rob Weiss
“My goal is to lift them up with the strength of their actions even if their actions haven’t always been productive.”-Dr. Robert Weiss
We do anything and everything for the people that we love. Sometimes we fall into crisis dealing with our own relationship problems but we fall even deeper into that crisis by people who ridicule the things we do for love. Dr. Robert Weiss became open in such a field by overcoming the troubled seasons of his life. At present, his expertise is spread as a psychotherapist, sexologist and international educator. As the CEO of Seeking Integrity LLC, he is also reaching out virtually to create communities for many troubled people whose voices are covered by fear mongering.
This interview does not only shift our view from what’s wrong in our society but also what’s wrong with the way we deal with our own remorse. A lot of concepts are contrasted which gave rise to a new model that will lead us away from the path of trauma to the path of love. Learn more about how this model is built and why it is necessary in this digital age.
Change is good! Want to know what’s new in Family Recovery and Solutions? Listen to today’s podcast and learn what our host has to say.
Highlights:
01:42 The Problem Leading to Problem
14:42 The 1980’s
26:56 Creating the Right Stage: Protective not Inhospitable
37:06 Fear Mongering Social Media
49:58 Becoming More Invitational and Less Blaming
This must be what you were looking for: How to make your love more productive. Bend an ear as @TFRSolution interviews @RobWeissMSW about what addicts and their families do not like. #lovingsimply Share on X
Resources:
Books:
Prodependency- Moving Forward From Codependency by Dr. Robert Weiss
Closer Together, Further Apart: The Effect of Technology and the Internet on Parenting, Work, and Relationships by Dr. Robert Weiss
Connect With Robert
Website: https://www.robertweissmsw.com/
Email: https://plus.google.com/u/1/+RobWeiss/posts
Twitter: https://twitter.com/robweissmsw
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC9bfHH5WEJzUDySaYtEfuag
Facebook:https://www.facebook.com/RobWeissMSW
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/sexaddictionspecialist
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sexandhealing/
Quotes:
11:31 “That’s where codependency went wrong. We are not addicted to people. We love people, but sometimes we don’t love them in the right way.” -Dr. Robert Weiss
18:48 “To tell someone who’s in a crisis: ‘You need to look at yourself’, is abusive and intrusive cause that’s not good psychotherapy. Good psychotherapy in a crisis is a lot about support, direction, hope, making sure that person’s stable…” -Dr. Robert Weiss
20:26 “The goal of the crisis is to put them back to a place where they can think more clearly and not feel worse… and you’re not gonna do that by telling them they’re part of the problem.”-Dr. Robert Weiss
23:33 “If they go in there looking for reasons to blame themselves for the problem, it’s not helpful.”-Dr. Robert Weiss
32:38 “I believe that we are as strong as the bonds of our relationships; not just simply our own ability to achieve.”-Dr. Robert Weiss
34:24 “Prodependency is the concept, the idea behind loving people who are troubled. When you love them is simply loving. It’s positive to be dependent on other people…Our ability to bond with other people is a sign of our health.” -Dr. Robert Weiss
47:00 “We need to understand that the whole world of young people who are looking for new voices, new answers- they are not doing it on the streets. They are doing it online.” -Dr. Robert Weiss
51:15 “If they decide to drink, use, sex, gamble – that is not your fault. That is their decision about how they chose to handle the unhappiness in their relationship. No partner is ever responsible for someone’s acting out.” -Dr. Robert Weiss
Got ideas? Perhaps a future podcast? Schedule time with Jeff here: https://meetme.so/jeffjones
Transcriptions
JEFF: So welcome everyone. I am here today with a very special guest Dr Rob Weiss. He is a doctor in sexology and has written 10 books. He has many, many services that I’ll let him tell you about. One of the main reasons that I was inspired to talk with him is he has written a new book called Prodependence. It is his response to the word co dependence that has been out in the ethers of the addiction recovery space for so long and I am so happy to have this conversation. Actually, I’m going to see him later this week or the beginning of next week in Colorado Springs and I’m going to go to his presentation there. So welcome Rob.
ROB: Thank you sir. So glad to be here.
JEFF: Yeah. So if you could like, maybe a little bit more detailed intro than what I did there? Let people know who you are.
ROB: Sure. Thank you for that. So, I’m an addict. First of all, I’m a sex addict. I struggled with my own intimacy and sexual issues for a long time. I entered the 12 step programs. Actually my first 12 step program, December 10th, 1985 was my first meeting. And then, you know, I started to look at this and realize that this wasn’t a small issue. This was a huge issue. Sexual acting out, sexual abuse, sexual trauma, sexual addiction. Once I started to work on my own issues, I started to realize that maybe I could give some help to other people. So in the early 90’s, I went back to school. Ever since then, I’ve been working with people who have compromised ability to create intimacy relationships. They’re addictive in their sexual behavior. They’re compulsive in their search for partners. They choose the wrong people. They really struggle with what I would call Intimacy Disordered Behavior. And so, I’ve been working with the people who have early trauma and attachment challenges and challenges with building relationships for about 25 years.
JEFF: Hmm. Wow. And then the Prodependence piece, how did that come about? What was the inspiration for you? I’ve read some of that in the book, but I’d like you to –
ROB: Well, I never really – I was around, you know, if I wasn’t recovering in ’86, I was already around when codependency rolled out. And at the time, you know, it was the hottest thing since sliced bread. I mean, Oh my God! I can solve everyone else’s problems by looking at mine. And, you know, I really bought into that, except that for a while, I think everybody was really hot for it. In Prodependence, I learned a lot of reasons why I thought codependency was a thing. Although, you know, it’s never been a diagnosis. It’s never been formalized as a psychotherapy. You know, it’s just a pop culture thing, but we somehow think of it as being attached to those who love troubled people. Well, in my life I have a mentally ill mother. I’ve had a mentally ill mother all my life. So, I’ve always been a caregiver to someone close to me who has a profound problem. I live in California, as you know. In the 1990’s, my mother had a psychotic episode. She got really crazy. She left her home in Florida and unbeknownst to me, flew here to California. About three in the morning one night, my doorbell rang and it was pouring rain outside in the middle of the winter and there was my mother in a pair of shorts and a t-shirt, my 60 something year old mother. Somehow she managed to get to my house. I was faced with a choice, you know, what would I do with this mentally ill person who just showed up at my doorstep at three in the morning.
And I know what the codependency world would have said to me about that. I know it because I used to go to NAMI, the National Alliance on Mental Illness, which at that time was very much in the codependency model. By the way, what I did was I took my mother in. I gave her some tea. I gave her a warm shower and took care of her and I got her into the hospital in a day or two. But when I went to my support group, which was totally under the spell of codependency at the time, they said: “Well, maybe the best thing to do would’ve been to leave her out on the street. You know, maybe she’s never going to learn how to take her meds, stay stable on medication. She’s not going to get herself together until she realizes that no one is going to come and rescue her. And she’s going to have to figure it out for herself.” And I thought two things at the time. I thought, number one, I’m never going to leave my mentally ill mother out in the rain ever.
Number two, it began way back then in the 90’s to think, you know, doesn’t this lead to homelessness? Doesn’t this lead to families discarding mentally ill brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles, cousins, because after all, if we get the message, oh, they can take care of themselves and they need to. What family isn’t eager to back away from that problem and let that person handle it themselves. What that led to in mental illness was homelessness, families absolving themselves of the responsibility for their character, the people that they suppose to take care of. And a lot of family members feeling whose hanging in there with family members who were addicted or mentally ill, feeling like they were doing something wrong for hanging in there with the person they love. Because when you go to talk to a professional about it, you’re told: “Well, I understand that person was an alcoholic or they’re bipolar or whatever, but let’s look at your problems and what’s wrong with you?”
I realized as I began to work in the field that partners, spouses, wives, parents, family members, some of them would look at themselves, some of them would, but most universally they felt kind of abused by that question. Like, why am I being asked to look at myself? Well, I’m trying to take care of this loved one and myself and, you know, we would do anything for the people we love anyway. And you’re telling me that my willingness to do anything to try to rescue, save, and take care of an addict or a mentally ill person is problematic, but if I do it for someone who has cancer, I’m a saint. All of that just really has had my brainstorming for the last 20 years.
JEFF: Yeah, well said. I mean, I’ve seen that myself. The various things I’ve done with families and in treatment centers and it’s like, you know, the wrong language, specifically, codependency. I can just watch, you know, the body language change and people’s openness to hear anything more. My sense is the only reason why they come to the group is because their loved ones there and they really want to help.
ROB: Well, like you’d go to the hospital if your aunt or grandma had cancer and you want to visit them and take care of them and show up with a family program. But what you’re not expecting is for them to turn on you and say: “Well, let’s look at how you contributed to this person’s problem, made this person’s problem worse by playing out your own issues.”
JEFF: Right.
ROB: And I have to say Jeff, you know, I just want to say this, when we worked at treatment centers a long time, we’re old fogies, and for years I have heard my peers as you have, I’m sure, really nice people, really good therapists say: “Oh, those family members just aren’t getting it. They just won’t own their part. They just won’t take responsibility. They’re just too willing to enable.” And I just think, maybe, I started to think it isn’t all these partners and family members who are just so difficult. Maybe we don’t have the right frame or the right model to invite them in to make them feel good about the hard work they’ve done to try to love the person that they care about.
JEFF: Yeah.
ROB: And, you know, in the medical health world, if I worked three jobs and gain 300 pounds because my wife has cancer and I’ll do anything to help her and my kids, including give up my own life, my own interest and my own self care, you will call me saint. But if my wife is going through an opiate addiction. She’s struggling to stay sober and I’m working three jobs and gain 300 pounds and give up my life to try to help my family, you call me an enabler.
JEFF: Yeah.
ROB: And that is not something that makes me feel like I want help from you.
JEFF: Right. I get it.
ROB: And that’s the problem.
JEFF: And so Rob, can you talk a little bit about the difference between actions and behaviors that family members take that are more helpful than others.
ROB: Well, I think they’re all helpful. I mean, from my perspective, if you love someone and they’re failing, whether that’s mental illness or addiction. Listen, I don’t know about you Jeff, but nobody taught me in high school how to help an alcoholic wife or husband. Nobody taught me on the streets, you know, when I was growing up. So when we turn to these partners and these spouses and these family members and we say to them, one of the first things we say: “Well, it’s nice that you love them but you’re not doing it right.” It’s as if we’re thinking: “Well, but of course, they have years of education and know the difference between care giving and enabling. They should know the difference between rescuing and saving.” I mean, people who are helping a troubled loved one or just trying to make that situation better.
JEFF: Yeah.
ROB: And so here’s my best example, the one the alcoholics hate. I would say, if I was working with a woman who was treating her husband who is alcoholic and she said to me: “You know, I had a real problem because he kept driving drunk and getting arrested and sometimes he would pick the kids up drunk. So, I made a bargain with him that I would buy bottles, so it would have been waiting for him at home so he could drink at home in the evening, as long as he didn’t drink in the morning and lose his job or drive drunk with the kids.” And if that woman went to a therapist, they would say: “Oh my God! You’re bringing him bottles? Do you know the meaning of enabling? You’re keeping this man drunk.” And I would say under a pro dependence model: “Well, that was really clever. You managed to find a way. You couldn’t stop him from drinking because very few people can do that by themselves, you really need help. He was ill. So, you did take on this problem that nobody could take on by themselves and you did an admirable job. You got that guy to not drive drunk for six months and your kids weren’t in a car with a father who was drunk. Your husband didn’t lose his job because he was drinking in the morning and even though you were giving bottles of whiskey in the evening, that was a great solution. Now we need to move to how can we find it even better solution to help them get sober.” But what I wouldn’t say –
JEFF: Yeah. Beautiful. Beautiful reframe. Sorry I interrupted.
ROB: No. But I wouldn’t say is, you know, I think that you really have a problem. You’ve been enabling his drinking. You’re not looking at the full picture. You must have some issue yourself that keeps you wanting to have him drinking. You must be attracted to his drama and this strife. I just don’t think that that’s true.
JEFF: Yeah.
ROB: I think the goals of codependency and the originators of codependency, they had the right idea. How does someone who’s out of balance because they’re care taking for a troubled other person, put their life back into balance because when they’re in balance, everything will be better.
JEFF: Right.
ROB: But what they didn’t say was that person is out of balance because they too have an addiction. That partner is addicted to their husband or their wife, that I think were codependency really went wrong because we’re not addicted to people. We love people. Now sometimes we don’t love them in the right way. Sometimes we love them inadequately and appropriately. Sometimes we’d love with the wrong people. Sometimes we love people in ways that are productive. Sometimes we’d love people who can’t love us back. There are all kinds of ways to love ineffective.
JEFF: Right.
ROB: But don’t ever tell me that loving someone wanting to help them, that innate drive even to put everything aside to rescue that person you love. I can’t call that anything but help.
JEFF: Yeah. Yeah, thank you for that because I was going to ask about like your definition of love and how does that play in here and that’s a part of your expertise with the sexology thing too.
ROB: Well, some of this work came out of that, because you have to understand as a sex addiction therapist –
JEFF: Right.
ROB: – for almost 30 years. When I work with a partner who has been devastated by a man or a woman having 30 affairs and seeing 15 prostitutes and looking at porn three times a week for 12 years, there is no way that that partner in any way it could be responsible for that. That is clearly that person acting out their troubles. But there was a tendency in my world to say: “Well, did you stop having sex with him or her? Did you gain some weight?” In other words, the message to the partner and the family member has always been under codependency. What did you do to drive this forward and make it worse?
JEFF: Right.
ROB: I honestly think that what partners or family members are doing, even if it is making it worse, their intention is to try to make it better.
JEFF: Right. Yeah.
ROB: Just because I don’t know how to cook. You don’t tell me to stop cooking. You might teach me how to cook better. You might say to me, thank you for trying to cook. Well, I’ll say to partners thanking. Thank you for sticking with this troubled person. Thank you for trying to make your family life better. Thank you for holding onto love when love was the last thing you were dealing with and even if every effort you made to get this person sober or to help them with their illness didn’t get you where you wanted. It didn’t happen because you didn’t want them to get well or because you were playing out your own issues as aliquot dependency. It’s because you didn’t have a better way to do it and let’s teach you some new ways to do it and make your love more productive.
JEFF: Yeah. Wow. That’s very, very clear and simple. And so one of the things that I wonder about like, because what you’re saying is music to my ears, specifically for people early on when they’ve been with a loved one for years and years and years and, you know, to hear the old, you know, codependency thing, it’s all about you kind of thing, that’s like so not helpful for people. I’m wondering about like a lot of that information. Like, I’m thinking you know, the information under the umbrella of Claudia Black, Stephanie Brown, etc. etc. Like, do you see that there’s like once the person down the road at a different stage that that information has value to the family member in some cases?
ROB: Here’s a way to look at it. First of all, when Claudia and Pia Mellody, you know, the people writing all these books in the 80’s, most people had a lot of sessions. They’d go to therapy for 20 weeks or 15 weeks. They’d leave a treatment center and have a year of therapy. Our insurance was very different than it is now and so the idea of introducing to someone that may want to look at something that has to do with them in this process might be useful down the road and kind of drop it in there and move on, which wasn’t what happened. But nonetheless I can understand that being an idea, you know, is there might be some issues here because when people go into a crisis in their family, they’re going to show their own issues. And I think the addiction field and looking at partners could have gone one of two ways in the 1980’s.
It could have gone toward. Everyone in the is being profoundly affected by the addiction and therefore they end up looking crazy because they are the person they love is failing. They can’t make it better and so all of their own issues of abandonment and failure are coming up because the person they love the most and they’re closest to is failing and they can’t do anything about it, so there are a mess, but that’s not the direction our field went into –
JEFF: Oh! It’s beautifully said.
ROB: Well, we did look at family members reacting to the addiction.
JEFF: Yeah.
ROB: What happened was systems theory got in there and it kind of said: “Oh well everyone’s a part of this problem and everyone’s contributing to this problem as opposed to everyone’s being affected by this problem.” Well, once you say everyone’s contributing to the problem, then you have to say, everyone in the family is addicted. And if I’m addicted to alcohol and you’re married to me, what are you addicted to? You must be addicted not to my drinking or obsessed with the problem. This is what codependency said. You must be addicted to me. You are overly dependent on me and therefore when I fail, you start failing and therefore you don’t have a strong enough sense of self to hold onto yourself in the face of your husband or wife failing. Well, but that’s not right. That’s not how it works. I’m going to be diminished. I’m going to struggle and I’m going to look like a mess when my family is falling apart. Why would you blame me for that?
JEFF: Yeah.
ROB: And so in answer to your question, we all have issues to work on, all of us. And if we get more than six or eight sessions in a year with your insurance, god love you. Go look at yourself to explore yourself. Take the time. But you know what you may not know Jeff, is that Prodependence was what I wrote my doctoral dissertation about. I did this on a research based methods, so I went to about 70 therapists who said 93% of them said they were supervised and educated in the treatment of addiction. 70% that said they had been trained in codependency work. And I was working with therapists, all of whom had been in the field at least 20 years, and the first question I asked them about addiction treatment was this. I said: “If you have a partner, a spouse or a family member of an active addict coming into your office, do you think they’re in the midst of a crisis?” And 92% of the therapist said: “Yes, these people are in the midst of a crisis.” Okay, so then I just simply went and I looked at what does my therapy training tell me about people in a crisis and what do you do? Because the crisis could be there was a big fire and people lost their lives. There was an earthquake or there was a war or my husband had a heart attack. What do you do when someone is in crisis? It’s very clear. All of the research says it. You use very simple conversation, interventions. You don’t ask the people to look at themselves very deeply.
JEFF: Right.
ROB: You don’t explore past issues. And you don’t do anything analytic because that person is just figuring out how to get through the day. For them it’s like, what’s the license number on the truck that just hit me? They’re not ready to say: “Oh, well, let me talk about my mother.” So, what I say about the thing you’re bringing up is yes, everyone has issues and everyone might benefit from working on them, but to tell someone who’s in a crisis about the potential loss of their marriage or their relationship or their child to go to that person at the very beginning of a crisis and say: “You need to look at yourself”, is abusive and intrusive because that’s not good psychotherapy.
Good psychotherapy in a crisis is a lot about support, direction, hope, making sure that person stable, making sure they feel validated and supported. So again, I’m going to say that partner of an addict, I’m so impressed at the amazing job you’ve done hanging in there doing everything you can. And so, what someone might call enabling, I’m going to call caregiving. What somebody might call angry, I’m going to call responsively based, in fact lives with a lot of fear. What somebody calls hypervigilance and watching out all the time, I’m going to say naturally is concerned because you never know what’s gonna happen next. I mean when you –
JEFF: And it’s probably been going on and on and on for a long period of time. Just from a nervous system standpoint, the baseline goes up and up and up, and then the window of tolerance gets smaller and smaller and –
ROB: For the partner.
JEFF: Right.
ROB: And the family member.
JEFF: For the partner, so just like you said, when a person’s in crisis, they’re in crisis and how to get them out of crisis and what’s been some natural things can happen to their body to calm themselves.
ROB: I want to know the definition of a crisis. There are many different ones, but one of them is that your balance of thinking and emotions are out of whack. Meaning, you’re acting purely from an emotional state and you’re not really thinking very much or you were acting purely intellectually. You’re not feeling very much – addicts are purely intellectually. Partners, when you see them, they’re in a crisis. They’re very emotional. The goal of the crisis is to put them back into a place where they can think more clearly and feel.
JEFF: Right.
ROB: Not make them worse or feel more intense or feeling more anything.
JEFF: Right.
ROB: It’s to help find balance and helping them make sense out of what’s happened. You’re not going to do that by telling them they’re part of the problem. It’s not going to work. Now, if somebody who has been through loving an addict, the struggle of that, loving a mentally person or once the crisis has passed, meaning –
JEFF: Yes.
ROB: – one is stable or their loved one is sober or they’ve gotten the divorce or whatever the passing means. Then if that patient wants to come back to me and say: “You know what? I’m wondering why I married him. Or gee! I’m wondering why I picked him or [inaudible].” We might if they want to explore other things, but while they’re in a crisis in the first six weeks to six months and this person is still drinking, using and a mess, I’m just going to try to find ways to support them and help them get through the day.
JEFF: Yeah.
ROB: That’s an amazing job or doing hanging in there with their family. And you know what? They are so grateful.
JEFF: Yeah. Yeah. Well, and it’s like you’re building rapport with them and you’re letting them know you’re acknowledging their strengths.
ROB: Well, you know, what we always seek to do I think, when we improve the field of psychotherapy is two things. We seek too deep pathologized, so in other words, if there’s a way we can look at human behavior and not look at it as illness, but look at it as how, that’s always a good thing for us. And if we can look at behaviors and see them as strengths and not as deficits, that’s also where we want to be. So, if I can say to someone who’s an addict: “Wow! You have such an amazing strength of hanging in there at difficult times. What an amazing creative person you are. Look at all the ways you tried to help them stop drinking even though it didn’t work.” How is that harmful to that person? I’m just bonding with them. I’m being where they are –
JEFF: Right.
ROB: – their experience and I’m building a relationship with that person where they will look at me and say, you wonder – what does the partners gonna say to you? They’re going to say: “Oh, well you understand how much I love him or her. You understand how hard I’ve tried. You understand how much I wish this would just get better and I’ve done everything I can.” And from that aligned place we can began to help them heal.
JEFF: Right. And they may feel that you are the only person in the world that understands them.
ROB: Well, often times therapists are the first people that help clients feel understood and then we open them up to worlds where they learn that other people can understand them too.
JEFF: Yeah.
ROB: This is where Al-Anon and some of the support groups come in. And people say: “Well, are you anti Al-Anon?” No. I’ve spent a long time in Al-Anon. Every therapist should. What I am against is sending someone to a 12 step meeting because you’re saying they’re addicted to a person. Tell me that someone’s in a crisis, that they are obsessed with the problem. Yeah, I’d be obsessed if my kid had cancer. I be obsessed with my wife or husband was dying or had an illness. So yeah, you’ve been an obsession for a while and if it helps them ease the obsession and become more focused on themselves, I think Al-Anon is a wonderful thing, but if they go in there looking for reasons to blame themselves for the problem. It’s not helpful.
JEFF: Wow.
ROB: And you know what else Jeff?
JEFF: Yeah.
ROB: This is about grief too, because what we don’t talk about, you know, we talk about grief and various ways, death and dying, whatever. The part of grief that interests me is the part about remorse. Actually that’s not in the five stages of dealing with death and all that, but it’s a very profound stage in grief because, you’ll relate to this, you know, when you hear like your mom has passed away or even your dog, you know, my first thought is: “Oh, I wish I’d said this. I wish we’ve done that. I wish I’d had that last moment. I wish…” Because remorse, regretting and feeling personally like you wish you’d have that extra minute or said that, that’s part of [inaudible] from grief. What partner or family member who has an addicted failing loved one isn’t in grief. They all are in grief. And so, if you say, if you hint in any way that maybe they might be part of the problem, they’re going to immediately latch onto that and say: “Oh gosh! If I hadn’t said this to them, maybe they wouldn’t have been drinking. If I hadn’t done that, maybe they wouldn’t have been –
JEFF: Oh, yeah. And they’d shamed themselves.
ROB: Well, you’re adding, you know, everybody who shamed themselves is eager to join the personal shame them further, sadly. You know, I can easily help you to hate yourself more and you will take that if you’re in a one down position. What’s harder is to take the person who’s one down position and lift them up. And that’s my goal, is to lift them up by the strength of their actions. Even if their actions haven’t always been productive.
JEFF: Yeah. Wow.
ROB: So, let me say this. I heard from a number of therapists who’ve asked me about this Prodepence thing. They say: “Are you having a lot of bad things from the codependency people?” There people who devoted their lives to go to, you know, because they’re thinking: “Oh my god! Someone in the code is going to write you. How could you? How dare you?” To be honest? I’ve only heard two responses to this book and to this work. And this book is about, in my mind, resetting the field of addiction toward a different way of managing and treating partners. The only two things I’ve heard about this are from therapists I’ve heard, I can’t believe you wrote this. I’m so mad at you. I’ve been thinking about this for years, but you actually wrote it down and then you beat me to it or I’ve heard. Thank you for writing the things I’ve been thinking about for years, which is exactly what you said to me. The other thing I do hear is, you know, I really had to work with a codependency model for years because that’s all there was and looking back I feel like I had to buy into something that made me feel bad about myself in order to grow because the growth was there in terms of self care and knowing when to detach and dealing with your anger. In other words, therapists who are working in codependency can move a partner towards better self care and better managing the situation. But unfortunately, they do it by making the partner buy into a concept that tells them that they’re part of the problem and that makes partners angry. And I’ve seen so many partners say: “Screw you.” You know, as we said earlier, I’m not part of the problem. I’m part of the solution. You’re telling me I’m part of the problem and yeah, I can say, well, you brought up a bottle home. How could that not be part of the problem as opposed to saying, you know, I think you’re a miracle. You’ve kept his family together.
JEFF: Yeah.
ROB: So, it’s a very different perspective.
JEFF: Yeah. I mean, what I’ve found Rob, is that it’s stage related a little bit and the way I try to frame it is how can individuals in the family, one, two, three, all kind of create conditions that increase protective factors and create conditions that are inhospitable to active addiction.
ROB: Can you give an example?
JEFF: Well for instance, you know, someone was like, they’re new to recovery. They’ve been out of treatment for, you know, two weeks or a month. They were supposed to be home at 5:00. It’s 5:15, you know, the partners text them a number of times.
ROB: Called. Text.
JEFF: Right. And they come in at 5:30 and the partner just kind of –
ROB: Unloads on them.
JEFF: Of course. And so there’s –
ROB: And then that addict goes to a toaster meeting and says: “You know, I’ve been 60 days sober. I’ve been going to meetings every day and you guys give me chips and you celebrate me, but my wife, boy, she’s really difficult. She doesn’t mind being happy for my recovery at all.” And the point is, it’s not her job to be happy about the fact that you’ve been sober for three weeks, but you drank for half the marriage. That’s other people’s job to celebrate.
JEFF: Right. And he may have the, like what may have happened for him is his cell phone battery died, you know? But then what the wife is thinking, the worst case scenario kind of thing.
ROB: This is his lack of empathy. His lack of understanding how his history of behavior has led to his wife’s fearfulness. Rather than saying: “Oh well, considering what I put her through, of course I should have borrowed someone else’s cell phone to let her know I was going to be late because I understand that when I’m late she feels like maybe the family’s in trouble again.” But addicts don’t have a lot of empathy in the beginning. It’s not one of our strong points.
JEFF: Right.
ROB: Unfortunately, one of the things that codependency has done, and I really, really have feelings about this is I think it is allowed assistant to go forward, which has existed since time and memorial, where we blame caregivers. You know, I did research on this. And there’s a guy named, I think his name is William White.
JEFF: Yes, yes. I love him
ROB: Quote quite extensively about the history of addiction field. I put this in the book because it was part of the dissertation. And he said something like: “I want to tell you how we looked at the partners and wives of alcoholics in the 1940’s and 50’s right after AA got its first legs. They said, you know, we looked at wives of alcoholics has been nagging sexually inadequate, aggressive, mean, awful people.” And he further said, and these are the kind of women that if you married to them, you would drink too.
JEFF: You would do this too. Like, I mean, I think William White, from what I’ve read, he has captured a lot of the history of –
ROB: He’s a historian.
JEFF: [inaudible] messages.
ROB: Right.
JEFF: Very well without taking strong positions.
ROB: Right. And so what happened was, you know, interestingly, I mean in the 80’s when women’s live and then the 80’s and we detached or codependency detached the idea that women should be dependent on men. And I think that was a very reasonable idea in the 1980’s. Women were leading women’s movement and washing into the workplace wanting equal rights in a place they’d never had it before.
JEFF: Yeah.
ROB: And let’s not forget 1980, which is when these books started coming out. It was like the movie 9 to 5, where greed women had to fight their way to get the power over one man. I mean, that’s what the office space was like. So women were not looking in the 1980’s to be more independent, more reliant on men. There was much more, you know, remember women who love too much. I mean, there was very much what I would call an anti dependence stance in the culture in the 1980’s. We also had a period back then where, I don’t know if you did any of this, but I went to lifespring. I went to insight. I went to S. I did all that. People were really into personal development throughout the 90’s. And what that meant was it was really a me generation issue. It was like I’m going to be – the idea of that was, and this is how we looked at mental health in the 80’s and 90’s, you got to be the best you can be. You know, the most successful, the most achieving, the best healthy, you know, the best you can be and the more healthy and the more actualized you are, the more of you you’ve put into the world successfully. The more mentally healthy you are. And that was the message of the me generation. Me as me as me. More me is better, but we don’t look at mental health that way anymore.
We’re in the period of looking at attachment, not self actualization as being a sign of strength. So, this view of partnering with addicts that I wrote about Prodependence is different from written from completely different model than codependency. Codependency was written from a model based on trauma. And it basically assumes that if I marry someone has an addiction that I probably grew up with someone who has similar issues and the minute that person I’m married to starts to fail, I’m going to turn into the child that I was whose needs were never met and make the whole problem worse. So of course you would look at the partner into that model and say: “Let’s look at what’s wrong with you because you’re driving the problem forward.” But attachment, we don’t look at the world that way. We look at the world, I believe today in terms of mental health.
I look at how you actualize in the world. Have you been able to work? Have you been able to get a home? Have you been able to achieve? Express yourself? That’s part of mental health. But to me, it has bigger part is how good are your relationships? How good are your partnerships? How best are you involve in your community? How well liked are you in your family?
JEFF: Right.
ROB: I believe that we are as strong as the bonds of our relationships, not just simply our own ability to achieve. So, if you look at building and maintaining relationships as a strength, which is what attachment is all about, then you can’t help but say, I don’t care why that person stayed with that person. They stayed with that person and everything they tried to do well. That was just to try to make the thing get better.
JEFF: Yeah.
ROB: And I will say this other thing and I’ll shut up Jeff.
JEFF: [laughs]
ROB: You know when you read and I really honor Claudia Black and Pia Mellody and Robin Norwood. I think those people were trying to really take wrestled something down by the horns. And a lot of people got help through the codependency model, but over the years it isn’t just what they originally wrote. It’s what it’s become. You know, they wrote four books in the 1980’s. They really defined this concept, but unfortunately because it has never really been accepted in the therapy literature, it’s never been a diagnosis. So codependency has never been a diagnosis. It’s never been something that we had really clear criteria for or we even universally knew how to treat because it’s never been accepted as a psychiatric diagnosis. So since those four books came out of codependency. There were 387 that had been written since and everyone with the word codependency in the title. So which version of codependency am I using? Is it book number five or number 350? I don’t know. And the field hasn’t told me. As a result we need a new model. You can’t say: “Well, I don’t have to go to codependency anymore.” I mean, it’s fine if you do, but what do you call what you do? Well, I just think what more attachment based much, more loving. Great. What do you call that? Well, I call it caring partners work. Well, that’s great, but what is it grounded in? My ideas of codependency, but codependency is about trauma, not about that scope.
The reason I wrote Prodependence is not because I want to call people pro dependence. I don’t want to say: “Oh, you’re a pro dependent.” Prodependence is the concept. The idea behind loving people who are troubled. When you love them is simply loving. It’s positive to be dependent on other people. We want dependence.
JEFF: Yeah.
ROB: [inaudible] is a positive. Independent John Wayne types, don’t do well. You know, every bit of research we have on human beings tells us that we are happier, more creative and healthier and live longer in community and when we’re bonded with other people. So clearly our ability to bond with others is a sign of our health. Why would you attack that bonding when someone shows up to try to help a trouble person? I never will.
JEFF: Beautiful. Yeah. And I really liked the frame that you put on it from, you know, back in the 80’s and 90’s and the me, me, me. Like, make a better me kind of thing.
ROB: That was it.
JEFF: It’s like now it’s be in relationship with this and relationship with that and like, and what are my relationships and how do I like schedule and organize and connect with those relationships.
ROB: And how do I get my needs met in a relationship. How do I do to others in relationships and how do we maintain the most troubled people in our culture. I don’t think anyone would disagree with me or the most alone, you know, the mentally ill.
JEFF: There’s a lot of research that is saying exactly that. I’m sure you know that.
ROB: [inaudible] I think when you run into someone who’s mentally ill or addicted as you bring them into a group, you bring them into community and it’s the community that helps the healing. So I’m not going to tell anyone to detach from their partner and suggest that that’s going to promote healing. I’m going to tell him to find healthier ways and more productive ways to love them and try to make it better.
JEFF: Yeah. Yeah. And that, I mean, one thing, like years ago I did this family group in a treatment center and their whole family component was a couple groups a month and that’s all. And you know, I would have some really, what I thought were some really nice handouts and some good information and I give out a little bit of information and start a conversation. At the end of the group, I would ask: “So what are like, what’s the one or two biggest takeaways that you got from this group?” And invariably Rob, like more than half of the people would say something like: “Oh my gosh! When this person across the circle, when they said x, y, z, I like, I did not feel so alone.” And it’s all the relationship.
ROB: Well, I mean let’s face it, it’s, you know, us older folks miss the point of social media unless you’re involved in it, which is younger people are more connected than we ever were. They’re connected to different communities and different populations and different sets of information. And when I walked around the street, when I was a kid, I didn’t have someone to connect. I was either by myself or with a person. But our young people are 24/7 connected with communities, relationships. Now we need to improve the quality of those connections when we talk about their loneliness, their depression, their isolation, but I don’t think we have to go pick an Apple and Facebook. What we need to do is wait because soon, wait for it, wait for it. Because when virtual reality comes along, and I’ve already spent some time in that medium, you and I are feeling like we’re in the same room. That feeling of distance goes away. So, the tech is actually going to take care of the feelings of isolation and depression by making it feels so much more real. We’ll be doing therapy across this medium because it’s going to feel like we’re in the same room with our VR headsets on when we may be thousands of miles away. So we are not losing connection. We are shifting the ways in which we connect to be much broader than the ones that we grew up with, but not any less meaningful.
JEFF: So Rob, I think it was a couple three years ago maybe something like that. I saw you speak in Colorado springs and it was about a book that you had wrote then. It was this topic that you’re talking about and I forget the name of the book.
ROB: The book was called Closer Together, Further Apart.
JEFF: There you go. Yeah.
ROB: I was just at a point where I was running to write a book about tech because a lot of my time is engaged with intimacy issues, relationship issues, dating issues around tech porn and all that stuff. And I went to write a book like Sherry Turkle, like many of my colleagues that was a kind of, oh my god, look what tech is doing to our kids. It’s ruining everyone’s lives. And I looked at the research and I looked at the research and I just, when I really heard was the same message I got from my parents about sex, drugs and rock and roll. That’s all I could hear, which was you put that thing down and go play outside. You know, it’s still happening.
JEFF: Yeah.
ROB: And to that point Jeff, I just want to say that I heard a guy on the radio, psychologist on the radio recently, and I’m just going to practice this little story, you remember as well as I do when people said that television was going to ruin the american family. I mean, you know, kids weren’t talking to their parents. We weren’t having that family conversation like they did in the 50’s whenever we sat around the dinner table supposedly. Now people are all sitting in a group staring at the screen and no one’s exchanging any ideas. That was the fear in the 1960’s and 70’s about us. Right? Well, I heard this guy on the radio recently, radio psychologist, and I guarantee he wasn’t over 40 because this is what he said. He said: “You know, I’m really concerned about the nature of the evolution of the american family.” He said: “You know, mom comes home and she’s chatting away on Facebook and dad’s answering email and the kids doing world of Warcraft. It’s not like the old days. Whenever one would come home and line up and watch a TV show and then talk about it.” And so, you know, each generation that comes along has fears about what will come with the next generation.
It doesn’t necessarily and we’re most afraid of things we don’t understand or things that are unfamiliar to us. So us boomers, we got a tsunami when the internet came along and then we got another hit when social media came along. Unfortunately, us most older folks do, we chose to fearfully judges as opposed to embrace it. I feel so much closer to young people and so much younger myself because I’m deeply involved in social media. I’m communicating with them in large groups and that is rather than standing back and saying, why are you sitting there doing that when I’m right here, you know.
JEFF: Yeah.
ROB: They’re not the same as us. They’re going to be different than us. We have to validate and support. Again, validate and support our children for their differences. Not challenged them for how they’re not like us.
JEFF: Right. So I have a curiosity. I’m curious how you see the structure of the family, and you started to talk a little bit about that, but like how you see it now and where you see it going, like –
ROB: In terms of?
JEFF: Health.
ROB: You know what? I don’t really worry about it. I mean, to be honest with you, and then I’m going to be really honest with you. First of all, you have to understand that the media fear mongering, there’s no question about that. The media is fear mongering because if I saw on the cover of time magazine, your kid’s going to be happier and enjoy his life better because of social media. I probably would not buy that copy of time magazine, but if it said a majority of children suffering from depression and anxiety related to social media, I’m going to buy that magazine because I am concerned about my kid. So you understand that for ourselves. Second of all, we have very few. We have no real research on children brought up with social media because it’s too soon. And we have no real longitude, no generational, we have no information on how social media and all that’s really affecting us in the big picture. Some people experience depression, some people experience loneliness, anxiety, but we’re in a transitional period, so I expect that until we move more fully into digital from analog. Some people are not going to feel a part of our feel left out or I get all of that. But when I go to conferences, high level conferences where there are really, and I’m not one of them honestly, but they’re really important people talking about addiction issues and mental health issues across the globe because I get to go to fancy places and hear these things. You know, inevitably, and I think everyone should know this.
I don’t hear most high level professionals concerned about your average american family or average family in general because we know that most families are fine, that people are endlessly adaptable. They will find their way and healthy people always find their way. We found our way through sex, drugs and rock and roll, and our kids are going to find their way through social media and digital streaming.
JEFF: Yeah.
ROB: The only difference is what we do talk about at conferences is the vulnerable kids. We never talked about, honestly about drug addiction among healthy families. We don’t talk about tech addiction or unhealthy, we just don’t take any of those precious three days we have at these fancy mucky mucks seminars. We talk about how was the kid with trauma? How was the kid who has been abandoned? How’s the kid who has been neglected and abused? We already know that that’s the child was going to get caught up in the negative part of any distraction or stimulation, whether that’s drugs or sex or online life or anything. So, you know, I would suggest to you that, and I just looked at it this way, I travel a lot Jeff, so I’m often at the airport. And when I’m at an airport, and airports are strange places, you know, like everyone in the world is going to. First of all, I always realized is a lot more people around that I thought there were, because we’re all these people all the time and anyway, that’s neither here nor there, but when I look around the airport and I see mothers changing babies and I see families going to vacation and I see grandma’s hugging. And I think you know what? We’re doing fine. Life is moving on. Life is going. All of the: “Oh my god! What’s tech going to do?” Worry about the people who are struggling with tech. Don’t worry about it as a whole issue for our culture because if we can adapt to fire and the wheel and the telephone and the gasoline engine, we’re going to be able to get through tech and be better for it I promise. Not everybody. Some people will struggle, but don’t say everybody’s going to struggle because that’s just fear mongering.
JEFF: Yeah. Oh, thank you very much for saying that. I appreciate that because I agree. there’s a lot of that out there. And it sells newspapers, magazines –
ROB: Books and therapy sessions.
JEFF: – and therapy sessions. Yeah.
ROB: But is it really, you know, so when people say someone addicted, I think how functional is their life?
JEFF: Yeah.
ROB: You know, I don’t like how much she drinks, but is she working? Is she got friends? Is their life going well? Because if she’s drinking and then that’s not a problem, but if whatever they’re doing, the online behavior that is impairing their life, that’s a different story.
JEFF: Yeah.
ROB: Jeff, one more thing. I know we’re going to stop soon. Do you remember I gave this wonderful quote by this guy named Douglas Adams speaking about generational issues related to tech. So, Douglas Adams wrote The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, which every hippie probably knows.
JEFF: Right.
ROB: And he was kind of a futurist and kind of a science fiction guy and he was a scientist. He said this in 1970 about tech, the 1970 the abilities your telephone have has right now would take probably an airplane hangar in 1970. That’s so much of a computer you would have needed for your cell phone. And even that wouldn’t have worked very well. So, this is what he said about technology in 1970, no cell phones, no computers, none of that. He said, you know, any technology that comes along in the world when you’re 18 or younger, well that’s just natural. A part of the way the world is. And any technology that comes along between age 18 and 45, and when I hear that, I think like websites when we were younger.
JEFF: Yeah.
ROB: It’s brand new and it’s exciting and you can get a career in it, but any technology, Douglas Adams said in 1970, any technology that comes along after your age 45 is against the natural order of things.
JEFF: Oh my gosh!
ROB: He wasn’t speaking to technology. He was speaking to human nature.
JEFF: Right.
ROB: You know, when things are a part of our lives when we’re born, that’s just there, and when they’re new to us and we’re young enough to be excited about the one, embrace them. They’re a great way for us to grow. But once we’re at the point of age where we think we know enough, we kind of get it. Then what the young people are doing is just a bunch of crazy stuff.
JEFF: Right.
ROB: That’s called getting old. [chuckles]
JEFF: Yeah. It’s always what is the expression about the interesting times we live in now kind of thing. It’s like every generation says that.
ROB: Although I will tell you, I believe that the most profound generation gap that we’ve had since the 1960’s and 70’s is happening now. You know, only when I was growing up, it was people out in the street marching with tie dye and, you know, burning bras and yet it was people I could see and we would. But you have to understand that the whole world of young people who are looking to new voices, new answers, new, they’re not doing it on the street, they’re doing it online.
JEFF: Yeah.
ROB: And if you’re not an older person who’s engaged in those conversation, who’s engaged in social media, understands the world of young people, you just think that they’re distracted and distant and not available. The truth is, they’re in the middle of a revolution that most of my revolutionary regeneration has chosen not to join. And that makes me very sad.
JEFF: Wow. Yeah. Thank you for that message. I mean, I am kind of like working the way towards the end of this conversation and I was going to ask you this message of, you know, if you had the ear of every family member with an addicted loved one, what would you want them to know. What you just shared there is really powerful of, you know, the different generations, people being different ages and the diversity they have in what they see and hear and how they perceive it.
ROB: You know Jeff, when I was a teenager, I would spoof myself a little bit of marijuana and then I would go down to the kitchen in my house and I would open the fridge. And right next to the fridge in the kitchen was a telephone. I would talk for four hours to my friends in high school while I was sitting in the fridge with the munchies. And you know, my father was like: “Don’t you ever get off that phone? Aren’t you ever ended the phone?” Just drove him crazy and the television, because I was never around. I was never present. I was running up his phone bill, you know, all that stuff. It just doesn’t feel that different what I see parents going through now. It’s just they don’t remember. And that is the fault of aging. We seem to think, well, we had it right, but these kids don’t. But anyway, thank you for taking the time to ask about Prodependence. I want to just leave it a little plug.
I created a website for Prodependence and there is a book, it’s called www.prodependence.com P-R-O-D-E-P-E-N-D-E-N-C-E. Under prodependence.com, there’s some videos of me lecturing about it. There’s information about the book, but also for those people who might be in the field, we are collecting folks who want to learn more about it. And we’re going to have meetings with them and we’ve got a workbook starting. You have to understand if you’re going to use this model, everything has to change. When I assess the partner of an addict or a family member, I have to change. I can never ask them anything about – what I’m going to ask them is, how has this been for you? How have you been able to get through it? What things have you tried that worked with your son or with your husband or what tries to things have you tried that didn’t work and why do you think those worked? Why do you think those did? Why did you think they would work, but I’m not gonna say anything at all about what’s wrong with you, your history. I’m not going to have to do any assessment of their history.
JEFF: Right.
ROB: In the same way that if they had a son that was hit by a truck and he was in the hospital, they didn’t know if he was going to live or die and that client came to see me. I wouldn’t do a history either. I would say, oh my god, you’ve been through so much. How can I help you. And if I can change the addiction field, and I owed it to be more invitational and less blaming of partners and spouses, I will have achieved my goal. And I’ll tell you the last thing about that. You know who doesn’t like me moving out and saying: “I think codependency is a model we need to move past?”
JEFF: No.
ROB: Addicts. Addicts don’t like it.
JEFF: Oh really? Why is that?
ROB: Because there is an implied message in codependency that it’s your fault that I’m drinking. It’s your fault that I’m gambling. It’s your fault that I’m sexting. You know, because all that stuff about enabling and nagging, well addicts pick up on that and then they turn to their spouse and they hit spouses. You assault it. You’re being so codependent. You’re being so controlling. You’re being so enabling and fuck you, I’m just going to go drink. You know first of all, nothing a partner does can ever be an excuse for something to go use or drink. That’s their decision. But codependency has left partners almost to a one feeling on some level, like if I do the wrong thing, maybe he or she will drink or use or whatever again, and then my message to partners is, you know, you can be angry, you can nag, you can be sad, you can cry, you can yell, you can leave.
It is always the person with the addictions responsibility for the decision they make. They may, in response to your anger, decided to get divorced. They may decide to go see a therapist. They may decide to go running every day, but if they decide to drink, use sex, gamble. That is not your fault. That is their decision about how they chose to handle the unhappiness in their relationship. No partner is ever responsible for someone’s acting out, and that’s my greatest sadness with codependency is it leaves a lingering question with partners and family members. Am I ultimately responsible that my son can’t get sober? Am I ultimately responsible with my husband’s still drinking? No way.
JEFF: Yeah. Thank you. Wow. Great conversation. I appreciate it.
ROB: You’re welcome.