JC Disciples
Choicemaking, by Sharon Wegscheider-Cruse
Building on her own experience as a person who grew up in an alcoholic family, Sharon Wegscheider-Cruse combines personal experience and professional insight into an outline of the journey from codependent to healthy behavior. She defines codependency as "a specific condition that is characterized by preoccupation and extreme dependence … on a person or object." The codependent lifestyle emerges from a lack of self-esteem and, because attention is focused elsewhere, it leads to neglect of the self. Although her target audience is adult children of alcoholic families, the author explains how addictions other than alcohol have similar effects of the family environment. The first section of the book describes what codependent adult children may become bound to, those things which they need freedom from.
The second part of the book describes the choices that must be faced if the codependent is to find healing and a more fulfilling lifestyle. This process involves learning about the options available, trying new behaviors, and taking chances. Self-help groups and individual therapy are both helpful in this process. At some point, the family system should be examined and confronted. Wegscheider-Cruse presents several ways of doing this; some of them do not require the actual presence of family members. She also delineates a set of twelve steps for recovering codependents. In recovery, people may encounter barriers to progress as well as difficulties in adjusting relationships as new behavior patterns are established. These problem areas are identified with thought-provoking helps for working through them.
The final chapters bring a spiritual aspect to recovery. According to Wegscheider-Cruse, the final challenge for any human is spiritual transformation. People who are open to transformation live lives marked by awareness of opportunities and freedom to choose from these opportunities. By personally thanking those who were mentors to her, the author invites the reader to consider the mentors in his own life and the lessons they taught. Ultimately spirituality connects with God and brings us into a working relationship with God.
This book provided me insight into what appears to be a common experience that I lack: life inside an addictive or otherwise dysfunctional family. It is written primarily for laypersons; however, it does provide helpful information to professionals who are involved in treating or helping codependents.
It is a book that I may recommend to some people who are coming to terms with their own codependent behavior. But I could not recommend this book to everyone with this sort of problem. Although she is willing to use the name "God," Wegscheider-Cruse writes more of the "Higher Power" concept common in the recovery movement. She also draws from other spiritual traditions as well as Christianity and she massages Christian texts and concepts to fit within her broader spiritual framework. Some level of discernment is necessary to read this book and apply the lessons in it without being led into a type of amorphous spirituality that has little use for the power of the gospel message.
On the whole, I liked the book. Growing up, I had thought my family was very much like everyone else's. Lately, I have come to realize that my highly functional family is unfortunately not the norm. I married into a very dysfunctional one and at times I have been perplexed, and even hurt, by the behaviors I encounter from my in-laws. This book has given me better insight into these troubling family dynamics and a better sense of my husband's past. In reading Co-dependence: Healing the Human Condition, I learned about theory of codependency and strategies for recovery. In this book, I learned more about the actual experiences of codependency and recovery from it.