Roslyn Saunders is a Specialist Codependency Recovery Coach helping clients across Australia and New Zealand recognise the codependent patterns behind problem drinking. She offers 1:1 coaching online and is the author of Recover From Codependency.
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Codependency and alcohol dependency can sometimes overlap when relationship stress, difficulty setting boundaries and emotional pain become closely connected with drinking.
In this story, alcohol had become one woman's way of coping with disappointment, loneliness, resentment and a marriage she no longer wanted to face. The drinking was important, but it was not the only issue. As she began to change her relationship with alcohol, she also started recognising patterns of self neglect and difficulty expressing her own needs.
Then she began coaching. Together, we uncovered what was underneath the drinking. She began to see alcohol wasn't the whole problem. It was the solution she had created for a problem she was unwilling to face and didn't know how to address: codependency, which she later came to see as one of the factors connected with her drinking and her difficulty making changes.
Codependency and alcohol dependency do not have one simple cause and effect relationship. For some people, chronic stress, difficulty setting boundaries, fear of conflict and repeatedly ignoring their own needs may contribute to emotional distress. Alcohol may then become one way of coping with that distress.
Six months passed without alcohol, and something extraordinary happened. As the fog lifted, she began to see her life more clearly, and with clarity came honesty. She knew her marriage wasn't where she wanted to be. She knew she didn't want to continue living the way she had been living, and she knew there was a decision she needed to make: she needed to leave. But knowing something intellectually and having the courage to act on it are two very different things.
This is where the cost of codependency came sharply into view. She realised she could no longer stay in denial or silent about the imbalanced relationship dynamic.
If alcohol is becoming difficult to manage, NoLo Life's support resources can help you explore professional and peer support options.
The National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism explains that alcohol use disorder develops through a complex interaction of genetic, environmental and psychological factors.
Understanding codependency and alcohol dependency can also help explain why changing drinking habits may expose difficult relationship patterns that were previously easier to avoid.
A $45,000 holiday to Europe provided the perfect opportunity to put her newfound emotional sobriety into action.
Her husband had booked a trip to Europe and she knew she didn't want to go, but instead of saying no, she said yes.
There it was: one tiny word. Yes.
Behind that yes was a lifetime of conditioning – the inability to disappoint, to create conflict, to factor in her own needs, to tolerate someone else's discomfort, and to make the decision she already knew she needed to make.
Now the consequences were enormous. $45,000 had been committed to a trip she didn't even want to take, but the money wasn't the real cost. The real cost was much greater. How does someone stay on holiday they desperately don't want to be on? For someone who has used alcohol to escape emotional pain, there is a very real danger that the old solution is defaulted to again: drink so she doesn't have to feel; drink so she doesn't have to confront the reality of her marriage; drink so she can tolerate the trip, pretend everything is okay, and keep saying yes.
Suddenly, what looked like a luxury holiday from the outside could become another chapter in the cycle of addiction. This illustrates how unresolved relationship patterns and emotional distress can become intertwined with problematic drinking. It ultimately costs so much – not only financially, but to the wider lifestyle budget of time, energy, self-respect and the commitments we make to ourselves.
The connection between codependency and alcohol dependency may become more visible when someone notices how often drinking follows conflict, resentment, fear, people pleasing or difficulty saying no.
When we add up the cost of alcohol addiction, we usually stop at the price of the alcohol itself. However, move beyond that, to losing your sense of self, shame, and guilt, not to mention the missed day at work, arguments, lost phone, medical bill or relationship breakdown and the costs escalate.
Codependency has a financial cost, but more importantly it has an emotional cost that can hold us in cycles of addiction. Every time we say yes when our truth is screaming no, we move further away from ourselves. When we repeatedly abandon ourselves, we may reach for something to numb the pain of that abandonment. For my client, alcohol had become that something.
Her six months sober had given her something alcohol never could: clarity. But clarity creates responsibility. Once you can see the truth, you have a choice. You can continue drinking to avoid the truth, or you can begin building the courage to face it and make healthy changes.
Looking at codependency and alcohol dependency together can help someone ask a broader question: not only “What is alcohol costing me?” but also “What situations, relationships or emotions make me want to escape?”
The $45,000 trip is not really the story. The story is the price tag attached to that one word: YES.
Because the ultimate cost of codependency isn't always measured in dollars. Sometimes it's measured in what it withdraws from your lifestyle budget long after the receipt has been forgotten: life, self-respect, sobriety, health and relationships.
Recovery is not always only about stopping drinking. It may also involve understanding the emotions, situations and patterns that make alcohol feel useful or necessary. If alcohol has become a way of avoiding difficult emotions or relationship dynamics, codependency may be one pattern worth exploring alongside other possible factors. Overcoming this means learning to say, “No, I don't want to do that.” “That doesn't work for me.” “I'm uncomfortable with this.” “I'm afraid, but I'm still going to tell the truth.” And eventually: “I choose me.”
While deciding to put down the drink can be courageous, getting honest about what you may have been drinking to avoid can be an equally important part of change.
Understanding codependency and alcohol dependency does not mean blaming a relationship for someone's drinking or reducing alcohol dependence to one psychological pattern. It means recognising that recovery can involve more than one part of a person's life.
For some people, building healthier boundaries, addressing stress and learning to express their own needs may become important alongside changing their relationship with alcohol.
Looking at codependency and alcohol dependency together can encourage a broader recovery conversation, one that considers drinking alongside boundaries, stress, relationships and emotional coping.
Disclaimer: Perspectives articles reflect the views and opinions of their individual authors and do not necessarily represent those of NoLo Life. They are published to encourage informed, open discussion about alcohol and its role in contemporary life.
