After I finished my 60 12-step meetings in 60 days — as directed by my life coach — I found myself going back. But I sometimes felt as though I was attending under false pretenses because I had no alcoholism in my world.
However, one day after a meeting, I realized alcohol WAS undermining my life in the guise of the chief financial officer of my company. The problem wasn’t his alcohol, per se, but who he was becoming at work.
He was increasingly belligerent and obstructive, and no one in the company would work with him. I had tried with no luck to help him work more smoothly with others. Now that I was waking up to the unhealthy tendencies in my own life, I felt I was in a better place to help him… but that wasn’t the case.
He refused the idea of attending a recovery program, and I was afraid firing him would unravel our whole accounting and finance department. He had convinced me he was irreplaceable, and I backed off.
The harm we do for goodness’ sake
By now, my part in the dysfunction at work was becoming clear. In fact, a couple of my behaviors that I once thought of as “superpowers” were actually causing a world of hurt:
- The need to rescue people and situations to keep underperforming friends on the payroll.
- A relentless drive to win — at all costs.
These are generally socially approved behaviors, so what’s the problem?
Al-Anon conversations were teaching me that my stuckness around my business partner’s dysfunction was rooted not in strength but weakness. My role was to look the other way and make adjustments. The payoff? Another day of peace. Meanwhile, he got to skate free while everyone else paid the price.
An unequal, harmful relationship like this is called co-dependency. You may know this as being an enabler to someone’s addiction, poor mental health, immaturity, irresponsibility or underachievement.
We want to be the chisel-jawed hero riding in to save the day. We like to feel needed. We like to feel important. But it’s hard for many of us to understand the line between good help and bad.
Coming to grips with my weakness and failures in this area was brutal. I had to face that my addiction was people-pleasing, and it cost me greatly.
Don’t get me wrong, wanting to rescue and aid others through self-sacrifice can be a noble thing. But my motivation wasn’t altruistic; it was based on an insatiable need for approval and admiration from others. And guess what, I ended up resenting the very things I did to help others, in various capacities. I even resented God in my misunderstanding of His grace. I was performance-driven, even for Him.
How did I get here? More importantly, how did I get out? I explain it all in more detail in my book, All In. Check it out!