Dr. Keith Humphreys

I mean, those kinds of things happen, drugs always work

in some crude sense, I don't mean necessarily beneficial, but they have some function, right?

And you got to figure that out because that will change if this drug use changes.

You think so?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

One of the really interesting studies done by Ruth Conkite, who was my colleague for a while,

women who were married to alcoholic men and did all the things that fit the codependent thing.

But then when the men got sober and they went back and studied them a year later, the women looked exactly like women of men who had never been alcoholic.

So a lot of the things that are attributed to the personality of the codependent person is actually reaction to addiction.

You know, they're hyper responsible, they have to be because the mortgage won't get paid.

You know, they're placating.

Well, they have to be because they've got this volatile person, potentially dangerous person.

That's where a lot of that comes from.

And I think it was a bit unfair.

I mean, obviously, the people have bad tastes and partners, there's no doubt about that.

But maybe a bit unfair to not appreciate a lot of things families do are more reactive than something that was pre-existent and fit with an addiction.

And it's also true that, you know, there are people who 10 years into addiction find they're not married to the person they married, you know, because that person has changed an awful lot.

So, you know, maybe they were originally pretty social, pretty competent, pretty honest.

And then after 10 years of heroin use or whatever, they are none of those things.

Yeah.