Codependency: Psychological Support for Relatives of a Person With an Addiction
When someone close to you uses alcohol, drugs, or other psychoactive substances, the whole family gradually starts living around their condition, promises, relapses, and attempts to control what's happening.
Psychological support for a relative is not only about understanding how to behave with the person who has the addiction. It helps restore your own boundaries, reduce constant emotional tension, and build a more sustainable way of responding.
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When Your Whole Life Starts Depending on a Loved One's Behavior
It's worth getting a consultation if you notice that you:
What Codependency Is
In clinical practice, the term "codependency" is used to describe a persistent relationship pattern in which a person's life becomes excessively focused on another person's problems, condition, and behavior.
This doesn't mean caring about a loved one is wrong. The problem arises when that care gradually turns into constant control, rescuing, abandoning your own needs, and living in chronic emotional tension.
In a consultation, the goal isn't to label someone "codependent," but to understand exactly which patterns of interaction have formed in the family and what the relative themselves can change.
"How Do I Make Him Stop Drinking?"
This is one of the most common questions relatives ask. But there's no way to guarantee that an adult will change their behavior just through talking, control, or pressure.
Psychological work with a relative focuses on what is actually within their own influence: their own decisions, boundaries, ways of communicating, how they respond to relapses, stepping back from destructive patterns, and taking care of their own psychological state.
If the person with the addiction is ready to seek help, a separate route of psychological support and, if needed, medical care can be arranged for them.
What We Work On in a Consultation
Personal Boundaries
We identify what you are and aren't willing to accept in the relationship, and how to communicate your decisions consistently.
Control and Rescuing
We examine actions that give a brief sense of control but may end up sustaining the family's usual dynamic.
Guilt and Responsibility
We separate the adult's own responsibility for their addiction from your responsibility for your own decisions and safety.
Fear of Relapse
We work with the constant anticipation of the next relapse and the emotional dependence on your loved one's state.
Communication and Strategy
We build a clearer way of talking, without pleading or threats, and define what to do if the substance use continues, if your loved one becomes willing to seek help, and in crisis situations.
Reclaiming Your Own Life
We restore attention to your own health, work, relationships, interests, plans, and resources.
If the Person With the Addiction Doesn't Want Help
A relative can reach out to a psychologist on their own.
You don't need to wait until the person with the addiction agrees to a consultation.
Even if your loved one's behavior isn't changing yet, you can change your own strategy: stop participating in repeating destructive patterns, set boundaries, prepare for difficult conversations, and understand which actions are actually within your control.
How to Talk to a Person With an Addiction
There's no universal phrase that will make someone stop using. But a conversation can be made more constructive.
What Relatives Are Better Off Not Doing
When Urgent Medical or Emergency Care Is Needed
A psychological consultation does not replace emergency or medical care.
If the person shows impaired consciousness, seizures, marked deterioration of their physical condition, psychotic symptoms, threats to harm themselves or others, suicidal statements, or other acute symptoms, emergency or medical care must be sought immediately.
If You've Been Living With This Situation for Years
Living alongside a person with an addiction for a long time rarely leaves no trace — and in that case, the work addresses more than just the relationship with that person.
Where Things Stand Now
Chronic stress, anxiety, emotional exhaustion, disrupted sleep, loss of your own goals, and the sense that your whole life revolves around someone else's problem.
What We're Working Toward
Restoring your own psychological state and ability to make decisions, and gradually regaining control of your own life.
Natalia Zentsova
Doctor of Psychological Sciences · Medical Psychologist · Professor
More than 20 years of professional practice. I work with addiction and codependency, complex cases, and crisis states — situations where a family has long struggled to know how to help without destroying their own lives in the process.
I provide second expert opinions and, when needed, personal support for patients and their families — building an individual route of care and coordinating with specialists across different fields.
More About Me →Frequently Asked Questions
You Can Seek Help Even if Your Loved One Isn't Ready Yet
You don't have to wait until the person with the addiction acknowledges the problem or agrees to see a specialist. You can start the changes with your own part of the situation.
In an individual consultation, we'll go through what's happening, your usual behavioral strategies, boundaries, and possible next steps.
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