By David Essel
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August 20, 2025
Codependency destroys lives. Codependency destroys self-confidence. Codependency, destroys self-esteem, self love. Codependency creates extreme procrastination. Codependency can occur with a love relationship, family members, friends, coworkers, bosses… It comes from everywhere! In 2002, we labeled codependency as “the largest addiction in the world“, And today I stand by the same statement that I made in 2002. Codependency is so insidious, it can be so hard to see, to label, to identify, and then obviously it can be very difficult to remove. I spent 46 years in the world of counseling and mental health and relationships and addiction, recovery and attitude and spiritually, and everything you can imagine, and in the world of addiction recovery, and codependency is one of the trickiest to overcome. Why is that? Because it comes laced in pretty colors, it shows up with good intentions… But the end result is always negative. So when we jump and do something for a friend or a lover or family member time after time after time, and it puts us behind our schedule, or it takes time away to be with our family, or it takes time away to finish work… That is just one example of someone who is codependent. There are over 2000 spokes, in the world of codependency, which means there’s over 2000 different ways it can appear, which is why it’s so tricky to label identify and get rid of. Codependency can be looked at as walking on eggshells around people in your life, you’re afraid to be yourself or you’re afraid to have an opinion because certain people will put you down, so you become half of who you truly can be. Codependency can be a form of peer pressure, buying the latest pair of shoes because your friends have them is an outrageously strong sign that you are a codependent person. Codependency easily occurs in the world of alcoholism, where you might have friends that encourage you to come out and have a few drinks and you know it’s gonna end up with more than a few, but you go anyway because they’re giving you kind of a hard time they’re teasing you… And the minute you walk out the door, you are a flaming codependent. Codependency can occur with money, where we want to impress people, so whether we can afford it or not we buy clothes or jewelry or cars or houses to impress others, and it always backfires, because when you’re trying to impress or buy people‘s attention, you are going to lose. We have helped people who are extremely codependent to alcohol for 30 years become extremely independent to not only alcohol, but any other addiction. One of my clients who is now clean for about four months, cannot believe that he hasn’t had a sip of alcohol in four months, and that his life is radically changing. He has shattered his codependent relationship with alcohol. Another client, a woman, was extremely codependent to sugary type foods at night, which not only made her gain weight, but interfered with her confidence, her self-esteem, and eating sugar at night will definitely disrupt most people sleep... Continued Below ********************************************************************************************************************** Don't let the economy limit your healing! NEW LOWER FEES and MONTHLY PAYMENT OPTIONS, AVAILABLE TO WORK WITH DAVID! We have had so many requests from people who want to heal but, with inflation, they need to spread the fees with David over longer periods. Or, needed lower prices. We understand and agree! And, until the economy rebuilds, these new prices and payment options will stay in effect. If you need help with codependency, visit “codependency kills“ ... https://www.davidessel.com/co-dependency-kills If you need help in any other area of life, please click here… https://www.davidessel.com/executive-coaching You have been with David a long time and we are happy to assist everyone to higher levels of health, success, and peace. Love, Team David and David ********************************************************************************************************************** Since the age of 10, she had been calming her own internal emotions with sugar, instead of dealing with them. Within six months, we had completely eradicated the 40 year addiction to sugar, which allowed her codependency with this substance to be completely obliterated, her sleep improved dramatically, as well as her confidence and self-esteem. Another client, a woman had a very rough upbringing, not a lot of support from her mother or father, and had become codependent on finding men with money to take care of her financial needs. Of course, most relationships like this are going to implode, and by the time she got to me after six really terrible ending of relationships with very wealthy men, she understood completely after about four months of working together that she had become codependent on wealthy men so that she did not have to level up, get a job, maximize her potential, instead she was codependent to men so she did not have to work! 10 months after we started working together, codependency with wealthy men was completely destroyed, and she entered her first healthy relationship in her life! A major professional athlete, former client of mine, came to me because he was outrageously limited, in his ability to maximize his talent in his given sport, just four years earlier he had been rising and rising, and rising… He hit a massive plateau. He had been feeling depressed, he had experienced thoughts of depression, but because this would’ve meant reaching out to a counselor, the peer pressure from other professional athletes, telling him that he didn’t need any professional help. He just needed to get over himself… Kept him depressed much longer than he needed to be. And even with so many professional athletes today, making television commercials about mental health, there still is this underlying current amongst professionals that you just don’t talk about your personal life. You just don’t admit you have any kind of mental health issues because it might shorten your playing career. Thank God, my client finally reached out and admitted that he needed help, that he knew he had waited a little longer than he should have, and he broke that peer pressure in that moment! Six months later, we had totally taken care of his depression and he was back to playing at an exceptionally high level. A male client of mine came to me, discussing the fact that he may be leaning on sexuality too much in his relationships, and he felt it was the driving force of why he would be with any woman was just to be satisfied. How did he come to this mindset? As young boy, he saw his father in one affair after another, and he noticed that his mother never said anything, didn’t wanna rock the boat, and so he looked at his father‘s behavior as normal. As he grew up, he thought that you know it’s just great to have several women on the side that he can have sex with whenever he wants… But then it started to backfire. He started to have women catching onto his intentions, and for the first time in his life, he was rejected three times within about three months because these individuals knew that he was just there for sex. So he came in, and as we discussed why he got into this pattern, he was absolutely blown away that he was simply modeling his father from childhood. This is another form of codependency, when we follow the role model of someone when we are young, that is not showing us the healthy way to live, we just repeat. The patterns we're seeing because we believe that if my father or my mother or this person of this age is doing this, it must be OK! And another client, a woman, was role modeling her mother‘s behavior when she was a child that was codependent as well. On weekends, when her father worked, her mother would take her shopping for clothes, and hide them in the closet not letting her husband see the price tags. As you can imagine when this woman got older, she started repeating the same pattern until her husband caught her, which sent her to me. And yes, we shattered that codependent pattern that she had picked up from her mother and childhood as well. As you can imagine I could list 1000 different forms of codependency, with examples from clients over the last 46 years. I had become codependent to workaholism. A long time ago, I was also codependent in my intimate relationship by not really sharing as much of my emotional honesty as I do now, and all of this changed in 1997 when I spent 12 months working with another therapist who was an expert in codependency. She educated me in a way that was absolutely stunning, and from that year on this has been one of our greatest topics to help people heal with, codependency, because it comes in so many different shapes and sizes. For your free 20 minute session on the phone to discuss how you may be codependent, or maybe you understand your codependent and you’re looking for a little help to get out of it, just text us 941.266.7676 and our office will set you up with that call. This addiction can be defeated! Never give up hope ever! Too many people we’ve worked with have shattered codependency, our program is outrageously effective, and part of it is outlined in our book, “Love and relationship, secrets… That everyone needs to know.“ Now is the time to level up. If we can help you in any way whatsoever, I would love to. Sending love, David and Team David.
