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Beattie, who gives people a name for their pain -- codependency -- says they are not victims and suggests simple, specific activities for those on the rocky road to spiritual rebirth. The bible for her movement, Codependent No More, has been on the New York Times best-seller list for more than 115 weeks and has sold more than 4 million copies since its 1987 publication. Her subsequent book, Beyond Codependency: And Getting Better All the Time, focuses on relationships and what she calls "taking recovery on the road." Her 1990 book, The Language of Letting Go: Meditations on Codependency, offers daily doses of wisdom on topics like "Gratitude" and "Coping with Stress." But just what is codependency? The queen decrees, "A codependent person is one who has let another person's behavior affect him or her and who is obsessed with controlling that person's behavior." She figures that more than 80 million Americans are emotionally involved with an addict or are addicted themselves -- not just to alcohol or drugs, but also to sex, food, work or shopping. A recovering drug addict, alcoholic and codependent herself, Beattie urges readers in the subtitle of her most popular book to "stop controlling others and start caring for yourself." She lives by example: "This book is dedicated to me."
Thousands of these book buyers are flocking, with new converts' passion, to the myriad "Anonymous" groups; 500,000 self-help meetings are held weekly across the country. Codependents Anonymous is among the most rapidly growing of these free, confessional meetings. Addiction is a big industry these days, with expensive treatment programs, seminars, books, magazines and, yes, even "sobriety vacations." Flinty Americans may find this new commercialism discomfiting, but many anguished souls have found their salvation in 12-step programs, which owe a debt to Alcoholics Anonymous, the novel effort by two heavy drinkers who, in 1935, learned to stay sober -- one day at a time -- and pioneered a new philosophy.
The oracle herself resides in a modest subdivision of Stillwater, Minn., & replete with neat lawns and American flags. Beattie (that's Beet-y) sits in the sun in a cafe along the St. Croix River with tall pines casting a shadow on the water and her 42-ft. houseboat, Nightsong, floating placidly down the way. In her calm, girlish voice, she orders decaffeinated coffee before a light lunch ("I let go of caffeine this year"). Beattie leads a pure, "land-o'-lakes" life and has a sense of, well, serenity. This wasn't always so. The sleeves of her soft blouse meet the bean-size indentations on her arms: the dots connect to her years on life's underside, and she matter- of-factly recites the details. Beattie, 42, of French extraction, was raised by her mother, who worked as a switchboard operator. She tells of being sexually molested by a stranger at age four and drinking whiskey and blacking out by 12. By graduation, the onetime editor of the school newspaper was working as a legal secretary and using drugs, and was briefly a stripper. After an attempted burglary of a pharmacy, she landed before a judge, who decreed jail or a treatment program.