But the codependency movement stretched this idea to dangerous extremes. Because addiction was defined as a disease, codependency became one as well. No one, however, was ever able to come up with a diagnostic tool that reliably distinguished between “codependents” and those without the disorder. Moreover, the problem of codependency was soon combined with the idea of “tough love,” which diagnosed nearly any caring behavior toward people with addiction as “enabling” their drug use to continue.
