As professionals began to understand codependency better, more groups of people appeared to have it: adult children of alcoholics; people in relationships with emotionally or mentally disturbed persons; people whose partners had chronic illnesses; parents of children with behavior problems; people in relationships with irresponsible partners; professionals—nurses, social workers, and others in “helping” occupations. Even recovering alcoholics and addicts noticed they were codependent and perhaps had been long before becoming chemically dependent.8 Codependents started cropping up everywhere.
