The material presented
here is not Al-Anon Conference Approved Literature. It is a method
to exchange
information, ideas, feelings, problems and solutions on a personal
level.
Detachment is a very important tool in my Al-Anon tool box. I live with active alcoholism, so I use detachment often. However, until recently I was not discerning the difference between physical and emotional detachment.
When my husband drinks, I do something that helps me think about me. I love to shop for my three years old granddaughter and my granddaughter that is due in a few weeks. I love looking at baby things, and lately, I have started sewing outfits for my three years old granddaughter. Whatever I am doing to take my focus off my ah is detachment, but, to me, this is physical detachment. This kind of detaching is easy for me.
I had not learned emotional detachment, or didnt realize there is a difference until recently. For me, emotional detachment is much more difficult. This detachment involves feelings and emotional attachments. To me, these are the bonds of a marriage. I have been married almost 40 years. My h crossed that invisible line into alcoholism about 14 years ago.
For me, the best slogan to help with emotionally detaching is Let go and let God. Although I have read and repeated this slogan hundreds of times, I did not fully understand its meaning until recently. Emotional attachments are what have kept me anchored to my ah. Lately, I feel different, kind of like a distance when my h drinks. This feeling is almost like an out of body experience. I dont know how to explain this. It's not something I am conscientiously doing. Its a feeling of freedom and calmness, but it also scares me.
Has anyone else experienced these kinds of feelings?
-- Edited by cloudyskies on Saturday 25th of October 2014 10:06:01 AM
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Look for the rainbow after the storm, and I'm sending you a double dose of HOPE. H-hold O-on P-pain E-ends
Yes Linda you are on your way. Emotional detachment is very important and what detachment aims for .
This is when we are staying within our own lives and selves, feeling our feelings nurturing these feelings, using positive tools to help us interact. Making asset and gratitude lists so that we are experiencing life from within our own experience and not trying to change another because their actions are frightening. I know I found that often I would jump out of myself and my life, into the others life and try to fix it because I was frightened by their actions
Detachment had me stay within myself and use alanon tools to nurture my feelings It is powerful
This is such an important topic for me. I like the way that you explain the difference between emotional and physical attachment.
At the moment I would say that I am emotionally walled in as far as AH is concerned. I do lots of things to hold myself apart from him physically and when we come close to making a genuine connection my thoughts turn sour, I am keeping that wall in place. I might be protecting myself, but I know that I am missing out on good things as well. How to bring that road block down? Thank you Hotrod for some pointers.
Emotional attachments are what have kept me anchored to my ah. Lately, I feel different, kind of like a distance when my h drinks. This feeling is almost like an out of body experience. I dont know how to explain this. It's not something I am conscientiously doing. Its a feeling of freedom and calmness, but it also scares me.Has anyone else experienced these kinds of feelings?
-- Edited by cloudyskies on Saturday 25th of October 2014 10:06:01 AM
Hey Linda...............dunno how i missed a post on one of my favorite topics of detachment..I like the way you break down the physical vs emotional detachment....really when i know for me when i "do something for me" to detach/let go, it is still sort of an emotional detachment in that i am distracting me from the person or place or thing i want to distance myself from or say, put the focus back on me, distracting me is to get me from obsessing over the thing that has me hooked....and yea, staying within me as Betty says was hard for me too, like i had to stick my nose in and fix everyone/thing else but work on me...maybe i just figured i was hopeless, LOL or something, but working alanon has shown me that i feel so much better and healthier staying within me......scary?? any change was and still is to a point scary for me....its the CHANGE that scares me....i 2nd guess myself, my actions, my motives, etc., when slightest doubt....i still don't trust me fully, yet..........i even sometimes get mad that i have to detach detach detach b/c i hate being powerless b/c to this day, not as bad, but still, i see powerless as helpless and helpless means i am done in......i may lose a client , the bully at office b/c he is just "down" on everyone and he is mad at me b/c i didn't check up on his wife and MIL doing the matching inventory receipts to the incoming vendor bills to match...i never HAD to mess with it...never WAS my job, but now all of a sudden it is and hes calling me out b/c I didn't keep the received items entries clean....i told him , I don't get the bills, can't do what i can't see, but will do what i can to help... and then i just threw up my hands after we talked and i DETACHED.......that is when i went to goodwill and almost got into a fracus over a woman leaving her poor little doggie locked up in a car w/NO air......today has been ALL about detachment ...just separating myself from the BS and staying within me....gonna steal that from Betty, I love that "staying within myself" I have been challenged a lot about that and yea, i get sorta tired of it, but fighting it does not help so more practice on "staying within myself" i can only take care of me.....sending you loads of support.......
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Live and let live and do it with peace and goodwill to all!!!!
Thanks neshema. I like the way you are meshing the two detachments. I am just beginning to understand this. I also like the "staying within myself." I do this, but never thought about like that.
Thank you for sharing.
It works if you work it.
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Look for the rainbow after the storm, and I'm sending you a double dose of HOPE. H-hold O-on P-pain E-ends
Yes, I have experienced that type of detachment. It helped me see that I am separate from the other person and it made it that much easier for me to do what I needed to do for me and not step in to do for the other what they needed to do for themselves. My "go to" in relationships is the need to rescue. I learned it early in childhood. It will never go away. I can now recognize an inner push to "do something" as the need to rescue and I can comfortably say no to it and choose not to interfere with the other person's business.
