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.
When AH starts really getting into trouble because of his drinking and I'm detaching, what do I say? Like if he oversleeps for work and when he wakes up I'm in the living room with the kids. When he comes in in a panic asking why didn't I wake him up...what would you say? Those kinds of situations are starting and I am confused about how to respond with loving detachment.
I think there are others who are way better about responding with loving detachment than I am .. I really tried to say what I mean, mean what I say and not say it mean.
I have so many brain cells throughout the day and I don't view me thinking for someone else is my job.
Way back in the beginning of my relationship with my XAH I did set the boundary of I'm not your mom. Waking someone else up is so not my job.
Something I have said to my current bf is when he says make sure I am up, I laugh and say honey, you have a big beautiful brain that I am fully confident you have been waking yourself up for all of these years. I have all the of the faith that you will wake up when you need to be up!!
Hugs S :)
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Faith minus vulnerability and mystery equals extremism. If you've got all the answers, then don't call what you do "faith". - Brene Brown
"Whatever truth you own doesn't own you" - Gary John Bishop
C, You could try running the problem through the 12 steps and perhaps you will find an answer. I suggest you attend alanon meetings in person regularly:) Nice to see you here. wp
Before recovery, I was the PIC - Parent in Charge. This was a self-appointed title yet a job I took seriously! I did wake and push and pull those I love with this disease to get to school, work, other. When I started recovery and worked with a sponsor, I learned that this was not my job or my responsibility....As I set up my boundaries, my sponsor gave me loving statements to share with those I had been enabling/managing.
Simple things like, I plan to start walking each day so may/may not be around to wake you. Here is an alarm clock - please start using this.
I am reminded that my goal was to be kind, say just what was practiced and then smile while walking away. It took every once of self-restraint I had to not wake them when they slept through the alarm, yet I had to do this for them to understand I was truly resigning from my self-appointed position.
As time has gone on, I have been willing to be of service if/when asked to be a Plan B. I won't be a Plan A but have no issue acting in a back-up role.
Great topic - what I had to accept is I did many things out of 'love' that were really not my job. Only when I stepped out of the way did my loved ones realize I was stepping back from the fray to work on me. (((Hugs)))
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Practice the PAUSE...Pause before judging. Pause before assuming. Pause before accusing. Pause whenever you are about to react harshly and you will avoid doing and saying things you will later regret. ~~~~ Lori Deschene
The program helped me to understand the "un-sanity" I habitually used in trying to live a life with an alcoholic/addict spouse. How would she ever realize what she was responsible to and for if I always got in the way for and with what ever reason. In finding the solutions I also learned that guilt and shame and fear were "optional" and "un-sane" choices of feelings I practiced. She got sicker which was the proper consequences for what she was doing and I got weller because of mine. The Al-Anon Family Groups saves minds, emotions, spirits and bodies when practiced. Keep coming back often and follow the suggestions. (((((hugs)))))
I am so appreciating this place. I'm new here, but hearing these questions (my same questions, Cmag3), and hearing these answers is so helpful. This is the first time I've heard the concept of "Don't do for someone what they can do for themselves", or the concept that that is giving someone the dignity to run their own life. I get that enabling just prevents someone from feeling the consequences of their actions, which can only serve to slow down reaching a bottom. I just never understood that it's actually a gift to let go and let their choices dictate their own outcome.
It also helps when I look at myself, lol, and remember when others have tried to control my choices, because they thought "You're doing life wrong". It's degrading, it hurts and the only result is me being pissed off and not wanting to talk to them.
There is not a route answer to what to say to someone when they try to pull you in to clean up their mess.
One way I deal with difficult people is to avoid them. That is pretty hard to do when I would like to tell them where to get off.
Nevertheless I do it because I know what entanglement is and i don't need to be there.
Sometimes agreeing with them helps too. When I was living with an alcoholic and I stopped arguing with him and wanting something from him, things changed.
There is nothing carved in stone in al anon of this is what you'should" be doing. There are suggestions. Some of them work.
Sometimes you have to do what you need to. At one time when I was living with the alcoholic he did not pay the phone bill. Normally I jumped in and paid it.
in addition to paying it, I also heaped a lot of drama onto the alcoholic. At one time, I didn't jump in and pay it. There were consequences for me but I was willing to endure them.
Sure enough the alcoholic paid the bill after a while. Getting to the point of not paying the bill was a big shift for me.
I certainly was inconvenienced by not having a phone service. I think I was even more inconvenienced by trying to force the alcoholic to change.
I always ask me "is this something THEY can do?? or is it a legit call for help???? when I determine that and I see that they can drag themselves out of bed w/out my help, then if they sleep late??? NOT my problem....My next door neighbor and I both have our own fences..his is wood...mine is chain link and the weeds grow from his side, over the fence and into my side......So when I see MY side looking "weedy" I get the clippers, or machete and I clean MY side...I let his side grow...he finally sees it and he cleans up his own yard....IF I were to do both sides, he would just let me do it and not lift a finger....SOMETIMES, since we had a nice chat, i help him if hes working long hours because he helps me with my car....so now we kinda barter...if i need brakes or oil change or tranny flush, I can get him to do it and I do the weeds, but in the beginning I just did my side, till we decided on this "barter" which, so far has worked.....that said, there is a case to case basis on enabling vs mutual assisting each other or giving a person a deserved boost.....but IF I find another mate, I am NOT his mom, NOT his caretaker...God willing, I hope I am recovered enough to get someone healthy , I THINK i am healthy enough to venture in that arena again, IF that is in my life chart, but as for friends or relatives, I am not their babysitter....if someone gets drunk and cannot get up the next day, yea I know, you don't want him to lose his job, BUT if you start enabling, it goes on and on and becomes more and more...letting them reap what they sow is always best.....
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