The material presented
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information, ideas, feelings, problems and solutions on a personal
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My Ah and I have been living apart for nearly one month. We've been married 5 years. We've had many seperations in the past as well. We've been having regular contact, being as we have a 3yr old awesome boy together! That's complicated.
I would very much like to see things work out with my Ah, I have very loving memories of how we once were. For me, living with him as an Active A, is not something that I can do. I know that about myself.
To detach with love. This is a hurdle for me. I have a lot of difficulty being loving, while being so angry, resentful, sad, hostile and hurt. I am filled with HATE for this vicious disease. And I'd be lying if I said it was clear to me how I am to not let my HATE for the disease impact my attitude and feelings for my Ah.
I have so much HATE in me for this disease and how it has destroyed my Ah and our relationship, that to "lovingly" detach seems so foreign and impossible. I try to wrap my head and heart around it - hate the disease, not the person - and I just spiral out of control. To "lovingly" detach? Ugh. To surrender to a disease that has stolen my hopes, dreams, future the way I hoped, my son's childhood the way I hoped, etc. To surrender and lovingly "detach"? To not blame my Ah for allowing this? Is it REALLY not his fault? Is he really a victim? Really?
I can see that there is not much of an alternative... I can lovingly detach or angrily detach, but one way or another....
it just doesn't seem like much of a choice. To detach. To resign. To let go.
I understand the benefit of giving it all up "lovingly" as opposed to "angrily" - but when you don't want to give it all up at all ... that's a dilemna ... not a choice!
Like I said, I am still in the thick of things ... maybe one day I'll have a better understanding ...
Have you tried journalling, just writing it all out? When my mind was very mixed up I started writing every day, just pages of whatever comes out. Its a great way to release and maybe find reason.
Release this hate onto paper for now. It's worth a try don't you think?
While you hate this disease with such passion you are giving energy to it. Energy that would be better spent on loving yourself.....
Rora, it's ok to be angry, hurt and resentful - you have to feel the pain to get through it. I hate what this disease has done to my family but I don't surrender to the disease -- I surrender to God. Reading the literature and knowing that I cannot save my AH - that it is out of my control just gave me a huge relief. It really is baby steps - one day at a time. I think I'm down now to angry 75 percent of the time and at peace 25 percent. Last month it was 85/15 so it is a process but you are in the right place - We get it!
Detachment is a hard concept to get a hold of in the beginning, even without the "with love" part! I am sure you have heard the example of detachment with love whereby if we find the A passed out in the front yard on a cold night, we leave them there, but put a blanket on them so they wont freeze...not letting them freeze is the "with love" part.
You mention words like Surrender, blame, resentment and hate.
I felt them all. I reveled in them all.
For me the Detachment came when I finally Let Go and Let God. I know, it sounds like another platitude..another concept that is hard to truly grasp.
But the thing of it for me was finally accepting the fact that it just doesnt matter what I want. It just doesnt matter what I think is fair, right or just. I cannot control alcoholism. And believe me I tried!!! I cannot control the uncontrollable, whether it be alcoholism or the alcoholic.
The "with love" part I discovered was for me, not the disease. I learned about the disease of alcoholism, by going to open AA meetings. By going to a Big Book study group..etc..etc. I Came to Believe in the disease concept of it. With this I gained some Compassion and Understanding. Neither of these things means I have to Accept Unacceptable Behavior. It does mean I can have Compassion for the person who suffers from the disease, and that includes the Alcoholic and Myself.
I guess for me I learned it is okay for me to feel all those emotions. I certainly do HATE what alcoholism does to families. I no longer have the luxury of hating those alcoholics for doing things I just think are wrong.
Because when I hate people. When I get a resentment against them. It doesn't hurt anybody but me. I give away my Peace.
The only thing I found that helped me to understand these Concepts was Working the Program. Going to meetings, reading literature, talking to people who had what I wanted. And working those 12 Steps!
I struggle with this myself all of the time. I truly hate this disease too, it is like an evil infestation.
A couple of things that helped me to gain compassion for the disease and my AH were to attend open AA meetings and to read the chapter in the AA Big Book called Chapter to the Wives. These experiences truly helped me understand how complicated the disease is, how miserable the alcoholic is, that he is not doing this to hurt me.
I once said to my AH, isn't A'ism like diabetes...it is a disease, but you have to choose whether you treat it or not. He agreed in theory that this is true, but disagreed that giving up certain foods had any degree of comparison to giving up a mind and body altering chemical that the body craved more than air to breath.
Here is a great poem about detachment:
To let go does not mean to stop caring. It means I can't do it for someone else.
To let go is not to cut myself off. It is the realization that I can't control another.
To let go is to admit powerlessness, which means the outcome is not in my hands.
To let go is not to try to change another or blame another. It's to make the most of myself. To let go is not to care for, but to care about.
To let go is not to fix, but to be supportive. To let go is not to judge but to allow another to be a human being.
To let go is not to be in the middle arranging all the outcomes, but to allow others to affect their own destinies.
To let go is not to deny, but to accept. To let go is not to nag, scold, or argue, but instead to search out my own shortcomings and correct them.
To let go is not to adjust everything to my desires, but to take each day as it comes and cherish myself in it.
To let to is not to regret the past, but to grow and live for the future. To let go is to fear less and love more.
Hey Rora . . . I'm still early on in my detatchment and still working with some pretty ugly emotions myself right now. Your post hits me right to the heart.
Though I ABSOLUTELY agree that the hate and rage against the disease or the person is only an energy drain for me, it was mentioned once that the anger and hatred is a natural response to the chaos and pain, a necessary step forward. It's not a place to stay in however, more like a location to visit, work through, and move on.
So much I DON'T hear the natural and appropriate anger when someone shares some ugly experience with alcoholism, where they were hurt, abused, taken advantage of. I want to grab them and plead "Why aren't you angry???"
This is what my anger and hatred for the disease . . . and to some extent, my A . . . has done for me. By being angry and appalled, I separate myself from him emotionally (detatchment). Sure, I'm still hooked in, but it's a start. Then, I take all that energy and DO something with it. With the anger, I don't feel helpless. It's energized me into taking action to protect myself from the A and his mayhem. It has enabled me to take some pretty harsh steps to protect myself. There's a time for everything under the sun, and there is a time for anger and hatred. But only a "time", not a way of being. In order to separate ourselves, we have to "reject" what is separated, and our natural anger and outrage are what God gave us to protect us after all.
Now for me the time for anger and hatred is past . . . I've done what I can for now. Being angry with my A is thinking about him, which I don't really need to do unless he is in my face.
It's a process along the path to health and maturity. Be wary of it, it's only a tool. This is my experience, anyway.
Hi - when I first came to Al-Anon, one of the "old-timers" told me that she had never seen anyone so angry as I was. I was full of hurt, rage, shock, and fear that I had found out that my husband was an alcoholic and had used drugs.
When I first "detached", I totally ignored the A (detached with a meat-cleaver!). My sponsor told me that for my own mental health, that would have to do for now until I learned a better way. Later, it took a while, I learned to detach by just being polite (had to grit my teeth sometimes). It took me a long time before I could deal with my anger to the point where I could accept that he had a disease and I could be compassionate while I stayed emotionally detached not from him but the crazy-making.
In the beginning of our program, for me, I had to get away from the craziness however I could. What I'm trying to say is that it takes time to learn how to detach with love, but if you stay with the program, it will come.
