how do you DETACH WITH LOVE - Al-Anon Family Group

entropyart · Member

how do you DETACH WITH LOVE

bobump · ~*Service Worker*~

I'd start by getting to a meeting and getting the Detachment pamphlet.

A great example that I've heard is a woman who's husband continues to pass out and tip over the rocking chair and she gets him into bed.

Detachment would be to leave him there and let him find his way back. With love would be to put a blanket over him. (and not over his face like he is dead, that would NOT be detachment, LOL) Then she would go about her normal evening or routine.

Bob

entropyart · Member

it' so hard for me to not react. I get so angry (and mind you he is only drinking 1 20oz. beer and is not acting particularly different it's just that he could DIE with his cirrhosis)...but anyway i get so angry i want to strangle him or throw things i want to get it into his head....he begs me to just leave him alone which makes me even more angry because then i say "you dont get to have it easy, i'm not letting you forget how bad it is"

again, i'm clearly doing thiings all wrong

bobump · ~*Service Worker*~

There is no wrong or right. Get to a meeting. See what works for others and decide if it's something your willing to try in your life. You may hear more than once answer.

Bob

Christy · ~*Service Worker*~

Have you thought about what would happen if you did leave him alone? Most likely he will drink that beer whether you are giving him a hard time or not right? sooo..If you left him alone and you didn't yell at him, at least at some level things would be a bit more calmer. Maybe you could sit outside and read, make a grateful list or just enjoy nature, finding some way to calm yourself.

I know the anger, I remember. I forced myself to replace it with other things. It's not easy but it is possible. He has said he will seek help. Beyond that you have no control over what he does or does not do. The only thing you do have control over is you and your reactions.

This is an addiction, His body screams for it. It is not as simple as you might think for him to just stop. The addiction is mental and physical.
You cannot defeat the disease and that is what you are dealing with.

My husband told me once that it is like being in a desert for weeks and everyone you love is begging you not to take a drink. But if you don't take the drink you fear you will die. I can't even imagine that dilemna.
That fear came true for him, he almost did die.

I understand, it's so hard to have compassion when you watch them doing damage to themselves while they create havoc in our lives. Through alanon we learn that when we buy in to the havoc we are giving the disease our power, fighting a fight we can't win. Somehow it manipulates us and sucks us in.

We have many more choices then we realize. We need not attend to or create anger. There's a host of things we get sucked in to that only later we learn that there were different paths we could have taken/chosen.

Christy

-- Edited by Christy at 17:33, 2007-09-14

janey225 · Veteran Member

This is one I have struggled with also. If he passes out leave him where he is. When my ah came home drunk after rehab and 48 days sober. That was a record. I hd nothing to do with him. I ignored him and left him where he passed out. We are still together. He is working and hitting AA hard. I hope it sticks. I am doing my thing. Taking care of the kids. Getting rady to go back to school myself and doing things for me and the children. I don't ask him for anything nless it is for the kids or to watch them If I need to do something. I felt really fgood about the way I hav detached. I feel so much better on the inside. dIt is hard but you can do it. I did, it tool a while but I figured it out. good luck to you.

twinkie · Senior Member

I recently was fortunate enough to practice detachment with love. I had heard about it for over 1 year and read alot about it in my readings but never really understood it until I was in it. There is a definite sense of peace - the anxiety and fear over the As drinking just leave. For me, prior to the detachment, I was getting stronger by attending Al-Anon, going to counseling and by doing what I needed to do for me - taking exercise classes, walking and making plans for myself. I had also achieved a better level of keeping my nose out of others business. When the A started drinking again, thanks to everything I had learned and all the supportive people around me, I was able to just let him go. I didn't try to stop him, convince him or change anything that he was doing. I knew that he needed to face whatever consequences he created from his binge. I just went about my business. It was AWESOME!! Though I cared and took his calls when he was sober and told him I loved him, I just kept living for me. The beauty is that after 1 month of his drinking HE finally reached out for help and got himself into treatment. He is working an amazing AA program.

But the point is, whether or not he found what he needed, I felt great about detaching and letting go. What hit home for me was that the more I tried to stop it the more I was enabling and keeping him in the progression of his disease. He needed to find his own bottom and reach out for help because he couldn't take it any longer. He had reached my level of discomfort and what I would've thought would be my bottom long before he hit his own.

Good luck to you - you can do it. I too was needy and clingy. Just keep on working your program, it truly does work and you'll find a peace and strength you didn't know you had!

Hugs

moms3 · Member

(((( Entro ))))-

    Detaching was so hard for me. I would try and try, but it just seemed impossible. I was a mess. I hated him, hated him for doing drugs, hated him for spending all of our money, hated him for shutting off his phone for days while I was at home with 3 children, hated the whole thing. When he came home, I would freak out, yell, scream, throw awful comments at him and then it felt as if I was hit by truck, unable to get up off the road and do anything. I was also ill, along with him. It made me physically and mentally sick.
     I started reading everything that I could find online about drugs and alanon and AA. I was obsessed with his disease and wanted to know everything. As much as I hated him, I loved him, too.
     With doing all of this, I realized that I needed to focus on me and alanon. I started to go to therepy. I started to realize that he wasn't going to go to family gatherings, school things, etc. anymore. At first, I had the worst fights with him about not going.... he still didn't go. I realized that I had a much better time without him and just having to worry about me and the kids. I didn't want him to go anymore and the few times he did, I was regreting that he came. The nights he was out an didn't come home, I actually started to enjoy, only me and the kids. When he was home it was actually miserable. I realized that his disease was more powerful than anything and I wasn't strong enough and never could beat it. It became a way of life. I worried about me and the kids, I didn't expect anything from him, and I wasn't hating him. ( time to time, I would... but we are not perfect)I am not as depressed as I was. I do what I need to do for me, take care of me so I can take care of my kids. It took a long time to get to where I am at, but I feel so much better. I am a better person.
   I realized that by hating him, only caused me to feel awful, knock me down and made me sick. There was NOTHING I could do or say, that would make him change. By detaching with love, it has given me peace and it has made me feel better. By doing this, it has helped me and I am number 1.
    Good luck. I hope I was able to help. Prayers and Hugs.......Kim

Jen · ~*Service Worker*~

Welcome, Entropyart.

This disease uses our emotions to make us crazy and cloud our judgement. If we are running around on raw emotion, we can not be our best selves. Detachment is mostly emotional for me. Although sometimes physical detachment, removing myself from the situation, helps. To me it just means not giving in to every emotional whim. I try to stop and think, not just react. The disease wants us to blow with its emotional wind so it can use our nasty outbursts to justify the drinking and bad behavior. By reacting as the disease programs us, we are just feeding its hold on him. It is a deadly cloak and dagger game, and the only way to win is not to play. Detachment is taking yourself out of the game of trying to influence others according to our will. It is giving them the dignity to fight it on their own terms.

Anyway thats my take on it so far.

Glad you're here.

Diva · ~*Service Worker*~

For me this has been a tough one Entropyart. I divorced him, although we are still together; and in doing so, freed myself in my own mind. Now I can love him to pieces, but hand him over when he decides to misbehave. (He is a every-six-months-to-a-year binger. He'll probably never stop, but I can totally detach from his misery, and allow it to cause me none at all. Oh, I am still concerned about him, I worry, and want all good things for him, but I have finally come to learn that I cannot make those good thing happen. My job is to stay out of his drinking, and see to my own happiness.

I'm getting there, and you can too. I don't know how to tell you to do it, but once you do, your whole outlook changes. There was a time when my heart took every drink with him...but now...I still don't like it but I can say, "OK. I'll see you when you sober up." And I go about my own days doing what I want to do.

Rambling? I guess I am. But I feel so much more peace knowing that I'll make it through just fine.

Diva

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