Need Help with How to Maintain Detachment and Feel OK - Al-Anon Family Group

Fiddleman · Member

Need Help with How to Maintain Detachment and Feel OK

Christy · ~*Service Worker*~

Hi Fiddleman,

I think as we progress in Alanon and see that the choices we make have worked for us we feel a bit better about everything. It takes time to watch our choices unfold, as they do we learn what works for us and what doesn't. The things that don't work, we change. The things that do work we begin to feel better about and gain more confidence and strength..which in turn allows our apprehension to subside.

As far as the unfullment when you see him..If you enter the meeting with no expectations you may come away unscathed. You can't do anything about his expections. That's for him to deal with and learn from. I don't know that any of us walk away feeling wonderful when we see all the damage that addiction has done to a loved one. We're human, we care.

We end up reprogramming our brains a bit as to what to do with are feelings and sometimes even wondering if we should be having the feelings we are dealing with. Detachment takes time to wrap your brain around. It's certainly not what we have done so far. Establishing emotional boundaries can only help. For instance, when you see manipulation coming do whatever you need to do to not take it on or feel responsible. The addict has created their destructive dilemna (whatever the current one is). They will only do different if they find their way out alone. Detach from their issues and know you are doing the best thing for both of you.

Christy

Jerry F · ~*Service Worker*~

Aloha Paul...looks like you're holding yourself fully responsible for the relationship still.
You're attempting to be responsible to him as a Dad and he is being responsible
to the disease. I remember an Al-Anon lesson early on where the speaker talked
about being the one to apologize for someone else stepping on her foot. It took a
bit of thinking on my part and then I got it. You're putting yourself out there and
he's stepping on your foot.   Alcoholics aren't stupid, blind, deaf and dumb. They
get the message clearly and classically like in your case will continue to work on
you, wear you down. What part of that is detachment?  When I accepted that my
alcoholic wife would drink in spite of being aware of how it affect me and others in
the family and by drink I mean feed the disease so that it progressively got worse
I detached by getting into my own space and keeping it free of the drinking and
using. "If you are going to continue drinking and using I will not spend time with
you." I learned to say this to my alcoholic addict wife and then to my alcoholic addict
son and then I also separated from my son so that my space was alcoholism free.
Love him?...of course and not without loving myself in the same manner. When
my foot got stepped on I learned to say, "You stepped on my foot or get off of my
foot"...not I'm sorry.   He found free beer, an alcoholic's dream come true. Go
figure.

Feeling Ok is an inside job. Detaching is a recovery behavior modification. You're
the only one working at it.

Keep up the program work of course.

((((hugs)))) smile

DreamXL · Senior Member

http://www.livestrong.com/article/14712-developing-detachment/

This is one of the best articles I have ever read on detachment. I hope you find it helpful :) blessings !

maresie · ~*Service Worker*~

I live and work around alcoholics who are pretty progressive in their disease. I don't think personally it is possible sometimes to feel that great around people who are destroying themselves, lying about it and looking for a "rescue". Boundaries do not go down well with them. The more I have put in boundaries the more they dislike it. The more I guard my serenity the more they are astounded.

Finding a way to have the right attitude about it is very hard. Live and let live is something I have had to really adopt. I've also had to really examine my attitude towards what they "should" be doing. I have to be far more careful navigating my "shoulds" sometimes than their entire lack of boundaries.

Maresie.

Fiddleman · Member

Thanks for all the helpful comments and insights. I guess when I think about it all, maybe it is not supposed to feel OK to be detaching from a loved one who I know is destroying themself. Maybe the best I can hope for is to find enough distance so that worries and anxieties are not a part of daily life for me. The more he recedes into the distance and lives a life in which I am only minimally involved the better for us all perhaps. Trying to bring him closer, provide a family environment, and pretend things are normal might not work especially with him using. If he were in recovery and working a program, things would be very different I feel and HE would be very different. Right now it is more of the same old stuff and I have had more than a bellyfull.

I need to practice my Step work more, and learn to give him up to my Higher Power and focus on other things. But it is hard for Mr. SuperDad as I have prided myself on all these years to back off and not 'help' a son in need. But now I see that the helping I used to do was enabling and not helping. I want to help myself toward my own peace and serenity right now which I feel my Higher Power would want for me, not to remain tortured by this forever.

Jerry F · ~*Service Worker*~

The turning them over to HP and not yanking them back into my own control
was the foundation stone to detachment. Detachment isn't abandonment.
Detachment is not interfering with the God of my understanding as the God of
my understanding does much better work at it than myself. When I detach it
is with confidence or either it is like standing over the shoulder of God and
giving instructions. Stay with it...cause it works. smile

-- Edited by Jerry F on Monday 24th of January 2011 07:09:35 PM

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.