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.
If detaching means NOT allowing the things they do and say penetrate to the point of where they are able to hurt us - then in a sense aren't we learning to close off our feelings? If we are able to close off our feelings, then wouldn't we become rocks? If we become rocks, we end up teaching ourselves how not to feel. It's kind of like going inside of ourselves, and pulling out everything that makes us who we are. We are our feelings, aren't we?
Wouldn't we become like the people we see, who have been so beaten down that there is nowhere but up? Wouldn't we become like the substance abusers themselves, who hate themselves for what the disease has done to them?
I'm trying to detach, and see this person who he is minus the disease. As a matter of fact, I think I've been learning how to do this for some time, without realizing that's what I've been doing. I knew I wasn't a dumb c**t, or any of the horrible things he called me. I always knew that, but regardless of whether you know it or not, you can be brainwashed into feeling that perhaps you are these horrible things.
So - in detaching, you need to debrainwash yourself - or so to speak. First you have to KNOW that these things aren't you, and then you need to start wiping away what they have made you feel about yourself. You need to start seeing yourself as the person you know in your soul you are, and not allow one person, who has a terrible disease, define you ...
I think I'm slowly getting it - but the questions in my mind still keep popping up. I guess I'll just have to deal with each one, as it comes.
Detachment with LOVE is the term I have to remind myself. This always take me back to the three C's. I didn't cause it, can't control it, and I can't cure it. I am not responsible for what others do say or think.
Granted when someone lashes out at me and says things to hurt me, or guilt me in anyway....I have to look at my part in it. I quickly take necessary step to apoligize for my behavior. I do not apoligize for the way I feel. If I have no part, then that takes me to the fact that I do not have to accept unacceptable behavior. It is up to me at that point if I want to pick up that guilt or that hurt from what another has said or done to me.
Allowing another to hurt me puts all my time and energy in to that negative thinking. My serenity is not up for grabs. This is where compassion and patience come into play for me. Compassion for the alcoholic, patience for the alcoholic. I come to a point where I realize what he suffers is real. We are all foulable human beings. All of us. We all deserve to have a certain degree of compassion, patience, and dignity.
I have to seperate myself from many of the things the alcoholic does to be compassionate. I once read, I believe in Courage to Change, that when her husband passed out in the floor or where ever, she would move mountians to wake him up. She would be so angry with him when he would wake up. Eventually, she would just put a blanket over him and step over him as she climbed in bed. She would come to a point where she was no longer angry with him. If that were me. I would think I would do that because I love him. I want to sleep, and why am I focused on all his defects and not my own?
That blanket to me represents breaking a terrible cycle of enabling. I enable my alcoholic to try and fix the situations. When he would bounce checks I would take care of it, when he would take the kids to school late and the kids get introuble, I would tell the school it was my fault, when he would pass out and wet the bed, I would wash the sheets and not utter a word. I never gave him a chance to learn anything or to correct his wrongs. Once, I detached and stopped taking care of the checks, stopped lying for him, stopped washing those sheets and sleep on the couch.....he had to clean up his own messes for a change.
The most loving thing we could ever do in my eyes would be not enabling a person. They need to be held accountable for what they do and say. Doesn't mean they will just become sober. Doesn't mean they will just get how sick they really are. Won't we feel better? We detached it all and we did it out of love for our alcoholic.
Sorry, for rattling on, and on.....I really need to quit responding to the post when the tooth picks won't hold anymore.
Hi, detaching for me is this. I see my a and my husband as two different entities. If the A is talking I ignore and know it is the disease talking not my husband.
I finally go to where I refused to allow a horrible disease hurt me anymore. I do my best not to allow it to make me mad, or hate myself or believe anything it says.
I don't want to hear it. I don't care about it. i cannot stop it, cannot control it. So why give it one second of my emotions or time or energy.
The A here has pulled some dumb stuff lately. Instead of going off, I called it outside, in case it got abusive and told it to leave. I see it as an it, not my husband.
It is a rivers nature to flow, it is the suns nature to shine, it is a frogs nature to croak, it is an A's nature to be obnoxious. active A that is, I cannot control any of them, so why try, I don't have to allow them to make me feel anything.
This is how i learned to detach. Took me a long time too. I just do it natural now. But at first i had to remind myself. Then one day i realized hey! A just said my house was a sess pool, it was a money pit, he was not appreciated for anything he has done, I am the reason he has lost everything.... blah blah blah. I just ignored, let it spill for awhile. No big deal.
NO it does not mean being a rock or a vegetable. It is making the decision not to allow a disease control you. If it were a brain tumor making him say these things would you believe it?
I hope this helped ya a little. I know people are sick of me saying this, but when my A talks I see this round pink thing with a mouth saying yap yap yap. I call it cancer talking. I could not care less what it says.
Detachment is a very difficult task to overcome, for myself anyway. The way they can make you feel is part of this damn mystery.
All you can do is save yourself, keep yourself busy with the things you enjoy doing and just try and have a good life with or without your A.
If you are like me and know you will probably always be there then you just have to learn to let go of the garbage.
I am not saying by any means it is easy. My A relapsed this weekend and I found myself relapsing also, doing the stupid things I use to. I caught myself before I totally fell and that in my opinion is what you have to do to stay sain.
Try to put the focus on you and your children and find your own happiness as this is what I am trying to do.
I think for me its about learning boundaries. We are not on full stage all the time. Sometimes we have to be full on stage. I think its about removing myself and protecting myself from the non stop chaos of the As life and concentrating on me rather than over focusing on him. I can over focus on what disaster is next around the corner. Really I have very very little control over the next disaster coming around so the best thing for me to do is to take care of me. In fact taking care of me is better than being full on, full anxiety, obsession there all the time. I did not take care of myself then and ended up totally exhausted.
I had no boundaries in my family of origin. In my family of origin there was non stop chaos, blame, shame and total exhaustion. I had no respite. I do carve out areas of respite for myself these days. This room is one of them. Counselling is another one. Counselling is for me not for the relationship it is a place for me to explore how my childhood still affects me.
I used to think life meant being with my feelings all the time but I have had to learn to measure and weigh my feelings and work on them in concert with my life not let them totally take over my life. Resentment is one of them, I can let resentment totally invade and poison my life. I do not permit that in the same way now. Oh I certainly have outbursts most of which my sponsor hears now but I do not have it color my life in the same way.
Thanks for all of the educated responses you've given me. Don't worry about rambling - I read it all, and I do that myself. It all has meaning to me!
There are a couple of problems with detaching, that I can't quite come to terms with.
When my 'a' is drunk, he talks all of his feeling talk - good and bad. He used to like to say the term 'sober man's thoughts - drunk man's words', so I listened to it all - good and bad. It is when he's drunk that he tells me that I am the most beautiful person in the world, that he loves me more than anything in the world. It is also when he has called me horrible names and made threats and embellished the truth, as well as lied blatantly. It is also when he talks about how bad a person he is and that he is no good.
So, in detachment - would I disregard all of this - good and bad? Also, when he is sober, he can still be very nasty, when he is missing his drink. Since he has a time slot for his heavy drinking, which is usually from around 7:00 - 10:00 every night, and he doesn't usually drink in between, he is sober for a longer period and often very irritable (which is understandable, since he's in the hangover stage - I suppose - and needs a drink to calm his nerves).
What I'm trying to get at is - Is there really a time, when he's himself? If he were to quit drinking and go through the 12 steps, would he become a totally different person? I don't know!
Hello, HadEnuf One of the wonderful things that recovery has given me is my feelings. When I "let go" I have to go through the process of grieving - and that involves feelings. When I achieve detachment, I can deal with the same people I had such anger and resentment toward in a totally different way. For me, it has been incredibly hard to simply be with my feelings as they come up. Sometimes I've had to do that for long periods of time. but the great gift of all of this has been self-esteem - learning that my feelings are my own, and that no one else has caused them - not even the alcoholic! Thanks for being here. Your being here helps our recovery, too. Blessings, mebjk
