detachment

Patience----keep at it until it works!

Great post from a sober.com web site for families in recovery--may give some insight into why I choose to be where I am for now:

One of the most important terms in Alanon is detachment. For me it was the hardest one to grasp, the most elusive to pin down a real understanding of. I had a fuzzy idea of what it was supposed to mean, but when it came right down to it, I didn' t really know what I was supposed to do at all. Detach? Be aloof? That didn' t sound very kind. Detach? Separate? That wasn' t what I wanted. Is detaching giving up on the person? Is detaching not caring?

I looked the word up in the dictionary...some of you know about me and dictionaries...lol Gotta get to the very core of the meaning of a word I don' t understand so I go to my friend Webster!

One of the definitions Webster gives for the word detach is: To separate from a larger mass without violence or damage. In this case, the larger mass being the disease of alcoholism. Hmmm...so I can separate from the disease and still love the person? Yes! Because detachment is all about realizing that the actions of the individual are caused by the disease, and not by the person with the disease! Detachment is about being objective, being able to stop before we react to behaviors and ask, is this the person intentionally trying to hurt me or is the disease creating this? If this person were sober and rational, would he/she be acting like this? The anger, the irrational behaviors are to alcoholism what confusion and thirst are to diabetes, what vomiting and diarrhea are to the flu.

When we are able to realize it is the disease, and not the person, we can truly understand our own powerlessness over it. We can stop trying to bring reasonableness to something that is not reasonable. How can you reason with a disease? Can you reason with diabetes to make it go away? Can you reason with the flu so that the symptoms will disappear? Of course not. By detaching we are loving ourselves enough to go about living DESPITE the fact that our partner is ill. We are saying, I hope you choose to get better and while you make that decision, I' m going to go to an alanon meeting, or shopping, or coffee with a friend or take the kids to the park. We are saying, I love you, but I cannot cure you. We are saying yes to life and no to being chained to someone else' s illness. Alcoholism is a disease that has a course of treatment to put it into remission. If our partners do not choose to get themselves well by taking that course of treatment, we cannot force them to. But we are not loving ourselves if we take it upon ourselves to try to play " nurse" to the disease until they do.

Detaching is not giving up on the person. Detaching is not being uncaring or unfeeling. Detaching is simply separating ourselves emotionally and spiritually, possibly even physically from another person' s actions. The same as you would if the person were sick and needed to cancel a dinner date. You would understand that it was the illness, not the person, causing the cancellation. Detachment is a choice to not allow ourselves to be sucked into another person' s situation. We still care, but we also refuse to get our blood boiling or possibly give up on our own plans over something we have no control over. It is not our fault that the alcoholic doen' t take the medicine that will help him recover. But we don' t help him or her by allowing ourselves to get wrapped up in the drama. By detaching we are giving them the opportunity to think for themselves and make choices for themselves and that is actually very loving. We are doing the same for ourselves at the same time.

I remember once seeing a nature program on a creature - I can' t remember for sure but I think it was a lizard - who when being attacked by something that was attempting to consume it, could detach the back end of it' s body or it' s tail and leave it behind in the mouth of the attacker and head off to safety.

We detach from the alcoholic so that we don' t get consumed by the disease! When we get consumed by the other person' s disease, we are no good to either the alcoholic or to ourselves. Our lives become unmanagable, angry, insane. We are wasting precious energy spinning our wheels in the sand. To detach from another person allows us to accept them exactly as they are, while we work on our own issues and goals. By detaching, we can hate the disease but still love the person and continue to wish the highest good for that person even though we no longer allow ourselves to be manipulated by the symptoms of the disease.