The Difference Between Giving Up and Letting Go
Nature Girl
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Join Date: Mar 2002
Location: By The Lake
Posts: 60,328
The Difference Between Giving Up and Letting Go
I have been reading some of the Library threads in the Stickies at the top of the forum, and came across this one that was a good reminder for me, a lesson that took me forever to learn and one I need to remain diligent with even today. I hope it helps others to read this for the first time, or again.
What is the difference between giving up and letting go?
What is the difference between giving up and letting go?
Giving up signals hopelessness. When we give up without letting go, we are often embittered, angry and frustrated.
And that anger and frustration is understandable since, at times, loving a person who is abusing alcohol or other drugs can be exasperating. Just when you think things are getting better, it becomes clear that they aren't. Just when you think that your loved one is getting recovery, you find that they aren't.
After awhile, the ups and downs of the cycles of relapse and recovery can wear away even the most patient co-addict's nerves.
So, what's a person to do? Put up with it? Run away? Kick them out? Yell and scream? For each person, the decision of how to deal with a loved one's repeated relapses is a personal one. Yet, some actions can be more effective than others...and so the key word is decision.
Many of us feel responsible for the addicts in our life, as if we should be able to make it all better for them. But, the fact is, another person's behavior is their responsibility, not ours, just as our own behavior is our own responsibility. And that is where letting go comes in.
The Serenity Prayer clarifies the importance and difficulty of letting go of others' behaviors. In it, we ask God for the serenity to accept the things we cannot change, the courage to change the things we can, and the wisdom to know the difference.
While it is almost impossible to change someone else, trying to do so feels more important (and is in some ways easier) than putting our focus on that which we can change, namely, ourselves. Yet, when we keep trying to do something we cannot do instead of doing that which we can do, we just get crazier and crazier often without making any headway at all.
Letting go is hopeful, yet realistic. In doing so, we admit our own powerlessness to change the addict, while putting faith in a Higher Power who can do so. Though we know there are no guarantees, in letting go we gain serenity and courage to put our change mechanism into place where it needs to be: on ourselves.
The phrase Let Go and Let God says it all. Yet, letting go and letting God is probably one of the most difficult things a co-addict can do. When we truly let go and let God, we put our loved ones in the hands of a Power that can help them, while relieving ourselves of the burden of having to singlehandedly change other people.
This does not mean we give up on the addict. It simply means we let go of the results of our efforts. We love our addict and give them our honest, loving feedback without needing them to listen to us or do what we say. We accept them exactly as they are and put outcomes in the hands of God as we understand God. Then, we work on ourselves.
When we do this, we become models of recovery for the people we love. They get to look at themselves without our constantly guilting them, and their chances of recovery increase as they get the chance to see themselves without having our yelling or nagging (which we have stopped doing) to blame for their problems.
Beverly A. Buncher, MA, CEC, CLPF
What is the difference between giving up and letting go?
What is the difference between giving up and letting go?
Giving up signals hopelessness. When we give up without letting go, we are often embittered, angry and frustrated.
And that anger and frustration is understandable since, at times, loving a person who is abusing alcohol or other drugs can be exasperating. Just when you think things are getting better, it becomes clear that they aren't. Just when you think that your loved one is getting recovery, you find that they aren't.
After awhile, the ups and downs of the cycles of relapse and recovery can wear away even the most patient co-addict's nerves.
So, what's a person to do? Put up with it? Run away? Kick them out? Yell and scream? For each person, the decision of how to deal with a loved one's repeated relapses is a personal one. Yet, some actions can be more effective than others...and so the key word is decision.
Many of us feel responsible for the addicts in our life, as if we should be able to make it all better for them. But, the fact is, another person's behavior is their responsibility, not ours, just as our own behavior is our own responsibility. And that is where letting go comes in.
The Serenity Prayer clarifies the importance and difficulty of letting go of others' behaviors. In it, we ask God for the serenity to accept the things we cannot change, the courage to change the things we can, and the wisdom to know the difference.
While it is almost impossible to change someone else, trying to do so feels more important (and is in some ways easier) than putting our focus on that which we can change, namely, ourselves. Yet, when we keep trying to do something we cannot do instead of doing that which we can do, we just get crazier and crazier often without making any headway at all.
Letting go is hopeful, yet realistic. In doing so, we admit our own powerlessness to change the addict, while putting faith in a Higher Power who can do so. Though we know there are no guarantees, in letting go we gain serenity and courage to put our change mechanism into place where it needs to be: on ourselves.
The phrase Let Go and Let God says it all. Yet, letting go and letting God is probably one of the most difficult things a co-addict can do. When we truly let go and let God, we put our loved ones in the hands of a Power that can help them, while relieving ourselves of the burden of having to singlehandedly change other people.
This does not mean we give up on the addict. It simply means we let go of the results of our efforts. We love our addict and give them our honest, loving feedback without needing them to listen to us or do what we say. We accept them exactly as they are and put outcomes in the hands of God as we understand God. Then, we work on ourselves.
When we do this, we become models of recovery for the people we love. They get to look at themselves without our constantly guilting them, and their chances of recovery increase as they get the chance to see themselves without having our yelling or nagging (which we have stopped doing) to blame for their problems.
Beverly A. Buncher, MA, CEC, CLPF
Nature Girl
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Join Date: Mar 2002
Location: By The Lake
Posts: 60,328
This does not mean we give up on the addict. It simply means we let go of the results of our efforts. We love our addict and give them our honest, loving feedback without needing them to listen to us or do what we say. We accept them exactly as they are and put outcomes in the hands of God as we understand God. Then, we work on ourselves.
Member
Join Date: Oct 2015
Location: PA
Posts: 68
I clean our Church every week and I find myself in the quiet of that little Church the whole time I am there talking to God and also asking Mary to intercede for me.
My prayer has changed through the months but, it's still the same.....
My prayer has changed through the months but, it's still the same.....
Member
Join Date: Oct 2015
Location: PA
Posts: 68
Sunshine, I don't think so.
You are letting go because of the choices HE is making. You've decided that, that's not the choice you wish to live with any more. That's not the way you wish to live your life. That's NOT wrong! Why should you have to live HIS choices and not yours?
You are letting go because of the choices HE is making. You've decided that, that's not the choice you wish to live with any more. That's not the way you wish to live your life. That's NOT wrong! Why should you have to live HIS choices and not yours?
Member
Join Date: Aug 2016
Posts: 22
To me the difference means, giving up would be equal to saying your addicted loved one is bad, damaged goods, never going to get better while letting go means, I believe you are capable of doing it yourself. I believe in your abilities, you are capable, and good. There's something called fulfilling expectations. If you really believe that the addict is sick, they will act sick. Research has actually proven that people will behave according to our expectations of them. Your expectations are powerful. Never underestimate the power of optimism while also letting others define themselves.
I think about my husband and how his mother always believed that he would turn out just like her alcoholic father. Maybe it was her expectations that led him down the same path. Since the beginning he was labeled, clumsy, selfish, accident prone and sick. It's almost like he never had a chance to be anything other than the role he was given at birth.
I think about my husband and how his mother always believed that he would turn out just like her alcoholic father. Maybe it was her expectations that led him down the same path. Since the beginning he was labeled, clumsy, selfish, accident prone and sick. It's almost like he never had a chance to be anything other than the role he was given at birth.
Nature Girl
Thread Starter
Join Date: Mar 2002
Location: By The Lake
Posts: 60,328
Originally Posted by Plink 
I clean our Church every week and I find myself in the quiet of that little Church the whole time I am there talking to God and also asking Mary to intercede for me.
My prayer has changed through the months but, it's still the same.....
My prayer has changed through the months but, it's still the same.....
Sunshine, divorce means you can no longer live under the present situation and are taking steps to take very special care of yourself. Perhaps it took this long because you kept hoping for a better outcome for him and his addiction. Letting go means that you surrender the outcome to him and his higher power and release the need to try to control it.
I love my son, I spent years and years trying to save him from himself. I let go of thinking I had any control over him or his addiction, I let go of trying to make a good outcome happen and I let go of sacrificing my own life trying to save that which wasn't mine to save. But I have never ever given up on him or the the hope that one day he can and will turn his life around. What I have done is given him the opportunity to figure this out and to learn from life's lessons on his own, without my interference.
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Join Date: Sep 2014
Posts: 328
This helped me a lot with this subject. It is from Melody Beattie's book, Language of Letting Go. I've bookmarked it and go back to it often:
"We can go forward with our life and recoveries, even though someone we love is not yet recovering.
Picture a bridge. On one side of the bridge it is cold and dark. We stood there with others in the cold and darkness, doubled over in pain. Some of us developed an eating disorder to cope with the pain. Some drank; some used other drugs. Some of us lost control of our sexual behavior. Some of us obsessively focused on addicted people's pain to distract us from our own pain. Many of us did both: We developed an addictive behavior, and distracted ourselves by focusing on other addicted people. We did not know there was a bridge. We thought we were trapped on a cliff.
Then, some of us got lucky. Our eyes opened, by the grace of God, because it was time. We saw the bridge. People told us what was on the other side: Warmth, light and healing from our pain. We could barely glimpse, or imagine this, but we decided to start the trek across the bridge anyway.
We tried to convince the people around us on the cliff that there was a bridge to a better place, but they wouldn't listen. They couldn't see it; they couldn't believe. They were not ready for the journey. We decided to go alone, because we believed, and because people on the other side were cheering us onward. The closer we got to the other side, the more we could see, and feel, that what we had been promised was real. There was light, warmth, healing and love. The other side was a better place.
But now, there is a bridge between us and those on the other side. Sometimes, we may be tempted to go back and drag them over with us, but it cannot be done. No one can be dragged or forced accross this bridge. Each person must go at his or her own choice, when the time is right. Some will come; some will stay on the other side. The choice is not ours.
We can love them. We can wave to them. We can holler back and forth. We can cheer them on, as others have cheered and encouraged us. But we cannot make them come over with us.
If our time has come to cross the bridge, or if we have already crossed and are standing in the light and warmth, we do not have to feel guilty. It is where we are meant to be. We do not have to go back to the dark cliff because another's time has not yet come.
The best thing we can do is stay in the light, because it reassures others that there is a better place. And if others ever do decide to cross the bridge, we will be there to cheer them on.
Today, I will move forward with my life, despite what others are doing or not doing. I will know it is my right to cross the bridge to a better life, even if I must leave others behind to do that. I will not feel guilty, I will not feel ashamed. I know that where I am now is a better place and where I am meant to be.''
"We can go forward with our life and recoveries, even though someone we love is not yet recovering.
Picture a bridge. On one side of the bridge it is cold and dark. We stood there with others in the cold and darkness, doubled over in pain. Some of us developed an eating disorder to cope with the pain. Some drank; some used other drugs. Some of us lost control of our sexual behavior. Some of us obsessively focused on addicted people's pain to distract us from our own pain. Many of us did both: We developed an addictive behavior, and distracted ourselves by focusing on other addicted people. We did not know there was a bridge. We thought we were trapped on a cliff.
Then, some of us got lucky. Our eyes opened, by the grace of God, because it was time. We saw the bridge. People told us what was on the other side: Warmth, light and healing from our pain. We could barely glimpse, or imagine this, but we decided to start the trek across the bridge anyway.
We tried to convince the people around us on the cliff that there was a bridge to a better place, but they wouldn't listen. They couldn't see it; they couldn't believe. They were not ready for the journey. We decided to go alone, because we believed, and because people on the other side were cheering us onward. The closer we got to the other side, the more we could see, and feel, that what we had been promised was real. There was light, warmth, healing and love. The other side was a better place.
But now, there is a bridge between us and those on the other side. Sometimes, we may be tempted to go back and drag them over with us, but it cannot be done. No one can be dragged or forced accross this bridge. Each person must go at his or her own choice, when the time is right. Some will come; some will stay on the other side. The choice is not ours.
We can love them. We can wave to them. We can holler back and forth. We can cheer them on, as others have cheered and encouraged us. But we cannot make them come over with us.
If our time has come to cross the bridge, or if we have already crossed and are standing in the light and warmth, we do not have to feel guilty. It is where we are meant to be. We do not have to go back to the dark cliff because another's time has not yet come.
The best thing we can do is stay in the light, because it reassures others that there is a better place. And if others ever do decide to cross the bridge, we will be there to cheer them on.
Today, I will move forward with my life, despite what others are doing or not doing. I will know it is my right to cross the bridge to a better life, even if I must leave others behind to do that. I will not feel guilty, I will not feel ashamed. I know that where I am now is a better place and where I am meant to be.''
Nature Girl
Thread Starter
Join Date: Mar 2002
Location: By The Lake
Posts: 60,328
We tried to convince the people around us on the cliff that there was a bridge to a better place, but they wouldn't listen. They couldn't see it; they couldn't believe. They were not ready for the journey. We decided to go alone, because we believed, and because people on the other side were cheering us onward. The closer we got to the other side, the more we could see, and feel, that what we had been promised was real. There was light, warmth, healing and love. The other side was a better place.
That part above so clearly describes how it was for me. My son was lost in his addiction and I was knee deep in my codependency, both sinking in despair. I had to grab my own lifeline, he chose not to grab his. I understood then that what I did didn't leave him in the darkness...he had and has the choice any time he is ready to step into his own light of recovery.
Faith took me across that bridge, and the cheering of all those who went before me, God bless them for sharing their light until I could find my own.
Thanks for bringing this here, Jaegar, it really relates and is a wonderful reading.
Hugs
Member
Join Date: Sep 2014
Posts: 328
God Bless you, Ann, for sharing your light! I still struggle but everyday I get better at setting boundaries and doing the next right thing. I thank God everyday for all of you here at SR and for my home group.
I know recovery is possible. I know what it looks like now thanks to my RAH. The AA/NA rooms are full of loving, wonderful people. I pray that my AS finds his way too.
I know recovery is possible. I know what it looks like now thanks to my RAH. The AA/NA rooms are full of loving, wonderful people. I pray that my AS finds his way too.
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