These are GREAT examples of detachment with love.
Yes, you start by recognizing it is the disease talking. You can't reason with, nor cheer up, the disease. The disease will say or do whatever it has to, to survive.
Think of a cancer. It can only live by slowly killing the body that enables it to live. This disease is out to kill your son, and you, if it needs to, in order to survive.
To further the cancer analogy, chemotherapy is no picnic for the patient (nor for the patient's loved ones). It makes the patient sick, depressed, the hair falls out, the immune system is compromised for awhile. It's tough for loved ones to watch, but everyone knows it's necessary to kill the cancer so the patient can live free of the disease that was killing him or her.
So, think of the nasty words and manipulations as just symptoms of the disease. I used to "de-fang" mean words by thinking of them as a script. I'd play little mind games with myself, trying to guess whether the next mean/manipulative statement out of the alcoholic's mouth would be #15 or #22 on the script. They are SOOOO predictable.
When you think of it this way, you can safely ignore the manipulations. What you CAN'T do is to reason with them or argue with them, and it's really pointless to get upset with them or allow them to hurt you. It's all B.S. from the disease, just like an oozing sore.