Originally Posted by
trailmix 
I totally agree with you Sasha. I ponder if one is even possible without the other. If you are not an alcoholic, how can you accept the behaviour of an alcoholic. I don't even mean the actual drinking per-se - so someone is sitting there pouring beverages for hours, that you can ignore. The constant search for alcohol, the constant focus on alcohol (when drinking or not) and all the fallout from that, the missed responsibilities, the self-centered focus etc etc etc. I don't know that it can be done, it's not any kind of "normal".
Disengaging is natural I think, for some it is a decision, for others just a natural progression.
In my case, I "accepted" the behavior of the alcoholic for a long time because I bought into the narrative of exceptionality that the alcoholic produced. He had suffered/was suffering more than anyone could imagine, his pain was deeper than anyone else's pain, he
needed to drink all the time in order to cope with the terrible cards he had been dealt by Life (worse than anyone else's cards, and including the unspecified awfulness of being married to me).
In order to un-accept this, two things had to happen: I had to realize that he was not exceptional - that plenty of people had suffered plenty worse things without filling their garage and basement full of bottles and crashing their cards; and I had to realize that no amount of personal suffering is a license to behave harmfully towards other people (lying, gaslighting, belittling, the whole nine yards).
Once I figured out that he wasn't that special and that he didn't have any get-out-of-jail-free cards, I came to see his behavior as unacceptable and inexcusable.