sickpuppy33

Will someone please help me to better understand what it means to detach with love? Thanks

JustAGirl1971

I think it may be a little different for everyone? For me, it means not allowing myself to get sucked emotionally into the alcoholic's problems but remaining loving and respectful of him/her as a person. Honestly, in my opinion, it's a lot easier to do when you don't live with the person and are not constantly and directly affected by their alcoholism/problems. Detachment can also be applied to non-alcoholics/addicts with lots of problems.

I am in the process of divorcing my AH and have been living apart for about 6 weeks. This past week, he told me about a very valid problem that is causing him a lot of emotional stress. In the past, I would have been sucked into the emotional aspect. My feelings would have mirrored his and I would have lost a lot of sleep over it. Now, I am unaffected by the problems. They're his, not mine, I've lost no sleep over them, I am not sad about them, I don't have fear of how it will affect him and therefore me and the kids. I've wasted no mental energy over them. I do have compassion for him because I care about him, but that's the extent of my involvement. That's HUGE for me.

Pelican

I wasn't able to detach with love while living with my Alcoholic.


I finally found a way to detach with love from my alcoholic ex husband by leaving him to live the life of his choice.

That's when I discovered:
some people can stay in my heart,
but not in my life.

AnvilheadII

in order to DETACH we have to recognize just how ATTACHED we are. how our thinking runs thru THEM first, what they need, what they want, what they are doing, not doing, thinking, not thinking, feeling. how much we have become THEM, believing we know them better than they know themselves. and in doing so abandon who WE are.......we can no longer discern where WE end and THEY begin.

detachment means we find ourselves....we crawl back in our own skin. remember we have our own lives.....our own thoughts, feelings. sometimes we even remember we have children who need us. jobs, family, dreams, hopes, aspirations.

and we become more interested in what is best for US rather than THEM.

m1k3

For me detachment wasn't the hard part, it was the with love part. It took me quite a while to figure it. My detachment was with love for myself. If I didn't have that I couldn't really detach.

Your friend,

ladyscribbler

I really like this. That's how it was for me. When I was living in the chaos I couldn't detach because I never had a minute to breath. I was always waiting for the next big episode, so I was constantly worried about what HE was doing. Was he drinking, was he going to drink, did he have money to drink, how much had he drunk, how many days was this binge going to last, is he going to get angry when he's drunk, is he going to...? You get the idea.
Once I was physically separated from him I found I had the peaceful time I needed to think. Now instead of praying that he'll die before he gets paid and starts drinking again, I can pray that he finds peace, because now I have peace.

sickpuppy33

Thank you for all your help and input does anyone have any stories of instances where detaching with loved worked for your RAH/W RAB/G?

Hammer

I would hope not too many.

Because "detaching with love" is supposed to work FOR *US*

Follow the difference?

Getting the emotional and/or physical distance and safety (about the same thing as detachment, afaik) is for *US*

The A's seem to manage just fine, from what I see.

Hammer

but btw -- yeah, towards your question -- getting some distance from Crazy Land works great for me.

Godismyrock

I live with my RAH and our two boys, 7 and 10. We have been separated several times over the years. Currently we are both working on our own recovery. Detachment by itself was pretty easy to figure out. I stay out of his recovery. He works on this garbage with his AA friends and sponsor. I work on my garbage by being on SR, reading and finding me again.

Detachment with love. That's a tough one. For me, at first it was just detach with hate, anger, disgust, disdane, lack of respect, etc. Long term that is not going to work for our marriage.

I am working on the "with love" part. For me, the only way to work on that is to change my focus. What qualities does he currently have that I respect, appreciate, in him? I have to create a list, and focus on a little bit of the list each day:
1) He is funny, intelligent and caring.
2) He is kind and empathetic.
3) He has an important job and he helps people in that job.
4) He has been able to keep that job through years of alcoholic garbage, and has the courage to keep putting one foot in front of the other with his coworkers/boss at the job.
5) He provides for us.
6) He does a good job taking care of the kids, and me, if asked.
7) He has the courage to change and start working on his own garbage.

Figuring out how to get the love back takes the most work for me. I have a LOT of years of anger, resentment, pain, disrespect, destruction to get through. I know that a lot of that is within me, and I need to work on ME.

gaffo

When I quit drinking almost three years ago I was the boss of a drinking crew and they all looked to me for orders. When I told them I wasn't going to drink anymore it was detachment with a chainsaw of love. I didn't tell anyone to get lost but a few did. I felt some regrets then but not anymore.

Now coming at it from the perspective of a sober person (toddler?) I understand detachment with love to be the acceptance of bad and/or annoying things about drunk people that we love. Not getting caught up in alcohol related dramas but still being a loving person. It seems really really hard. I'm still not sure that the concept of detachment with love is achievable. It might be another one of those "jumbo shrimp" oxymorons.

Hammer

Detaching With Laughter may be my best, I suppose.

Mrs. Hammer is pretty hard Dry Drunking it.

Old Rehab she was working at was a Private, Hard Core AA Big Book Thumper operation. Most the inmate-folks stayed a year and could recite the Step Prayers backwards and in their sleep before release.

So even though she is just doing the motions -- not working the program, per se, being in that atmosphere could keep her maybe a little balanced.

New Rehab she is working at is a National Corporate one. 28 days, fast and loose. I am watching things get a little frayed on the composure.

Now lately, she is walking around with the kids doing . . . . Dad this, Dad that.

So I made Orange Rolls with the boys this morning for breakfast. I started hearing . . . Mom says this, Mom says that . . . . (about me).

Made me just start laughing. So I made up a new drill.

"Dad Sucks."

Say together "1 - 2 - 3 . . . DAD SUCKS!" They laughed and laughed.

Next time she is doing her Dry Drunkalog Smear Rants, they will just be laughing, and snickering . . . . DAD SUCKS!

HopefulinFLA

Anvil that was an excellent description of detachment. Must save thus for future reference.

Mellybug

I, too, had to leave the immediate scene in order to find the "with love" aspect of detachment. While I was there I could detach, no problem, but when the dishes piled up, the dog hair got to be too much, the bills were due, he came home at 4 a.m. and woke me up again...but most definitely NOT with love.

Now that I'm learning to love myself again, I find that I can love him as well. Loving him doesn't mean I can be with him while he's in the state he's in. I do feel bad when he's struggling, but I don't want to "save" him from the pain. I recognize that these were HIS choices that led to THESE consequences (including me being out of the house).

I love him, and I'm detached from him. I focus on ME now...

Bernadette777

AnvilheadII - thank you, great description of detachment. Healthy reminder of appreciating our lives too.

CodeJob

I fear my son and I do this to RAH. He cracks us up. Sometimes when he is on a HALT episode all we can do is laugh.