The material presented
here is not Al-Anon Conference Approved Literature. It is a method
to exchange
information, ideas, feelings, problems and solutions on a personal
level.
The writer of today's page defines detachment as "emotionally separating myself from the disease of alcoholism." They thought it was easy to do if they attached with indifference, because they had years of practice at denying their feelings. Detaching with love, though -- that seemed out of the question.
A sponsor suggested that indifference to our fellow creatures is actually worse than hating them. By feeling safe in Al-Anon, the writer began to feel safe enough to feel their feelings, so they did not have to shut out the feeling of love. They accepted their feelings, and became able to see the alcoholic as more than his or her disease.
Today's Reminder: The unconditional love I receive in Al-Anon helps me to rediscover what love is. As I learn that I am consistently lovable regardless of my strengths or limitations, I begin to see something consistently lovable in others, even those who suffer from an unlovable disease.
Quote from Youth and the Alcoholic Parent: "With a change of attitude ... past actions can be put into proper perspective; love and respect can become a part of family life."
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This reading was an eye-opener for me. I think I have finally reached some stage of loving detachment -- but I will admit I think I have it easier than some because the alcoholic who brought me here has passed away. But of course he is still in my thoughts every day, and I feel that now I experience love, while in the past it was definitely detaching with anger and then some level of indifference.
How did I get to where I am now? I think a healthy Al-Anon program promotes unconditional love. It's that reading at the close of meetings: "You may not like all of us, but you will come to love us in a very special way, the same way we already love you." It's the avoidance of cross-talk so that my vulnerable sharings are not subject to criticism. It's the generosity of sponsorship where someone takes time out of their busy life to listen to me.
By receiving all that love in the program, I am more able to love unconditionally -- and I think this is what detachment with love means. Unconditional love, even if I have to set boundaries to protect myself from certain things. I have to get the acceptance and love for myself, within myself, and then I might be able to accept and love another imperfect human being.
MIP friends, how have you managed detachment with love?
I am a work in progress when it comes to detaching with love. I can detach with hate,anger and resentment so easily but the "with love" part is slow to happen.
Happy Friday MIP. Thank you Freetime for your service and the daily. I also am a work in progress, and accept I will always be. Detaching has been very, very hard simply because it's not natural within me. With this disease raging through my family for a few generations, the many examples of loving and living have been more aligned with survival and coping vs. peaceful living/thriving.
Until I worked on me and gained some confidence and self-esteem, I was inconsistent with detachment and more often than not angrily departed vs. detaching. As I began to learn to love and accept myself, as a perfectly imperfect human, I was able to accept others as they are more readily. It has been a process to learn to sit in my feelings, hold on to my power, choose to be happy vs. right and to just let others be who they need to be.
I'm grateful for the many tools and lessons life and recovery present to me. I have moved from feeling hopeless to hopeful and from feeling worthless to valued. Just finished golfing - it was quite muddy/messy. Off to figure out dinner and clean up my clubs, shoes, etc. Happy weekend eve everyone!!
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Practice the PAUSE...Pause before judging. Pause before assuming. Pause before accusing. Pause whenever you are about to react harshly and you will avoid doing and saying things you will later regret. ~~~~ Lori Deschene
Detachment is not natural/normal for me either though I have gotten much better at it by practicing the consequences of what happens when I don't get it good. I was born a scrapper in my family which means I got into a tons of fights especially with horrible reactions. I fought hard and often each time hateing it more and more. Learning detachment with acceptance and letting go using forgiveness and compassion and empathy brings me to where I am at now...quiet and even tempered and more merciful than ever. I use my language and volume of speaking to trigger changing how I respond to others. I think I've added a few more quiet days to my life. Thank you Al-Anon.
This is a biggie for me as well because for the longest time high detached with either hate or indifference. But there was no way I could detach with love until I found love in Al-Anon and MIP and I was accepted for who I was as messed up as I was, I mean I was a walking disaster when I first came here. I just didnt know how to even be a human being, but I learned here and throughout MIP and I am so grateful and I noticed now that I can at least detach with compassion or peace and Goodwill if not love. I think my mom is a good example, may she rest in peace. I never thought I could come to the place where I could forgive her and detach from all the bad memories because that was not her the good memories were the real person that she was, she was his victim to and she detached by abusing alcohol and becoming an alcoholic, she just could not cope living with a predator like that. And her mom who sipped wine in the closet, Basically shamed her into staying with this monster and it cost her her life. When I think about her now and my brother and I speak of her, I told him the fact that we can both detach from the disease part of her because that was not really her authentic self, the fact that we can detach like that with love, for me it is a big huge step, and he was in a a enough to learn some stuff. And he is another one that I just have to detach from the drinking part of him and just love the other part well, I love the entire human being I just detach from the disease and what it does to him but I never ever could have done this without the help of Al-Anon. Thank you for this very powerful share
Thank you so much for your wisdom. Of course when I finally got to al anon my mandate was the world had to change. That is namely the alcoholic addict by any means possible LOL.
Of course the world did not change I did. And every day that is the ongoing challenge.
For those of us with complex ptsd there can be a a time where we #fight# tooth and nail for our #survival# Fighting is of course appropriate in it's own way because as Winnicott elaborates fighting is a sign of hope. We all need hope.
For me these says boundaries are essential. I found boundaries only after being eviscerated many many times. Beaten and submerged to a pulp.
These days in addition there are certainly people I find incredibly obnoxious, sanctimonious and completely inauthentic in every regard. The news is that I no longer have to let them know it. Being narcissists they believe they are far superior to every human being alive anyway. That will never change.
When they say certain things now I can rise above the need to tell then where to get off. For me that is great great progress
The good news now of course is when such people appear in my life they get absolutely no validation from me. Indeed it is important to remember that narcissists would crawl through glass to hear you think they are improving. Narcissists however can never improve, they can concoct their stories of improvement but underneath that veneer of desperation isca core of hate and rage that is eating away at them every second. What a terrible existence.
Those that are full of hate and rage of course cannot really hurt others because they have never been fully human. That is why they erupt with rage so often at the drop of a hat.
I have had to deal with plenty of narcissists of course. They pop up out of nowhere all the time. The good news being that they no longer get to have much influence on me . In fact I can shrug them off in a second
How lucky we are to be in recovery af such a seminal time when we can gain support and assistance from so many areas. Every year I feel like I have grown and learned so much. Then another round of possibilities come up that are exciting,dynamic and attainable. What a real gift that is
I no longer have this sense that I need to detach in a specific way because I am grounded in myself, present and able to access my emotions. Therefore when I get the sense that someone is #off# I dont have to present it as a case study to anyone. No one gets to pronounce on what is okay for me. That is entirely my preserve.
Of course life is certainly full of challenges but the challenge of living intimately with an alcoholic addict is not an option for me. Of course there are plenty of narcissists around who sick the air out of every room they manage to sneak into wherever I am. However they no longer get an opportunity to phase me.
Nevertheless in general in detachment I can.feel sadness for their abject desperation rather than react to their contortions for desperate attention every hour of the day and night
What a real gift that is. The gift to say No rather than believe I have no right to do that. No is such a wonderful concept
Jerry your humanity and presence has been such a gift to this board as has your fierce honesty and immense compassion. Thank you for choosing this place to share and always showing up non matter what.
Maresie, bless you for that response as it caused me to remember just a little part of my recovery journey which brought with it a lot of pain that came from how I use to handle things with my alcoholic/addict and then the lesson on true humility, the metaphor my HP used her with.
I am back in the same town where the disease rolled over our lives and where we both found recovery. I don't know where she is other then that I can find her in my head and the memories of the journey that ended up affecting so many others.
You mention PTSD which is just a bit of what I found out was part of the disease concept in me and so dangerous. Thank you God and your angels in this program that helped me recover. Thank you for my alcoholic/addict and her trials and recovery. Bless her where ever she is at.
Jerry thank you for sharing. I can so relate to being a scrapper. I thought everything that resisted me, people places and things and even non-animate things like electronics, anything that resisted me I was going to fight it and use brute force to get my will in my way and all I ended up was getting exhausted and more bitter and more angry because I had to fight so hard for so little when all I had to do was just except where I am and the situation I am in and just do my best and surrender the rest which is what I am doing now and Ill tell you I am a lot more peaceful and a lot less exhausted because I just tell the thing or the person or the situation or whatever in my mind that I am not going to argue with you I am going to go to Plan B and plan C and if they dont work I am giving this over to God and I let go and sure enough the answer will come or the situation will dissolve in its own nothingness. I used to take let him go as being defeated. But now I see it is not. I was beating myself to death fighting everything and resisting everything and feeding the negative energy instead of going with non-resistance and acceptance and being with my feelings and then letting go. Much better way to feel now. I am much less bitter and much less exhausted and life seems to go easier and better as I do this simple thing of acceptance and being with my feelings and then letting go.
Your ability to forgive and bless someone who caused you immense pain is more than impressive. Forgiveness being one way to find immense meaning in grief
I was thinking of another former qualifier who like many before him eventually succumbed to the disease. He somehow made his illness part of the romance of the disorder. He carried that with him to the end decades before a natural life expectancy. That was indeed part of his disease
In some cases I have certainly found it possible to start seeing a 360.degree picture of the person. In others it is far more difficult as the pain is still fresh.
Some people believe the fighting phase of complex.ptsd is what brings them out of a depression. Indeed being distressed is part of the nature of setting boundaries. Social distancing has given me a solid stance on physical boundaries. Those that bully often transverse those physical distancing lines. Furthermore those that bully also cross every line with babe calling. Suddenly out.of the blue you go from being their bff to contemptuous. Then of they have a chance they will bringin physical characteristics. Suddenly that person is far but not just fat but #gross# They are going to reinforce it at every turn. In fact they go on tirades of cattle calls of they have the opportunity. Bullying is reprehensible on every level and there are those who revel in it. They simply live to bully others.
I have never met an alcoholic who would not resort to bullying if their habit was up for discussion. In a similar way many of those of us in al anon can become reactionary, contemptuous and bitter. Bitterness is the nucleus for much bullying.
I know many many bullies. They no longer have the opportunity to bully me but they are an was always waiting for that chance to pounce on others. Knowing that bitterness is what drives them so relentlessly is of course a way to understand their compulsive need to denigrate others at every opportunity. Everyone is dysfunctional but them what a revelation!
Thank you again Jerry for being part of this group. I appreciate your ability to navigate change with grace and dignity.
Dignity is not something that those who bully others will ever know. They have no desire for it as it does but it does not fit into their grandose vision that the world revolves entirely around them and exclusively their needs.
Thank you Freetime for posting.
Thank you everyone for your shares, they are very usefull to me.
I absolutely need to hear messages of hope these days.
I am getting to detachement with love fom my family of origin, but mostly with my mother.
With my father and sister it's another story.
But definetely I have done huge progress, i e the resentment isn't there but there is still a lot of pain that it seems I haven't process yet.
One step at a time ..;
Welcome, Ileana -- I can share that detachment with love definitely took time. It has not been quick, and not everyone all at once. As you said, one step at a time. I had to take the steps, and continually work them. As they say in meetings, it works if I work it. Thank you for sharing.
In the grief course I have been taking one element is to.remember the good. The good for me with my qualifier was our oets. In the end I had to take ALL the pets. Nevertheless there were times in the relationship.where we reallybenjoyer our pets. His addiction robbed that one and every other element of comfort in that rekstomshio
Nevertheless one thing that at one time we shared was the oets. When I discovered after we separated that he was neglecting the pets I stepped in. That caused me great personal hardship for years. I know in the throes of his addiction he could not even take care of the dog he adored
Therefore now with this course under my belt I know some if how to approach derachhng. There are some people however who.are so pernicious so aggressive and so vicious that I think detaching with anger is appropriate
The qualifier like many alcoholics/addicts attracted predators like a bee in a hive. They came around to #feed# on him.when ever they could
There is a special place in hell for those who.prey on others.
They make a specialty of looking good, saying all the right things and appearing to be caring. They are slick.opeators. I see nothing wrong whatsoever with finding them objectionable. Those that deliberately abude other people more vulnerable than them certainly are objectionable.
Detaching in whatever form you can is so so necessary with alcoholism. Detaching is a real skill. Just like every other skill it requires helo and direction. I have had the priviledge of being around real champions of the program. What a gift to.see how they worked a program every day. Being able to watch the way they transcended many many challenges has been an enormous help.
Detaching definitely saved my sanity in my relationship with the qualifier. Every day detachment has been a skill that is so necessary for me to move on to.a more palatable life.
Maresie, I too have eventually come to the point, in my grief process, of remembering the good. And I too have a special care for animals -- I could never allow an animal to be neglected or abused, and fortunately this did not happen in my situation. But I have come to remember the many good traits of my "motivator", and it has taken a lot of time and step work to get to this point.
Freetime
My qualifiers substance abuse meant I had to take all pur pets. That caused me unreal hardship
That about sums up his history he caused so many people unreal hardship.
To answer your question, Freetime,- the answer would be... ...s l o w l y ...
Thanks, so grateful... 
