Detachment

What is detachment? What does it have to do with dealing with my alcoholic addict?

Ultimately, you are powerless over your alcoholic addict’s behavior. In the end it is their choice to drink or use drugs. You can respond in one of two ways. You can take an emotional roller coaster ride with your alcoholic addict. Or you can distance yourself emotionally from their behavior.

Detachment with love and compassion means that you still love your alcoholic but you do not let their behavior control or manipulate your feelings. You do not get sad because your alcoholic drinks. You do not get depressed or angry because your addict uses.

This can sound cold. However, you are only detaching from your alcoholic addict’s behavior, not from the person you love. By no longer entangling your emotions with your alcoholic addict’s drinking and drugging, you are allowing yourself to develop and maintain a healthier emotional state, in spite of your alcoholic addict’s behavior.

This was one of the hardest things for me to learn with my alcoholic addict wife. When I first ran into the concept at a recovery group meeting, I was very resistant. How could one be so heartless as to say that I should not be emotionally engaged with my wife and her problems?

My challenge was learning how to separate loving my wife from my anger with her drinking and drugging. Eventually I learned that responding with anger was a choice, a habit.

I had to learn not to make my wife’s behavior my problem. I started by deciding that the next time I found myself getting angry or sad due to her drinking or drugging behavior, I would walk away and do something that would take my mind off of her actions – go to a movie, read a favorite book, visit with a friend.

If my wife drank or used drugs, that was her choice. My choice was to disengage from her when she was drunk or stoned and to do healthy things for me.

When she caused problems for herself from her behavior, I quit fixing them. As long as she was not in danger, I left her to deal with the results of her actions. If that meant leaving her on the living room floor to sleep off her drunk, then that’s what I did.

When she was sober again, I behaved in a loving, caring way and ignored her recent intoxication and the problems that she was dealing with as a result.

If she asked for help, I would explain that I felt that the problem was caused by her choices and as a result she should deal with the consequences. I would then change the topic, or if she would not let it go, I would walk away. Eventually she got used to my detachment from the results of her behavior and she started dealing with these on her own.

I believe that this was one of the changes I made for myself that contributed to my wife eventually looking for help with her alcohol and drug problems.

Keep in mind that changes in your behavior will change the family dynamic and could cause stress for your alcoholic addict. This could manifest with increased drinking, drugging, anger, emotional outbursts, absences, or whatever, as they deal with their stress or as they try to manipulate you into returning to your prior behavior patterns.

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