Detachment

[MajestyJo]

Detachment is:

Developing and maintaining a safe, emotional distance from someone whom you have previously given the power, to affect your emotional outlook on life.

It’s the process by which you become free to feel your own feelings when you see another person falter and fail and not be led by guilt to feel responsible for their failure or faltering.

It’s the ability to exercise emotional self-protection, so as not to experience greater emotional devastation from having hung on beyond a reasonable and rational point.

It is the gift of allowing the addict to be who they "really are'' rather than who you "want them to be.''

In order to become detached from a person, place, or thing you need to:
Establish emotional boundaries between you and the person, place, or thing with whom you have become overly enmeshed or dependent on.

Take back power over your feelings from persons, places, or things which in the past you have given power to affect your emotional well-being.

"Hand over'' to your Higher Power the persons, places, and things which you would like to see changed but which you cannot change on your own.

Make a commitment to your personal recovery and self-health by admitting to yourself and your Higher Power that there is only one person you can change and that is yourself and that for your serenity you need to let go of the "need'' to fix, change, rescue, or heal other persons, places, and things.

Recognize that it is "sick'' and "unhealthy'' to believe that you have the power or control enough to fix, correct, change, heal, or rescue another person, place, or thing if they do not want to get better nor see a need to change.

Recognize that you need to be healthy yourself and be "squeaky clean'' and a "role model'' of health in order for another to recognize that there is something "wrong'' with them that needs changing.

Continue to own your feelings as your responsibility and not blame others for the way you feel.

Accept personal responsibility for your own unhealthy actions, feelings, and thinking and cease looking for the persons, places, or things you can blame for your unhealthiness.

Accept that addicted fixing, rescuing, enabling are "sick'' behaviors and strive to extinguish these behaviors in your relationship to persons, places, and things.

Accept that many people, places, and things in your past and current life are "irrational,'' "unhealthy,'' and "toxic'' influences in your life, label them honestly for what they truly are, and stop minimizing their negative impact in your life.

Reduce the impact of guilt and other irrational beliefs which impede your ability to develop detachment in your life.

Practice “letting go” of the need to correct, fix, or make better the persons, places and things in life over which you have no control or power to change.

[MajestyJo]

When ever I am in an Al-Anon or ACoA or CoDA section, I always try to remember it isn't about the "A" in my life., the person in recovery is me.

That is why I have loved the slogan, "Let It Begin With Me," since I came into recovery. It isn't about the finger pointing outward, it is about the mirror being reflecting from within me.

Yes I need to detach from their behavior, and yet how many times do my actions warrent detachment because I am not working my program, and I again become that screaming shrew and self-righteous sinner. I again, tell myself, I am not the one with the problem, it is him/her and that is when I need to detach from that way of thinking and start working my own program.

I don't have to accept unacceptable behavior and yet, how do I go about doing that. I have to set up boundaries, often reinforcing them. Are my boundaries so rigid that I am no approachable. Am I so narrow minded, unforgiving and rigid in my thinking that I have no forgiveness and compassion? In my detachment, am I always letting go one more time, not taking into consideration my own self-respect and what I need for myself and my own recovery.

Again I have to remember to look at the person and not the disease.

posted on another site in 2012.

Detachment for me in today is best up with the slogan, "Live and let live." I must live my own life and not live it through others. I need to let others live their own life and let them find their own way. I thought if they would only do....! I am not their God and my way doesn't mean it is right for someone else.

The best way to keep my A from going for help is for me to talk recovery to him. He digs in his heals and closes down or gets angry and starts yelling and very verbally abusive. If you don't feed the fire, it will go out and can't grow into something volitile. I need to detach and remember that they are acting out in their disease.