The family and friends affected by someone else's drinking are, and have always been, some of the most remarkably loving and lovable human beings among us. Common is a deeply developed sense of commitment, selflessness, empathy, compassion, tenacity, determination, a wisdom of the heart, courage in the face of seemingly insurmountable obstacles, an immeasurably universal strength of goodness and the ability to see the capacity for goodness in others.

They retain these, the highest quality of human characteristics, despite a disease that, often times, renders them helpless and full of despair. Which is stunning if you consider the eroding devastation that alcoholism brings into lives affected by the disease of addiction.

At first, detachment can sound like an odd concept and in direct conflict with these qualities of humanness. It is not. Detachment is what will loosen the grip and render powerless a disease that acts like an opportunistic spiritual predator that takes goodness and twists it to serve its own corrupted purposes.

Detachment is about being able to go and stay, at the same time. It is having the wisdom not to jump in the water with a drowning man to keep him from drowning but throwing him a line to grab onto so that he can pull himself to the safety of the shoreline.

I met a woman at an AA/Al-Anon speakers meeting, who, after 25 years of marriage to a man who drank to excess on a daily basis, finally said “Enough is enough.” Enough of my failed attempts to affect positive change. Enough of my internalizing my husband’s drinking problem. Enough of thrashing around out here in the deep waters with him. I am not going to save him this way and we are both going to drown. She swam to the shores of Al-Anon.

The years of anger, bitterness, resentment and disappointment began to dry up and evaporate. She felt a lightness of being. She began to feel joy and hope.
She told me, “I stopped saying anything to him about his drinking. I simply left my literature and books about Al-Anon and AA laying around the house. I stopped cleaning up after his drinking episodes. I stopped rescuing him from the consequences of his drinking. I adopted the attitude that if his drinking got him into a mess he could get himself back out of it. I stopped making excuses for him. If the children asked, “Where is dad” I simply said, “You will have to ask him when you see him. I don’t know the exact reasons.” If someone called the house asking after him because he was a no show I answered the same way. “I don’t know, he will have to explain it.” I stopped making plans that hinged on his being there.

 I began to create a life around him and at the same time made sure that he knew about it if he wished to be a part of it. I learned to treat him with the same respect and kindness I would give to even a stranger. I stopped reacting to the negativity with anything other than a positive response and became active in my own life. I started to remember the dreams I had left behind so long ago and decided to resurrect some of them. I realized I could make many of my dreams come true. I discovered joy and serenity. It was wonderful.”

Two years later her husband began his recovery in AA. On the day I talked to her, they had over twenty years of recovery from the disease of alcoholism.

Detachment is not apathetic to the suffering of another nor does it mean walking away from a drowning man. Detachment is the lifeguard training in spiritual rescue.
©1998 Dalene Entenmann