One of the most important lessons I ever learned from Al-Anon, is a concept called ‘Detachment with Love’.  (Al-Anon is a support group for people with family or friends who are alcoholics). 

At its heart, ‘detachment with love’ means allowing someone to learn from their own mistakes – to experience the natural consequences of their own choices and behavior. 

The trouble is, that many of us who love an alcoholic, are in a co-dependent relationship with them – that means that our identify, our happiness and our general emotions are entwined with the other person.  It’s hard to know where the other person ends and you start – your emotions are enmeshed together.

So what we think of as ‘love’ is often an unhealthy love.  It is not the mature love that people are meant to have with each other, where each person takes responsibility for their own decisions, actions and happiness.

So if our loved one makes a poor choice eg. getting drunk and falling down, because of our
co-dependency, we tend to rush in and try to ‘rescue’ them.

We don’t want them to feel any pain or discomfort. 

We want to make everything smooth and easy for them.  This is partly because of our unhealthy ‘love’ for them, but it’s also because we believe that if they are stressed, unhappy or in pain, they will drink more.  This is the last thing that we want. 

So we try to control the situation.

This is why the first step in the 12 step process is “we admitted we were powerless over alcohol – that our lives had become unmanageable” – meaning, that we are unable to control it, no matter how hard we try.

When we rush in and ‘rescue’ our loved one, they do not have the opportunity to learn from their own mistakes.

We think we are ‘loving’ our spouse, child or other family member, but actually our behaviour is allowing them to remain comfortable drinking.

Only when we allow the alcoholic to experience the natural consequences of their drinking, is there any hope of them making a decision to stop.

I remember one night, my husband stumbled to bed, drunk as usual, and when he tried to get up to go to the bathroom, he fell out of bed with a tremendous crash and with the sound of breaking glass.

I got up in a panic, to see what on earth had happened.  My husband had fallen out of bed onto a large picture frame and it had smashed to pieces.  The picture frame had been sitting next to his side of the bed, waiting for him to put it up on the wall.

There was glass everywhere.  He was so drunk that he could not get up.  Every time he tried to get up, he would fall back down and smash more glass. 

It got to the place where he was lying on a pile of broken glass and he was also covered with broken glass.  He was rolling around in it and every time he moved, he cut himself more and made it worse.

I got up and desperately tried to lift him up, but he was too heavy.  He is a big guy, and I just didn’t have the strength to hold up his body weight.  After about 5 or 6 attempts, with no success, I just had to let him stay on the floor, on the glass.  I didn’t know what to do.

Then I remembered what I have been learning in Al-Anon about ‘Detachment with Love’.

I realised that, while I loved my husband, there was nothing I could do to help him, so I just had to go back to bed and go to sleep, leaving him on the floor, rolling around in the glass, cutting himself more and more. 

Does this mean I didn’t care about him?  Not at all! 

I cared about him deeply and was very sad to see the mess he had got himself into, but there was nothing more I could do but go back to sleep and wait for the morning.

After trying over and over to get up, he finally collapsed and went to asleep on the floor.

At that moment, I finally, truly understood the meaning of the term ‘detachment with love’. 

I loved my husband with all my heart and I wanted to help him, but at the end of the day, it was his choice to get drunk and this is why he ended up in the mess he was in.

Even though I knew his body was cut and was getting worse every time he moved, I had to be at peace with this and allow myself to go back to sleep.

‘Detachment with love’ is actually a tool that we can use with many people, not just a loved one who is an alcoholic.  Anyone who is making unwise choices and doesn’t like the natural consequences and expects us to bail them out, needs a good dose of ‘Detachment with love’.

We see this when we raise children and why we have to discipline them when they misbehave.  When our child experiences our discipline, they may react with tears or anger.  They may scream ‘you don’t love me’.

But you know that you love them deeply and you need to allow them to their mistakes.  This can either be learning by experiencing the natural consequences of their choices or it can be experiencing consequences that you decide are appropriate to the situation.

Your motivation is love. 

You want them to mature and grow up responsible citizens. 

If we continually come to their rescue, they will never feel the consequences of their bad choices. 

   In the Bible, in Hebrews 12:11, it says “No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful.  Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it.”

And in Proverbs 3:12 “because the Lord disciplines those he loves, as a father the son he delights in.”

And in Galatians 6:5 “each one should carry their own load”. 

As adults, each one of us has “our own load” of responsibilities to carry.  When we ‘rescue’ our alcoholic loved one, we are trying to carry “their load” of responsibilities as well as our own.  This is exhausting for us can soon lead to burn out, and it does not actually help the alcoholic.  We need to allow them to learn to carry their own responsibilities.

So ‘Detachment with love’ is two-fold:

1. We lovingly allow the alcoholic to carry their own responsibilities; and

2. We lovingly allow them to learn from their own mistakes and to experience the consequences of their own choices and actions.