| Detachment is a tool for family members' addiction | | | | with love from the addict. It helps family members to |
| recovery. It is also a therapeutic goal for family | | | | understand how their compulsion to fix the addict, |
| members in recovery. Detachment, in an addiction | | | | helps perpetuate the problem, rather than solving |
| context, means letting go of efforts to control or | | | | those problems. The attempts of family members to |
| take responsibility for the addict. | | | | "fix" the problems are viewed by the addict as |
| Alcohol/drug addiction not only has a typical | | | | "control". |
| progression for the individual, there is a progression | | | | In obsessing about the addict, family members lose |
| to the family dynamics of addiction as well. As | | | | themselves in the process. Family members often |
| addiction progresses, the addict becomes more and | | | | describe not knowing what they are feeling. They |
| more disabled by the addiction. In this progression, | | | | often question their own sanity, especially in a |
| family members feel compelled to take on | | | | struggle to find out "the truth" about a suspected lie. |
| increasingly more of the addict's roles and | | | | Family members often find themselves locked in a |
| responsibilities. They often take on the job of | | | | cycle of obsessing about the addict's behavior, |
| "parenting" the adult addict. | | | | emotionally reacting, and compulsively attempting to |
| Family members, trying so desperately to fix the | | | | make them change. Family members are certain that |
| problem, often feel like they have lost themselves in | | | | they know what is best for the addict, or what they |
| the process or have become someone that they | | | | need to do, to solve the problem. They invest |
| never wanted to be. They experience a wide range | | | | emotionally in their solutions and feel compelled to |
| of significant emotional and mental health symptoms | | | | impose those solutions on the addict. Family members |
| in the process. | | | | continue the same problem solving behavior despite |
| The addict feels compelled to continue to the use | | | | evidence that it is not working. No other possible |
| the chemical in the face of negative consequences. | | | | solutions are considered; largely because family |
| Family members are similarly "compelled". They | | | | members are so invested in their solutions that they |
| observe someone that they love losing control over | | | | cannot imagine that there could be another way. |
| his/her life. They feel that the "must" do something | | | | Detachment is a tool that helps break that pattern. |
| to prevent it from happening or to fix it. This | | | | Detachment does not have to involve anger. |
| compulsion to take control is a typical part of the | | | | Detachment with love does not involve a hostile |
| family dynamics of addiction. In a family system, this | | | | withdrawal of love or support. It does not involve a |
| shift in responsibilities marks a pathological adjustment | | | | hopeless or desperate acceptance of the |
| to the behavioral, emotional, relationship, spiritual, and | | | | unacceptable. |
| physical changes of the addict as s/he progresses in | | | | Detachment with love is about mentally, emotionally, |
| his/her addiction. | | | | and sometimes physically letting go of unhealthy |
| As the addict continues to decline, the system | | | | entanglements with another person's life and |
| incorporates the addict's changes into the structure | | | | responsibilities. Detachment with love involves letting |
| and function of that system. Family members, in their | | | | go of problems that are not yours to solve. In family |
| attempts to solve the problems of the addiction, try | | | | addiction, this detachment is about relinquishing |
| reasonable problem solving behaviors that do not | | | | responsibility over that which you have no authority |
| work on addiction. Their efforts to solve those | | | | and no power. It implies taking responsibility for one's |
| problems amount to adjusting to the pathology of | | | | own issues, feelings, behaviors, and happiness. |
| the addiction in a way that tends to maintain the | | | | Detachment with loves means to stop removing the |
| dysfunction. These problem solving efforts are | | | | natural negative consequences of the addict's |
| labeled "enabling" because they enable the addict to | | | | behavior and to allow them to suffer those |
| continue his/her drinking/using behavior by removing | | | | consequences. |
| the "natural, negative consequences" of that | | | | Detachment with love allows family members to take |
| behavior. | | | | better care of self. By detaching with love, you free |
| This does not mean that family members cause the | | | | yourself up to "care about" the addict, instead of |
| addiction. Nor are they responsible for the addict | | | | "taking care of" them. For the family in recovery, |
| remaining in the addiction. The family member is not | | | | "detachment with love" means letting go of the |
| responsible for another person's disease or recovery | | | | compulsion to be responsible for the addict. It allows |
| from it. Yet in the disease, the family member | | | | a family member to return to being the person s/he |
| becomes hopelessly entangled in the destructive | | | | was before s/he became someone else in the |
| family dynamics of addiction. | | | | process of trying to take responsibility for the |
| In order for family members to recover their health | | | | addict's addiction. |
| and control over their own lives, they must detach | | | | |