Al-Anon Saved My Life

I still wasn't sure my husband was an alcoholic, despite his heavy drinking, but I thought it wouldn't hurt to go to one Al-Anon meeting and see what it was all about. Down deep, I think I was hoping to get validation that my husband was NOT an alcoholic.

I felt warmly welcomed at the meeting. It had been a long time since I had been among people who were so caring. Everyone else I knew had been put at arm's length because of my husband's drinking, so I didn't really have any close friends anymore.

As I listened to the others talk about how someone else's drinking was affecting their lives, I realized that not only was my husband well and truly an alcoholic, but that he was in the later stages of alcoholism.

The most important thing I learned at that Al-Anon meeting was the principle of "detachment". It is a way of detaching emotionally from what the alcoholic says or does. You just decide not to let it affect you, by detaching. It separates you from the emotional storm that can happen when you get upset by someone's drinking. Instead of giving in to those emotions, just detach. Do not let it affect you. It doesn't mean you don't care, or that you are not really affected, just that you don't show it or act on it. Detach.

Detachment saved my life.

When I got home from the meeting, I was alone. My husband was still out drinking. Instead of getting upset that he wasn't home, and knowing what he was doing, and in what state he would return, I decided to practice this detachment that I had just learned about. I detached from the fact that he was out getting drunk. I stopped myself having any emotion about it. It was just a fact, that he was not there.

There was a telephone message from a creditor asking for payment on a bill that was long overdue. Instead of getting upset about that too, I tried detachment again. I was able to put the thoughts of our meager finances out of my mind enough to remove emotion from this overdue bill. That allowed me to think about how I would solve this problem, and I made a plan for dealing with it.

Detachment wasn't as hard as I thought.

A few hours later, my husband stumbled in the front door. He was very drunk, and very, very angry. The minute he saw me, he started calling me names and being sarcastic. "Well, well, there she is, the little lady, the useless little lady." He became argumentative, and continued to insult me. He was spoiling for a fight, and there was no one to pick on but me.

I knew, that if I responded angrily to his taunts, I would be lying on the floor with the next breath. A strong man, he could easily fell me with his fist, and kill me with a couple of punches. He had beaten me before. If he started hitting me this time he might not stop. I knew that he badly wanted a fight, and I was the target.

So I detached. Whatever he said to me, whatever he did, I was not going to respond with anger or tears. I detached, and responded with complete neutrality. I offered to make him something to eat, knowing he would pass out before I had it made. Where that would have made me angry before at the waste of food, I showed no emotion, only detachment.

I detached from every comment and gesture that he made. And a miracle occurred. When he saw that he was not going to be able to draw me into a battle, he stopped trying. Shortly, he lay down on the couch and passed out.

I know full well that if I had reacted with anything other than detachment that night, I would not be alive to write this to you today. I learned detachment at Al-Anon, and it saved my life.