How To Detach With Love And Why You Need To Do This

Certain situations in life such as alcoholism will force you to detach from love. Find out how to do this and the reasons behind the detachment.

By Dagmar Thomson
How To Detach With Love And Why You Need To Do This

How to Detach With Love and Why You Need To Do This

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Being in love with an addict is hard, painful, and it always lacks the emotional reward that is found in normal relationships. People who are addicted are always selfish, reckless, egotistic, and always care about getting high than the person who gives up everything for them. It is highly unlikely that this behavior will ever change. Addicts never change until they have the will to do so themselves. Forcing a loved one into rehab does not guarantee that he or she will recover until it is a personal decision. It is very easy to sacrifice your needs in order to take care of an addict. However, this creates co-dependency where you are not able to walk away from an addict because you have become too emotionally attached to the addict. This co-dependency is a way of enabling an addict to continue being addicted since someone is always there to clean up his or her mess. Detaching with love is the process of walking away from an addict such that his or her behavior will no longer affect you. This will allow you to get back to your life even if you are not ready to cut him or her out of your life completely. Detachment with love is a quote that was brought about by Al-anon. Al-anon is a mutual help group that helps people who have alcoholic family members and friends. The main principle of Al-anon is that there is no way alcoholics can learn from their mistakes if they are always overprotected. Al-anon has helped people to learn that they should stop enabling alcoholics and to take care of themselves first.

What Is Detaching With Love?

If there is an addict in your life, then you have probably heard of the quote ‘’detach with love’’ many times. Very few people know what the quote means. The quote ‘’detaching with love’’ is the process of taking a step back and deciding that it is time to put yourself first. You will still talk and treat your loved one with respect. You just take steps to be less emotionally involved in the addict’s decisions and mistakes. It allows you to be a part of the addict’s life without getting rid of them. This can be hard for people who are the sole caregivers of the addicts.

How to Detach With Love

Detaching with love is very healthy especially when you are detaching from people who are toxic in your life such as alcoholics. You need to know that this will only help you if you help yourself. Here is how you can do it.

1. Find the Reason for Detaching

You need to ask yourself why you want to detach with love. It can be difficult to do it when you do not have a good reason. Therefore, have a strong reason that you can rely on as you embark on the journey of detaching with love. The reason must be enough to make you decide to complete the whole process. It will help you as you slowly detach yourself from the addict. It should always help you even when you have lost all hope of detachment. The reason is always connected to the person who has an addiction. You should find out how your attachment to the addict affects you and the people around you.

2. Release

You should let go of all the pent-up feelings inside you. If you do not, you will reach a point where you will find yourself blowing up. It is true that there are certain feelings that should be left unexpressed but it is healthy to let go of the toxic ones. You can release the feelings the best way you want like crying, singing, or shouting. There many ways you can release your feelings but you have to ensure that it is as harmless as possible. You can release feelings each day or all at once, it is all up to you. When you are detaching from love, you should do what makes you comfortable.

3. Start Slowly

When you are detaching from love, you should not shock yourself. Just start the process slowly then gradually increase the pace. You need to know that this process is never easy. You are the only one who knows what you can and cannot let go of. With time, you will know how to let go of the hard things. Do not push yourself too much or you might lose track of why you want to detach with love and you will have to start all over again.

4. Look Forward

You need to look for something that will motivate you to look forward and completely detach with love. You should look forward to the future and stop dwelling in the past. You should imagine how happier you will be once you detach yourself from the toxic person in your life. There will be times when you will feel like giving up. However, if you are positive, you will finish the process and you will be proud of the outcome.

5. No Shortcuts

Detaching with love is a long process that requires patience. You should be aware of this before you start the whole process. There is no easy way out of being attached, so you should not take any shortcuts. It takes twice as much time to detach with love. It is painful when you are detaching with love from a loved one. However, you need to know that it will be more painful to hold on to someone who is losing control. You should dedicate this journey to yourself only and stop thinking about those who hold you back.

6. Do Not Look Back

When you are detaching with love, you should avoid looking back. It will only distract you from your mission and pull you back to where you came from. You can look back if you think that it will help you in the process. However, you should avoid looking back for too long or you might start making up excuses to give up from the detachment process. You should think about the future and all the good things that await you when you are done detaching with love.

7. Forgive

Forgiveness is an important step when you are detaching with love. You need to know that pride could take over and prevent you from forgiving but you should not let it win. Pride can make you say things that hurt the people close to you and regret it for the rest of your life. Just forgive the person and forgive yourself. It will help you have a peace of mind. It also helps you to move on and leave people who are not good for you behind. Forgiveness takes time the same way detaching with love does.

8. Heal

Wounds take time to heal and this process will help you to heal them. The only way to heal some of the wounds is by detaching. Remove yourself from relationships that give you more wounds than smiles. You should not hurt yourself in the process to make others feel better. Take time to heal your wounds and do it for yourself.

9. Be Grateful

You should be grateful for all the pain you have endured when you were attached to the addict. You should also be grateful for realizing why you want to go through with this process and for all the wounds that have healed. Detaching with love is a long journey that helps you to learn. It helps you to look forward and be grateful of the future. You should be grateful for a detachment since it helps you find yourself and find attachment to people who deserve you. Be grateful for how strong you are for reaching this far.

10. Move Forward

This is the last part of detaching with love. This is the part where you should look forward and be happy with your life and yourself. This is a new start for you after the long process of detaching with love. It has brought you to your senses, and it is all worth it. You now know what makes you happy and that you are worth being happy.

Why Detach With Love?

1. Co-dependency

Co-dependency is an emotional reliance on your partner who hurt you physically or emotionally. This relationship always develops during the difficulties of addiction. The partner can blame himself or herself for the addict’s behavior. This makes the partner rely on the addict for emotional support, which the addict never gives.

2. You Enable Their Addiction

If you find yourself taking care of your loved one by giving him or her money, paying for his or her mistakes, or making excuses for him or her, then you are enabling their addiction. You should take a step back and let the addict be responsible for his or her actions. When you do this, you will push the addict to clean his or her act quickly.

3. Doing it For Yourself

Addicts always think about themselves and do things that make them happy regardless of the people around them. This affects the people who are around them like spouses and relatives who have to put up with their addiction. Addicts affect their loved ones emotionally and physically when they become abusive. If you are close to an addict, you should take a step back and think about detaching with love from them.

4. Do Not Give Without Reciprocation

Addicts are very selfish and will always lie and manipulate you so that they can get what they want. When you step back, you stop the cycle. You need to let an addict know that if he or she wants something from you, he or she should also do something for you first. This will help you to leave their grasp and stop being at their disposal. Detaching from a loved one who is an addict is never easy. Al-anon came up with this quote to make people stop enabling addicts. You should take care of yourself first and avoid things and people who bring you down. Love life since it was meant to be enjoyed. If detaching from love is what you need to do, then go ahead.

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