Don’t let their irresponsible actions stop you from your goals in life. Broken dreams, trampled plans, missed appointments or engagements are a way of life for the alcoholic. It’s so important to get the focus off of how the alcoholic in our life is acting. They will always be irresponsible; learn to accept this fact.
Here’s how it works… When we have expectations, then we are setting ourselves up for experiencing resentment. If we don’t have expectations from the alcoholic in our lives, then they cannot disappoint us. Having this type of an attitude will protect us from experiencing a flood of negative emotions and give to us serenity and peace in our lives.
We will be protected against experiencing feelings of disappointment, anger, depression, shame and the need to ask for forgiveness. Why you ask? Well, when we don’t have expectations of another person to do something, then there’s no way they can disappoint us. There will be no reason to confront them or to get into an argument over the situation.
The more often we can avoid having a confrontation, the greater the serenity becomes in our lives.
Always be ready with a backup plan when there is a person in your life who is actively drinking alcohol. If they do not follow through with their commitment or end of the bargain, look somewhere else to have the void filled.
The main thing is to get your focus off of the alcoholic and all of the things that they are not doing right from your point of view. This article will help you: How To Stop Thinking About An Alcoholic.
I’ll never forget how I had checked with my wife two months in advance to see if she would be able to attend a Christmas special that I wanted to purchase tickets for. She assured me that she would be able to attend, so I purchased one for each of us. For the next few weeks, I periodically reminded her of our plans. When it came time to go at 6pm, she was not anywhere to be found. Should I stay at home and be mad or just go without her, I wondered? One phone call to a friend and I had someone who wanted to join my plans. The two of us had a great evening watching the Christmas special.
That night my wife never came home. The next day when I saw her, I did not say a word to her about missing the event. Actually, I made it a point to call my friend and talk about how much I enjoyed the event that we had attended together.
We must always be prepared to live our lives to the full, even when our alcoholic spouse, boyfriend, girlfriend or child exhibits irresponsible actions by breaking engagements. There were so many times the alcoholic in my life missed appointments that we scheduled.
Broken plans are a way of life for them. The sooner that we accept this and make a decision to enjoy our lives with or without them-the better off we will be.
If you really want to learn how to love an alcoholic, then develop your character to accept them as they are and live your own life.
It’s OK to live your life to the full even when an alcoholic continually fails to meet their obligations. Irresponsible actions, broken dreams, trampled plans, and canceled engagements are all a part of the active drinker’s lifestyle.
Trust me, there are plenty of people that you can connect with as friends who can join you when the alcoholic ditches you so that they can go out drinking with their friends. We must have a phone book full of friends that we can call on short notice who will be willing to join us when there are broken engagements.
Thankyou so much for these emails. They are so good!
I always thought that my A was just a mean person
And that I was the only one who had these ongoing
Problems. Now I realize all addicts have most of
The same characteristics. Your daily tips are helping
Sooo much. May god bless you for doing this.
Thankyou!
Jody
These emails have really helped me understand and deal with my fathers alcoholism. I do feel I am still a long way from not thinking about his problem constantly but you are greatly assisting me in being able to continue to work toward that goal.
Thank You
These are helpful…I should read them more instead of being so caught up with my A. I failed this morning and allowed him to push all my buttons…he started accusing me of having an affair, of being emotionally irrational, that I was the one who needed help and was creating all the problems…was basically trying to find all the things he could to start an argument and upset me. I am not at the point where it doesn’t affect me, I got upset and have decided to leave the house for the day just so I can somehow focus on my studies for school. Its still very hard for me to find good support, everyone I seem to meet even in Al-Anon just tells me to leave him, with no other solutions..thank God at least this website exists. I am feeling pretty hopeless this morning but am timing my obsessing over him, and then as the article said before this one I will put my effort into focusing on myself. Its so hard to be attacked for no apparent reason. He wants complete control of me and its crazy. Thanks if you read all this.
You are welcome Eve. It’s been a few days since you posted this comment; I hope things are going well with you. You know…change just takes time. It is difficult at first, but the more we stick with a good program like Al-anon the easier change becomes. There are so many things to learn about how to love an alcoholic and maintain our sanity at the same time. It can be done! Keep up the good work…Oh and remember to smile too!
Max, there is a lot to be learned about how to cope with an alcoholic. Thanks for sharing.
why do we have to change for then and treat them with love and repect when its them who r messing up, make no scents. we r in our right mind so we have to pussyfoot around them make no scents!!!!! I dont understand
I, too, do not get how we have to learn lessons so we can deal with an alcoholic. I wish it was against the law to drink too much – to drink every single day! I try to keep my mind on everything but the alcoholic, but for some reason, they manage to mess things up somehow – they don’t show, etc.
Thank you for the helpful tips on dealing with an alcoholic.
I appreciate all of the Alcoholicsfriend.com postings but this one struck a particular chord with me. Huge blow up over qualifier missing an agreed upon date back in November; we didn’t speak for 6 weeks; then I broke the ice by apologizing for my part which only lead to more convoluted entanglement, disrespectful communication, compromise of healthy boundaries, and ultimately and currently further distance between us. You just can’t win with this dis-ease! The support of seasoned Al-Anon folks, HP,and working the program has gotten me to today … detachment was/is necessary to get my own thinking straight again … just want to say thank you to the author of this post for showing/suggesting alternative ways of dealing with the alcoholics we love … they are who they are and I guess, on the up side, they do give us the opportunities to practice 🙂
L:
I went through the exact same scenario and for the final time I refused to apologize for my behavior when I was confronting the A with actually forging my name to something. This ultimately led to my divorce. You are right–You just “can’t win with this dis-ease!” So I took one statement to heart that I’ve heard over & over on this site “change your attitude or change your address”. When change of attitude did not work for me–change of address did but recovery from their behavior takes so long & takes so much out of you. I still struggle determining what part was my fault and what even happened–alcohol? What was it? It has totally confused me.
This is powerful. I am going to have a phone book with friends phone numbers listed when my AH is passed out and cannot arise to the occasion. My experiences in life do not have to dependent on anyone. This advice has help me begin to heal. Thank you…….I refuse to shut down and become depressed. No more excuses. I must change my attitude or change my address.