Moving Away From Enabling The Alcoholic In My Life By Focusing On Myself

When I first started on the path of recovery, I kept hearing that I needed to focus on myself.

At first, I thought that was what I was doing. After all, I was attending the concerned person’s group sponsored by the hospital where my wife was attending out-patient rehabilitation.

I was showing up but the focus wasn’t on me - it was still on my wife.

My sharing was typically about how my wife was doing and the steps she was taking to recover. If she was having a good week - I felt hopeful. If she was having a bad week - I felt despair.

When the focus was on me and how I was doing, it was a story about how bad I had it - I was quite the martyr.

I wasn’t focusing on myself or what it would take to get healthy again in the concerned person’s group and the enabling continued at home.

My belief, at the time, was that I was helping my wife by covering for her and generally cleaning up the messes that were occurring. After all, how could she be accountable in the state she was in?

In reality what I was doing was hurting not helping. My enabling was preventing my wife the ability to hit her bottom, to be accountable - to want change.

In Al-Anon the sharing changed. Not necessarily in me at first but by the members who had some time in the program. They rarely, if ever, spoke about how well or how bad their loved one’s program was going. Their focus was on themselves - they spoke about the progress they were making or hoped to make. They spoke about their recovery.

It took a while for me to realize that focusing on myself wasn’t turning my back on my wife or family - it was doing what was essential to get healthy again so I could be there for my wife and family.

Focusing on myself taught me to allow my wife to travel her own path - to succeed or to fail.

When I share now it is rarely, if ever, about the status of my wife’s recovery. The focus is on me - the areas in which I’ve seen personal growth and the areas that I want to improve upon.

By focusing on myself instead of deflecting what I need to work on, I can regain and improve upon the me I lost when the focus was on my alcoholic loved one.

Do you have a topic you would liked discussed on Loving An Alcoholic?

Would you like to have your experience and words of encouragement posted?

Send me your thoughts: support@lovinganalcoholic.com

As I will leave each post; If you, or someone you know, loves an alcoholic or addict, I would encourage you to find a local Al-Anon 12 step meeting to attend. This is your first step towards healing.