“We make trouble for ourselves when we interfere with the alcoholic’s activities, trying to find out where he is, what he’s been doing, where the money went. Suspicion, searching and prying will only keep us in a state of turmoil, and make the situation worse, instead of improving it.” (ODAT, 10 May)
The other person knows intuitively when I’m making him my
business.
The interference, the prying, and, behind that, the constant
thinking-about-him. They know from the look on my face. It’s suffocating. It’s
intolerable.
I grew up with an untreated Al-Anon, and I got away as
quickly as I could. It’s impossible to have a healthy relationship with someone
who is cataloguing and classifying me, trying to shape me into what they think
they want me to be, then blaming my failings for their internal condition.
I’ve used the experience to learn how to stand back from
others, to not inflict on others what I was at the business end of myself.
So, let it begin with me. Eyes off the alcoholic. Thoughts
off the alcoholic. Leave them to it.