Detachment... with love Detachment means separating the personality you love from the disease you despise. It means accepting the afflicted one unconditionally as an individual of worth and dignity, while steadfastly rejecting the destructive influences of alcoholism on yourself and on the family members in your care. Detachment means caring enough to relinquish your fantasies and fictions to accept the reality of the alcoholic condition, and the reality of yourself as well. Detachment means foreswearing anger, resentment, fear, recrimination, self-justification, false pride, self-condemnation and self-pity, so that decisions can be made and actions taken dispassionately, in loving wisdom and with calm resolve. Detachment is a course of constructive independence, not a license for retaliatory self-indulgence. It is an assertion of your human rights, not a usurpation of those of the alcoholic. It is a tool for serenity, not a weapon for retribution. Detachment means being objective, but not indifferent; flexible, but not indecisive; firm, but not hard; wise, but not overbearing; resolute, but not stubborn; compassionate, but not indulgent. Detachment is profound love, wrapped in understanding and bound by courage, helping you to live with serenity and fulfillment in spite of the environment, and in constant readiness for the alcoholic's decision for sobriety... even without its expectation. authored by someone in CA, passed on to Father Fred of the Serenity Retreat League of NJ, and acquired by this therapist in FL a couple decades ago.