The Power of Detachment: How Al-Anon Inspires Soul Recovery

In this episode, Rev. Rachel Harrison shares how Al-Anon played a crucial role in her spiritual journey and the development of the Soul Recovery process. Drawing on her own experiences, she reflects on the wisdom of detachment as taught in Al-Anon and how it has transformed her life and relationships. Through her discussion of the seven detachments and readings from How Al-Anon Works for Families and Friends of Alcoholics, she highlights the importance of emotional and spiritual boundaries and the powerful tool of detaching with love.

Please note: Rev. Rachel Harrison does not speak for or represent Al-Anon, but shares her personal journey of transformation through her experience in the program and the insights that inspired the Soul Recovery path.

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This podcast is for educational purposes only and is not allied or representative of any organizations or religions, but is based on the opinions and experience of Rev. Rachel Harrison. The host claims no responsibility to any person or entity for any liability, loss, or damage caused or alleged to be caused directly or indirectly as a result of the use, application, or interpretation of the information presented herein. Take what you need and leave the rest.

Chapters

• 0:00 Transforming Lives Through Detachment
• 6:52 Detachment and Soul Recovery
• 18:11 Embracing Detachment for Personal Healing
• 27:48 Navigating Compassion and Soul Recovery
• 32:06 Detachment With Love and Healing
• 40:37 Community Support and Growth

Transcript

Rev Rachel Harrison: 0:43

If you're listening to this episode, it's very likely that you have someone in your life who is struggling with addiction or struggled with addiction. Maybe you struggle with addiction. And we are coming back to detachment and I want to be reading out of how Al-Anon works for families and friends of alcoholics in the section on detachment. And I wanted to do that because I was inspired today to talk about how we see that addict in our lives, that we can get so attached to their addiction, to the behaviors in which they're showing up, to the pain that they are causing us, and we can lose sight of the power of releasing that attachment, the power that comes when we can see the difference between the illness and the person. That when we remember the wholeness of ourselves and the wholeness of the people in our lives and detach from their behaviors, from their choices, from their consequences, we take our power back, we learn how to stand in our authentic self and to see it as it is and make choices that are based on our highest self, on our most authentic being. Enjoy the episode. Welcome to the Recover your Soul podcast a spiritual path to a happy and healthy life.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 2:09

My name is Reverend Rachel Harrison. I started Recover your Soul. After having profound changes in my life from my recovery of alcoholism, codependency and control addiction, I was guided to share the tools and principles of spirituality and soul recovery to help others transform their lives as mine was transformed. For us to overcome external circumstances, we need to turn the attention to ourselves, focusing on our inner change and healing. Positive results in our lives will follow. It's Rev Rachel. Welcome to Recover your Soul. I am so happy to be here with you today. Thank you so much for being part of the Soul Recovery community and having this podcast be part of your spiritual journey. I am honored and really privileged to be here with you today.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 3:02

We are going to come back to some Al-Anon. Many of you found the Recover your Soul podcast through an Al-Anon search. You know that I am not affiliated with Al-Anon. I am not speaking for Al-Anon. I am inspired and healed by many of the principles that were brought by Al-Anon transformational healing that has happened through the process of what I now call soul recovery, which included many of the tools and principles that come from 12-step.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 3:34

I have had an incredible transformation in how I show up in my own life. Turns out I wasn't only an alcoholic. It turned out that that alcoholism was really fueled and driven from my own discomfort in my own life. That was around codependence and around people pleasing. So what we're going to talk about today is coming back to how Al-Anon works for family and friends of alcoholics, and we're going to come to Detachment. Detachment continues to be one of the most popular episodes. Of all of the episodes that I have, I now have over 400 episodes between the regular podcast and the bonus podcast which is on Apple Podcasts and Patreon, and it's interesting because if you go back and you look at the numbers of how many downloads there are for different episodes, detachment and codependence are the most popular ones.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 4:29

So I wanted to come back to the fundamentals of how incredible detachment is in helping us transform our life, and you know just a reminder of the story of how I got really clear about what this podcast was about and how soul recovery started to take form in my own life was in the first season. I was still just not even clear about why I was doing the podcast or what it was about. I was just sharing my own experience, and that was back in 2020. And it was pretty intense in my life at that time. I was having a lot of complex situations with my oldest son. He had moved to California at that point, but there was a lot of residual leftover dysfunction that was happening in our family. I was completely obsessed with trying to fix him and change everything and still trying to sweep up the street from all of the chaos and absolute turmoil there had been in our lives.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 5:32

And so one episode it was early on, I think, it was like the eighth episode of the podcast I read the detachment bookmark from Al-Anon that had been so powerful for me in my life. I had. This bookmark is tattered and just really looks worn, because it was everything to me reading these detachments and that episode went from just my friends and family listening to having a lot more listens. And so what made me realize that the fear that I had had about not talking about Al-Anon or AA in a desire to uphold the 12 traditions was keeping me from actually sharing my story. And so I just allowed myself to say I'm not here to be instead of Al-Anon or to speak for it. I'm here to share my journey and my healing that's happened through these principles and now has opened up to a larger scope which includes so much more spirituality and still includes some of these principles. So if you're going to Al-Anon, keep going, and if you haven't gone to Al-Anon and something in these podcasts inspires you to say you know what, maybe I'll try that. Maybe that would be a fellowship for me. Highly encourage it. It's a really incredible, incredible group and full disclosure.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 6:52

I do not currently go to AA or Al-Anon meetings anymore. The scope of soul recovery fulfills what I need for myself. I have a very strong spiritual community that I have developed here in Colorado around soul recovery. We have a lot going on in terms of how that happens on a regular basis, and then the monthly soul recovery open support group that's on Zoom the first Monday of every month really fills the space for me. So I don't go to those meetings, but it doesn't mean that you shouldn't. It really means if that is calling for you and you're already doing it, keep doing it, because this is in addition to Okay with that.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 7:32

So what I thought I would do is that I would come back to the beautiful blue book how Al-Anon Works for Families and Friends of Alcoholics and read from chapter 11, which is Detachment, love and Forgiveness and read the page and a half that is around detachment and, as I like to do, I'm going to reflect on it from the soul recovery perspective. But I just had the idea that before I do that, I want to read the seven detachments from the Al-Anon bookmark that saved my life and are so, so important. So it says in Al-Anon we learn not to suffer because of the actions or reactions of other people. Not to allow ourselves to be used or abused by others in the interest of another's recovery. Not to do for others what they can do for themselves. Not to manipulate situations so others will eat, go to bed, get up pay bills, not drink or behave as we see fit. Not to cover up for another's mistakes or misdeeds. Not to create a crisis and not to prevent a crisis if it's in the natural course of events.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 8:45

Those seven detachments were like my Bible when I was first really stepping into the soul recovery journey for myself, getting sober from my own addiction of alcoholism and, more than that, really starting to heal from my codependence and my incredible enmeshment with my actively addictive husband and my actively addictive children. And I just want to also report a huge win for my family right now, which is oh my gosh, and you know I'm really holding on to this, knowing that there's no promises and anything. But at this very moment we are all sober and that is incredible. If you know us and you've heard our story and you've listened to the episodes with me and Rich and with the kids, I'm so grateful that they all come and share their story with us. At this very moment they are all sober and I am just over the moon with the concept that it isn't around maybe not ever drinking again, but it's around the concept of emotional and spiritual recovery. That is being a big piece in my family right now, a huge success in my family, because it isn't necessarily about never having a drink again. It's about healing our broken heart. I believe so strongly that we are all whole and then when we start seeing each other as whole, then we have an opportunity for them to see themselves as whole, and addiction is really a cover for pain.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 10:20

Addiction is a cover for a broken heart. Addiction is a way to handle and deal with very complex emotions and a way to attempt to survive that eventually will kill us. So I am so grateful that I woke up and had a moment where I realized that I wanted to save myself that I was very quickly on my way to death in my own drinking, very quickly on my way to death in my own drinking. But more than that, I was already dead in how I perceived my life, how I perceived how I felt in my life. And so these concepts around detachment is us being able to see the world in a new way and how we interact with the people in our lives in a new way. So I'm going to start reading from the book, because there's so many good things to read here and we're already oh, we're almost nine minutes in already. Okay, so it reads detachment is one of the most valuable techniques Al-Anon offers to those of us who seek to reclaim our lives.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 11:24

I love that right, because I'm always talking about turn the attention to ourselves, moving to ourselves, we're reclaiming our lives. And detachment, which is the opposite of attachment, right, and I talk a lot about in Buddhism, the concept of attachment is how we begin to suffer because we're attached to something. So we're learning to detach, we're learning to reclaim our lives and to not choose suffering. It says, simply put, detachment means to separate ourselves emotionally and spiritually from other people.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 11:58

If someone we love had the flu and canceled plans with us, most of us would understand. We wouldn't take it personally or blame the person for being inconsiderate or weak. Instead, in our minds we would probably separate the person from the illness, knowing that it was the illness, rather than our loved one, that caused the change of plans. This is detachment, and we can use it to see alcoholism in the same compassionate yet impersonal way. When alcoholism causes a change in plans or sends harsh words or other unacceptable behavior in our direction, we needn't take it any more personally than we would if they had flu symptoms that we would take flu symptoms. It is the disease rather than the individual that is responsible. By seeing the person as separate from the disease, by detaching, we stop being hurt by groundless insults or angered by outrageous lies. If we can learn to step back from alcoholism's symptoms and effects, just as we would from the sneezing of a person with a cold, we would no longer have to take those effects to heart.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 13:06

This section, I think, is really important because I also really talk about seeing the soul, and this is soul recovery. So I talk about souls on that spiritual level, seeing the soul of this person in your life, seeing their wholeness, seeing the truth of who they are, as a pure being, and that being is love, and it is covered and masked and cloaked is a word I like to use with dysfunction, with self harm, with the disease or the addictions or the dysfunction or the piece of them that doesn't believe that they are enough right. So when we start to really recognize that there is this cloak around them, in which we are interacting with the cloak and not with the being on the inside, now it is easy to just say, oh, somebody's sick and they have the flu and so they didn't show up, and not to take it personally. But I think that it's important that we're not releasing the responsibility that people have to make choices within their own life about how they're going to be right. As a recovered addict, I have a lot of clarity around how the disease, how the addiction, could control me, and I also have a lot of clarity around the choices in which I made that participated in those decisions.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 14:39

And if you think about somebody who is sick and has a cold or has the flu, you know people who continually get sick and they don't care for themselves. They don't eat well, they don't sleep well, they don't make sure that their environment is such that their immune system is good, and so they may continue to get sick, and you can't necessarily blame them for getting sick. But they have to have some level of responsibility in the way in which they treat themselves. That makes it so that they do get a cold or they get the flu or they get, you know, stomach situations or whatever it is, because on some level they participate in that and on some level they don't have control over it. So this detachment is really seeing that separation from the soul, from the being inside, and just recognizing that these circumstances on the outside that are dysfunctional, that are not okay, are separate from.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 15:39

And that's when we can start to detach. It's not an excuse to say, oh, he's just an alcoholic, so he can treat me like crap, or they don't show up for anything because he's an alcoholic. Yeah, they're not showing up because they're showing up on their least denominator. Their lowest denominator is what is available, and sometimes that lowest denominator is not enough. But then when we respond to them from our lowest denominator, to them, from our lowest denominator, from our unhealed self, we are interacting with them in a way that is our ill self too. You know, I love that Joe Dispenza is a spiritual teacher who's bringing higher consciousness and science in books and all around the world, and he talks about dis-ease disease being dis-ease, and I think that's really valuable in this particular place, because we're starting to notice the dis-ease in others and the detachment is letting go of taking it personally or thinking it's ours to fix or to do something about.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 16:51

Are you ready to step into your soul recovery? Well, I am here to support you as your spiritual coach. Visit the website to book one-on-one coaching sessions with me as we transform your life through working the nine steps of soul recovery. You can also choose to work the steps on your own through the modules at your own pace. I'm excited to also be announcing that there are retreats every year, both in Colorado and other places in the country, workshops and events, and I hope that you also will join us the first Monday of every month from 6 to 7 pm, mountain Standard Time, for the free Zoom support group. This is an amazing place for us to connect, learn and share our stories. And don't forget to join the private Facebook group for soul recovery, inspiration connection, answering each other's questions and giving shout outs. I thank you for supporting this podcast, either by being a Patreon member, apple podcast subscriber and getting that extra episode every Friday, or by your one-time donations or your small monthly donations that are found in the show notes, you are helping spread the soul recovery message and supporting this community. Visit the website recoveryoursoulnet for dates, times, everything that's happening, register for the support group and how to stay connected. Together we can do the work that will recover your soul.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 18:11

When we see the person separate from the dis-ease, when we see the person separate from the disease by detaching, we stop being hurt by the groundless insults or angered by outrageous lies. There is stuff happening that is not okay. There are behaviors that are happening that are not okay, so this is never a place where you are learning that if you do your work well enough, you can allow anybody to be, however they are in your life. That is not what this is about. Soul recovery is about taking all of the judgment and the emotion off of it and having more ability to see things as they are and to allow others to have the consequences from their cause and effect.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 19:01

I quit drinking because I had an awakening within myself that said something in me knows that I'm worth it. I had people that told me I was worth it. I had plenty of opportunity to make different choices along the way. I made the choice when I was ready. That's why those first detachment rules of Al-Anon are so powerful, because when we allow somebody else to be in their own consequences, the likelihood is that they'll make choices and changes for themselves. And we're not attached to them right, we're letting them do it for themselves that might be for their best good, sooner, right. Like every time we enable people, by not following those seven detachments, we're actually maybe blocking the consequences. That might be where they finally hit the wall that they're ready to make change for themselves.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 20:04

So I think it's important to really take all of this in for how it feels for you and I think that's what soul recovery is really about. Is that this is your personal experience, your journey around your soul's awakening, your soul's recovery? And when we turn the attention to ourselves from that format, we begin to see broader and bigger and stop taking everything personally. So it goes on to say learning to detach often begins by learning to take a moment before reacting to the alcoholic behavior. And again, you can insert whatever behavior instead of alcoholic there, whatever behavior instead of alcoholic there In that moment we can ask ourselves is this behavior coming from the person or the disease? Right, we're learning to see the cloak that they're wearing? And when we have all the energy around the drinking or around the particular, maybe it's gambling, maybe it's pornography, maybe it's shopping or debting or something like that right, when we have all of the energy around, are you doing that behavior? We're not actually seeing that this is just the tip of the iceberg. There is so much more happening underneath for that person that this is how it's playing out. And when we stop putting all of the energy and all the focus on this particular aspect of it, it allows more space for what's really happening to be exposed for everyone and to be able to look at what is yours, to take responsibility for how you're showing up in it, but really for them to maybe stop using the addiction as the main focus and for them to take the time to turn to their heart and to say what's going on underneath.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 21:58

I drank because I was uncomfortable. I drank because I was unhappy. I drank because my life wasn't what I thought it was going to be. I drank because I was hurt and then, in the end, the addictive substance takes over because it is addictive and then your body wants it, it craves it. Same with sugar. I still work on my own sugar addiction. The more sugar I have, the more sugar my body wants. But I still choose every moment. Am I going to go have a scoop of ice cream? Am I going to choose an apple instead? Like I choose, right. So we're really looking at what is going on in the addictive part of how our body works, but really what's going on in the psyche, in the spiritual and the emotional levels of each person? So it says, although at first the answer may not be clear, in time it becomes easier to discern whether alcoholism or our friend or relative has prompted the disturbing behavior.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 23:02

And people do crappy things.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 23:04

I'm not saying that people do not do crappy things. We all do crappy, unhealthy things. When we are unhealthy and unhappy that is absolutely true. When we are in pain, we respond in ways that are not of our best interest. We are in our lowest possible denominator. This distinction makes us better able to emotionally distance ourselves from the behavior. This is what we're doing in detachment. We are emotionally distancing ourselves from the behavior. We are not taking it personally. We are not fixing it. We are not thinking it's at us, we are letting it go.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 23:37

It says we can remember that, although alcoholics often surround themselves with listen to this crisis, chaos, fear and pain, with listen to this crisis, chaos, fear and pain. Although alcoholics or dysfunctional people or people in their not healthiest place often surround themselves with crisis, chaos, fear and pain, we need not play a part in the turmoil. This is so huge because I know that there is this pull to be in their crisis. Right, they're in crisis, so we feel like we have to be in crisis. It says blaming others for the consequences of their own choices and acting out verbally or physically are some of the smoke screens that alcoholics slash, addicts, slash dysfunctional people use to conceal the real source of trouble their addiction, their dysfunction, their unhealthy body, mind and soul. This is really huge because I know many of you that I work with have people in your life who tell you that you are the reason why, that you're not doing enough for them, that you need to save them, that they have blame about why they are the way they are, because you made me this way. Way, and if we really just look at again, it's just our pain body and our pain bodies, as Eckhart Tolle talks about in New Earth.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 25:11

I believe is what the book it was. He talks about how the pain body is hungry and if you think about how we are either feeding our dark side or our light side, and our dark side has a hunger for this blame, for this chaos, for this fear, for this pain, for this crisis, for making somebody else the reason why and we fall into it. You know why? Because we love them, because you're looking at that soul of that human being who maybe you married or you gave birth to, or as a parent or as a friend. You see the light that they are and around them is all of this pain and of course you want to do something about it. Of course it hurts you that they can't show up as that whole self, but the more that we see that whole self, the more that we attach our attention to responding to the truth of who they are and detach from that cloak of dysfunction and addiction. And you don't play into it. You see it as it is. Does this work for you? Do you want this in your life? How can you have it in your life in a way that is healthy for you.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 26:29

This chapter starts with the words about reclaiming ourselves. Al-anon uses the technique of detachment for those who are ready to reclaim yourself. You're reclaiming yourself. You're going to let them have their own experience.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 26:44

Everyone's attention goes to the harsh words, the broken glass, the bounce check, rather than the dis-ease we can get, so caught in the drinking. Did they have a drink today? Did they watch porn today? Did they gamble today? Did they do the thing today? That all the attention is going into the top of the iceberg and when we stop putting the focus on that not that it's not important, but when we're putting the focus on really what's underneath, what's the pain underneath, and you don't have to fix it for them you're just giving space to release this attachment again the word attachment to detach from our obsession, our addiction to their negative behavior. So it says it becomes automatic to defend against the insult to weep or rage at the thrown glass, to scramble to cover the bounce check by naming the disease right.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 27:49

And I think for me the disease is really a broken heart. I think it's when we really see that people are struggling with who they are or how life feels for them, that this is the only choice that they felt that they had at the time, that they've fallen into the despair of being a human being. When you start to have compassion for somebody from that perspective and you recognize how difficult it is, how difficult it is to be human, it's difficult for us to be human and maybe there's something in our own lives that we're using to to cover our own pain, to begin to look at that, instead of putting all of our energy on trying to fix or control somebody else. It says when we see through the smoke screen and therefore don't need to be distracted by it at all, instead of taking the behavior personally, in time we've learned to say to ourselves that's just the alcoholism, that's just the addiction, that's just the mental illness, that's just the cloak that they're wearing around their whole soul, and let it go Right. It doesn't say and fix it or change it, it just says just to let it go.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 29:07

And again, I have a lot of people that say, well, how do you let it go? How do you let it go? You know, it's really just about seeing it and having awareness touching in with your own feelings. How does this feel to me? What does this remind me of? What are the choices I'm making right now in this situation that are either propelling more of it to happen, or what decisions am I making about what I believe, what are the stories I'm telling myself about why I have to stay or what I'm supposed to do about it here, watching somebody that you love and that you care deeply about struggle is not easy, and you're struggling and you're having a hard time too, and that's not easy.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 29:51

So this concept of us looking from the soul recovery perspective which is to really have a tender heart and a compassionate heart, for ourselves first and foremost, and open that compassion to the people around us for the complexity it is for them to be in their life begins to take off our responsibility that we are supposed to do something about it, that we need to fix it, that we want to control it and, mostly, that it's going to hold a resentment and an anger and it's going to make it so that in our lives, we aren't fulfilling our soul's purpose. It so that in our lives we aren't fulfilling our soul's purpose, that we're allowing ourselves to be controlled by somebody else. So it goes on to say simply knowing that the alcoholism is the source of the unacceptable behavior is not sufficient. However, we may have to take action to help us achieve greater emotional distance, and this is what I was just saying. There isn't a piece that says if you do your work well enough, you can sit in anything that's bad. Sure, you could totally do that. You could do your work well enough to be able to allow anything to happen around you and know that it's not yours to take.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 31:01

However, in soul recovery, what we're learning is that you have choice in your life about what you align with what you want to draw to recovery. What we're learning is that you have choice in your life about what you align with what you want to draw to yourself, what kind of relationships you want to have, what kind of friendships that you want to have, and each person has that choice. And so, from this place, it goes on to say maybe you need to go to a meeting, maybe you need to talk to a trusted friend, maybe you need to go to a sponsor. Yes, do those things. That's why, here in Soul Recovery, we have a once a month Soul Recovery Support Group. The first Monday of every month, we get together on Zoom. I give a short message, we have answers and questions. We move into small groups. We need each other and you need people who see you as whole too. You need people who see you as whole and see your soul recovery process as important as your awakening is important that really encourage you to expand and to grow and to let go of old patterns and we're letting go of judgment of everybody involved and just recognizing it's complex to be a human being.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 32:07

It says at first we may not detach. Very gracefully, many of us have done so with resentment, bitter silence and loud and angry aggression. It takes time to practice and master detachment. Beginning the process is important, even if we do it badly at first and must make amends later. But it's even more important to remember that establishing personal boundaries is not the same as building walls. Our goal is to heal ourselves and our relationships with other human beings, not coldly distancing ourselves, especially from the people that matter most to us. So this part for me, I think, is really important, because detachment comes in all kinds of different forms and when we're really in a meshed state with another person, sometimes we've got to just do it messy. You know you have to just detach messy.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 33:02

I used to say I've detached with Alex with a chainsaw. You know, it was like I had to say like I'm not giving you any money and I'm not doing for you and I'm not bailing you out of jail. And you know, I had to like, really draw a line. I had to be angry and then, as time has gone by, there's been more and more and more and more and more healing and more awareness and ability for me to notice when I kind of tumble into a situation in a messy way and instead of continuing the mess, I pick myself up, I connect with myself. Maybe it's not making the mend later. It's about checking in in that moment and saying, oh, how can I show up better in myself here? How can I recognize the tools that I have? Where am I falling into old patterns? How do I show up for myself here in my best capacity? And that's often what happens still to this day with Rich and I is I kind of fall into it and then he and I are better and we work it out. We talk about it in much healthier ways with the kids. We're doing the same thing.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 34:03

Sometimes you have to cut off relationships, but when we do it's a cold wall. It means that there's clarity around the boundaries that say that those relationships don't feel good or healthy to us any longer. But there isn't a resentment behind it. It's just a clarity that we can stop trying, that we can stop trying to make something be something that it never will be. And that's detachment to allow it to be what it is. But it doesn't mean that we're actually in it. It means we just release it and let it go. It says, in fact, detachment is far more compassionate and respectful than the unfeeling, distancing or the compulsive involvement many of us have practiced in the past.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 35:06

For when we detach with love, we accept others exactly as they are, and you know, with our family members, it's really around having your own feeling of grief, of wishing that it could be a different way. Rich often says that he wishes that we had more connection with family, and it's okay to feel sadness around that. But if we're wishing that they were somebody else or we're wishing the relationship was something that it isn't, then we're suffering and we're attached to it being a certain way. And so this ability for us to detach with love means that you can be in relationships with people. I've detached with love with my children and so for me, I just look at our lives and I think this is the power of detachment. I have let my family be exactly who they are and find their own way, and the fact that they have found their way this way. I'm over the moon about it Not to suffer because of the actions or reactions of other people, not to allow myself to be used or abused in the interest of another's recovery. I am releasing them from what I want for them, but I'm celebrating it's this beauty of allowing it to be. What is it says?

Rev Rachel Harrison: 36:24

Detachment with love allows us to hate the disease of alcoholism and yet step back from the disease in order to find love for the person right, whatever level they're in your life. Love from a compassionate, unconditional space allows them to be wherever they are and it means that you allow the relationships to unfold in a way that is best aligned with you. To detach from the disease. To hate I don't really like the word hate but to allow yourself to see the cloak of that dysfunction or that addiction and have your reactions to that. But you're not reacting or responding to the soul that's underneath and it says for some of us, this love was apparent all along, and for others, love may be the last emotion that they would associate with the alcoholic. And it says those of us who grew up in an abusive alcoholic environment may be hard pressed to summon any love for the alcoholics we have known and you know. It's really about being connected to your own feelings. What do you feel in this situation? How can you use the nine steps of soul recovery to heal your own heart?

Rev Rachel Harrison: 37:48

And what I think is so important in soul recovery in particular is we walk in because we think that the addict or the dysfunctional relationship or the codependence or the people pleasing, we're looking at those people and we want we want some fixing for them. And you come here and you realize everybody has something in their life that isn't easy, relationships in their lives that aren't easy. We all see ourselves in some way that needs updating that. Our suffering this is the new step one in soul recovery our suffering, dissatisfaction, comes because we're trying to run on old perceptions, old beliefs, old patterns, old stories. They don't serve you any longer and these relationships that we're in were formed from those perceptions, those beliefs, those stories and we're going to heal ourselves. We are here to heal ourselves. We are here to take our lives back. We are here to reclaim our lives and through that, things are going to shake up. You're going to stay in some relationships. You're going to leave some relationships. Some people are going to get better. Some people aren't. Well, guess who's going to get better? You are going to get better because you are here to work on you. You are here to detach with love. You are here to take care of yourself. You're here for your soul's expansion. That's why you're here.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 39:19

So I hope you enjoyed this how Al-Anon works for family and friends of alcoholics in the section on detachment detachment with love. We are here in this community with each other doing this work and it is profound. And these tools and principles that you're using to truly release the energy and the old pain that is blocked within us is going to shift and change the people in your family and the relationships. And when we detach from what that will even look like and we open up to allowing it to be as it's supposed to be, it's going to unfold in ways that we couldn't imagine. I promise that for you. And as always oh, my goodness, I went so long today and as always, I'm here for you in whatever way that you need. I'm here for spiritual coaching. Come to the group. I hope that the podcast continues to bring you the tools that you need for your spiritual journey. I thank you for being part of this Recover your Soul community. Until next time, namaste. Bring you the tools that you need for your spiritual journey. I thank you for being part of this Recover your Soul community. Until next time, namaste. Thank you for listening and I hope that that helps support your soul recovery process.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 40:38

I just wanted to give you a quick reminder that every Friday is the Recover your Soul bonus podcast and this is available both to Apple podcast subscribers for $3.99a month or it's available for both free and paid Patreon members. So as a Patreon member, you can choose. Do you want to support the podcast with $5, $10, or $25 a month? Totally volunteer. But to let you know that if you want to listen to those bonus episodes incredible interviews you know that if you want to listen to those bonus episodes incredible interviews, wonderful book studies you don't have to be a paid member. You can access them in the first week or two that they're available free on Patreon.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 41:16

This community is so important to me and I want you to know I treat it with love and consideration. If you want coaching, I'm here for you. You want to come to a retreat? I'm here for you. You want to come to a retreat? I'm here for you. You want to come to the free soul recovery support group? The community is here for you. Watch us on Facebook, instagram, follow us on all the social media for daily inspiration, be part of the Facebook group. And one of the most important things is that you share this podcast with people that you think that it will resonate with, that you think that they're interested. Give it five stars, give it a review. We are growing this community together because together we can do the work that will recover your soul.