how to draw a boundary

First draw a line between you and something you can’t have in your life. Step back behind the line. Keep your arms out so that the thing you can’t have in your life stays behind the line.

I don’t know, this isn’t something I was raised with. I very much struggle with boundaries. Every time I set one up I feel like a shitty person. I feel guilty because I’m not helping that person.

This setting boundaries comes up in my life when I’m dealing with addicts and alcoholics.

I want to help them.

I can’t help them.

I can help them go through the steps.

I can’t cure their disease.

I can help them go through the steps.

I can’t control their disease.

I can see them at meetings.

I can’t help them.

I can talk to them before and after meetings.

I didn’t cause their disease.

I can meet them to talk about the steps.

Boundaries are hard and when they are hard, because they are hard, they are probably necessary.

It does me no good to talk to an alcoholic on the phone at night when they are drinking.

So I can set a boundary that I am not going to answer the phone after 7pm.

Well now the alcoholic is calling me at 2pm….and they are drunk.

Okay so now my boundary has to shift. Now I’m not answering the phone at all.

Now the alcoholic is leaving me drunken incoherent voicemails.

I have to remind myself that no where in any of these phone calls or voicemails have we talked about or worked on the steps.

So now I need a new boundary and I have to block their phone number. This sucks. I feel guilty. I feel like shit because I’m not going to be there for them.

There is this romantic trope in AA that if an addict picks up the phone before they drink and calls their sponsor or a friend that we’ll somehow talk them off the ledge. So this idea of always answering the phone is drilled into my head. So not answering the phone feels like I’m not a good sober resource. BUT and this is a huge but and this is just me reiterating this to myself so I can try to not feel guilty. But I have to ask myself. Am I helping by answering the phone? Are we working on the steps? Are we setting a time to work on the steps? If no then I probably shouldn’t answer the phone.

And I know this, because when I was drunk and calling people and saying god knows what. I wasn’t remembering that the next day. I wasn’t creating concrete plans and coherent action items. I was just drunk and rambling. And it didn’t matter who was on the other end of the line. The damage was already done when I first started drinking that night. Nothing that came after that was helping. What did ultimately help me is when someone asked me if I wanted help and I said yes. And then I got busy. I did what I needed to. I was willing to ask for and accept help and to do what those people recommended.

I have to remind myself that the alcoholic and the addict knows what to do and they just need to do it. So unless we’re moving towards that, we’re just bullshitting. I might even be delaying their rock bottom. Or making their bottom nice and comfortable so they can lay down and get cozy. Which is not helping.

More Alanon is required. This stuff is really hard. And the guilt and the shame are real and it’s okay for me to feel them.