Rising above the problem

If we're going to work with alcoholics, we can't afford to become emotionally involved in their problem, or we lose all of our possibility for help. You've got to stay above the problem. Now it seems like, maybe, that would be a cold attitude. It is not. You have to love more to stay emotionally uninvolved in the problem than you do to become involved in it. The answer is not in the problem; the answer is in the answer. I worked on my problem for ten years, and the more I looked at the problem and the harder I worked on the problem, the greater the problem became. It was just like fertilising and watering and cultivating a weed. It grew out of all proportions. I think we have to be able to live above the problem to be of value to those that have it. We don't get emotionally involved in the problem. It's not that we love less; it's that we love more. I think it takes much more love to release than it does to hold onto.

(Chuck C.)