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I married an alcoholic. Having grown up in a household of heavy drinkers, I didn’t notice anything wrong while we were dating or first married. My husband was so much fun and generous — always buying the next round when we were out with friends. Sure, it wasn’t easy to get him to leave a bar or a party. But he just loved a good time. Besides, I was partying too.
The evening of our 10th wedding anniversary was spent in the basement of a church at an open Alcoholics Anonymous meeting to celebrate my husband’s first year of sobriety. One person after another got up to share their story of their drinking and drugging. I was sitting in a folding metal chair, fuming. We were going to miss the dinner reservation at the lovely restaurant I wanted to try.
The end of that meeting felt like his old drinking days, except instead of trying to extract my husband from a bar, I pulled him away from the celebrants congratulating each other and exchanging cards. He had to stay just a bit longer to shake hands with just one more person.
This year, we celebrated our 41st wedding anniversary. We took a trip to Provence, and sitting outside in a lovely garden restaurant, holding hands over the table, I sipped a delicious glass of rose wine and my husband drank a ginger ale.
The three-plus decades in between have been a long road, with plenty of bumpy miles. But I am incredibly thankful we made it, and I’ve learned a lot on the way. Such as, how little I understood about addiction or my husband when he first tried to get sober.
Back then, he was frequently erratic in his moods. He’d ricochet between charm and anger, affection and withdrawal, analytical to maudlin. One evening, when we were about to host a big holiday party, with guests due to arrive momentarily, I found my husband in the backyard, staring into the trees.
“What are you doing out here?” I asked him.
“I can’t do this,” he said.
“Do what?”
“Any of it,” he replied.
I didn’t know what he was talking about. I just told him to pull himself together. And he did, to the extent that he came back in, poured himself a cocktail, and became a gregarious host. A few days later, though, I asked him what was going on. He couldn’t articulate. He just seemed very depressed.
I found him a therapist and he agreed to go. The doctor, after meeting with my husband a few times, advised him to stop drinking and referred him to an addiction specialist.
The next few months are a blur in my memory. He had a friend — once a drinking buddy — who had gotten sober. The friend took my husband to his first AA meeting. He went to other meetings for a while, then relapsed.
One bleak moment after the relapse that stands out from the rest of the bleak moments was waking up at 3 a.m. to find the other side of our bed empty. I walked downstairs and discovered my husband drunk and incapacitated on the family room sofa. Our children were three and seven at the time.
I remember staring through the sliding doors out into the darkness, realizing, “I need to raise these kids on my own. I need to do everything myself now.”
But J went back to “the rooms” (a reference to AA) to try to stop drinking again.
I’m not proud to admit that at first, my predominant emotion was neither support nor compassion. It was anger. My husband was a mess. He alternated between falling apart emotionally or spouting AA aphorisms that drove me nuts with their simplicity.
When I accompanied him to that first meeting in the church basement, I had no patience with the “celebrants." Their stories veered between self-pity and a perverse pride in just how messed up they were, getting kicked off airplanes or waking up in strange beds.
Yes, I could have gone to Al-Anon to gain more understanding. But I didn’t want to. He was the one with the problem, not me. Or so I thought at the time. In truth, we both had a lot to learn.
Here’s what time has taught me, along with individual therapy, couples counseling, hard work and commitment to our marriage.
-First off, I came to understand that his drinking, and equally important his recovery, have nothing to do with me. I could never have made my husband stop drinking. That was something he had to want for himself. Nor do I have any control in keeping him sober. That’s also his responsibility.
-I’m his wife and try to be a loving, supportive partner. But I’m not his parole officer. He needs to be vigilant. Luckily, my husband is surrounded by people who help him stay sober.
-He has continued to go to AA meetings and over the decades has sponsored and helped many others. I’m not proselytizing that 12-step programs are a cure-all for everybody. It worked for my husband. But alcoholism is pernicious, and everyone has their own path. Incidentally, when my husband got sober, my mom told me my husband was “just no fun anymore." Now bedridden, my 100-year-old mother can’t drink much anymore. As for my husband, he is fun, along with being caring and compassionate.
-It’s important to talk to your kids about family history. Alcoholism runs in families — in our case, on both sides. You can’t control your kids either, but the more knowledge they have, the better equipped they are. My son was very young when his father stopped drinking, but my daughter remembers it. Their understanding has brought us all closer.
-Finally, my husband’s drinking history is not mine to share. (That’s why my real name is not on this article.) He can and does share his experiences with people he believes he can help. But that’s for him to decide.
And yes, I sipped that glass of wine on our 41st wedding anniversary. If it bothered my sober spouse, I wouldn’t drink in front of him. But it doesn’t. Sometimes I can’t even finish the entire serving.
“Aren’t you going to drink that?” he’ll say.
“No, I don’t want any more.”
“Not a concept I was ever familiar with,” he quips.
The biggest lesson I’ve learned is gratitude. I’m so grateful my husband was able to stop drinking. I’m so grateful to the people and program that helped him stop. Most of all, I’m so very grateful for the marriage we have now. And I never take it for granted.
Have any of you dealt with alcoholism in your life? Let us know in the comments below.
Pete Ryan
Follow Article Topics: Relationships
