Supportive Sobriety
If you can’t abstain around your alcoholic loved one, then you may need to rethink your drink too
My ex-husband took his first drink at age 12. Lord knows how it went from there.
Actually that’s not true. I do know.
By the time we met he was 23, and he was deep into drink. I’m not certain of what happened in that decade-plus pre-me, but I have a good idea.
In spite of his life choices I still naively married him, and watched the dive get deeper over the years. He hit his personal “rock bottom” at age 33 after a serious car wreck, when his life as he knew it became what friends of Bill W. call, unmanageable.
And so his relationship with AA began and he’s been sober ever since. To his credit it’s now been almost 25 years.
The end of his drinking meant the end of my drinking too, being the supportive wife and all. Not that I was a big drinker to begin with, but a drink is a drink, and if your spouse is an alcoholic then I’m pretty sure you should be giving up drinking too.
It’s just the right thing to do. There’s that whole for better, for worse, in sickness and in health thing.
Love should be supportive.
A couple months into my ex-husband’s sobriety, my sister came to visit me, and we went out to dinner, just us girls. It wasn’t some bar scene, but just a nice dinner, and I ordered a glass of wine.
I initially thought it would be okay for me to enjoy a drink because he wasn’t present. But honestly it felt like I was cheating. I felt guilty, and I never did it again. Even though he couldn’t see what I was doing, even though he’d never know I had one glass of wine, it didn’t feel right at all.
My loyalty has always run deep. Much of life happens when no one is looking, but what you do in those invisible moments counts too. The universe is looking, and the comfort of your soul in those quiet hours is dependent on you living right.
Support and love should exist even when the person isn’t looking.
For me, my supportive sobriety had to exist 24/7. And I would argue that if you can’t put down the alcohol for the love of your alcoholic spouse or partner then you need to rethink your drink. You may have a problem too.
This new sober chapter of our marriage was definitely challenging on many fronts for both of us. Alcoholism happens to the whole family, not just the alcoholic.
We stared down some harsh realities for over a year of this new beginning filled with turmoil. We overcame legal, financial, and career challenges. Fortunately our child was just a toddler at the time of this fall from grace, and had no understanding or knowledge of the fires burning all around us.
But we rose from the ashes, unified in this new lifestyle. We renewed our wedding vows, moved to a different city with a job transfer, had baby #2, and started anew.
I was certain that nothing could break us apart after all we’d been through, except maybe if he made a return to drinking. I knew in the back of my mind that was always a possibility, but he certainly made me believe in him. He was steadfast in his sobriety.
Also steadfast was my loyalty through all the thick and thin. But it meant nothing to him, and certainly not reciprocated in the slightest. Six years later we were over. Surprisingly it wasn’t because of alcohol, but because he cheated on me. It was a hit I never saw coming.
We got divorced, and my supportive sobriety, my supportive anything for that man ended.
I went out and had a beer with friends.
Yes, it was a little weird after all that time of abstaining. But with a clink of beer bottles, and a toast “to do-overs!” the next chapter of my life began, bringing with it the varied scars of having lived with an alcoholic.
And there are many.
Not drinking is not a problem for me.
And drinking is not a problem for me.
But watching people drink IS a problem for me.
Just watching.
‘Cause I’ve been there, seen that, lived that. I know what I’m looking at. I know what I see. I know how things turn corners quite quickly. I’ve walked in those shoes, and I know things.
I know more things than I care to know.
If you’re sober-supportive for an alcoholic spouse, then you’ve seen a lot. Sure you’re glad to be over to the dry side, but boy, did you see a lot on the sidelines all those years. And the dry side isn’t without it’s share of emotions either.
All those feelings in a forward-drinking society like ours is kind of complicated.
What’s seen can’t be unseen. Those demons your alcoholic loved one brought into your world and personally battles each day, are the same ones who will leave you with a few scars of your own.
But that’s another story.