mle-sober

Umm... actually, that is EXACTLY the scenario that sent me to rehab and down my recovery path as of 10 months ago. I was saying I wasn't drinking but was hiding wine bottles everywhere. When my husband asked if I'd been drinking, I lied and thought I was effective. He knew I wasn't telling the truth but it was hard for him to believe I would be so blatant and stupid about it. When you are looking at the mother of your children, you don't want to believe.

I gave him the breathylyzer to prove I had nothing to hide. (I get stupider and stupider in this story.)

One night, after I'd been drinking for hours, I was going to put 2 of my 4 kids in the car and drive them 20 minutes on the freeway to their dad's house. (Kids from a prior marriage.) I didn't feel like there was anything wrong with me. I felt normal. My normal was drunk off my a$$. I didn't even know it. I'd been drinking for 25 years.

I said goodbye to my husband and told the kids to get in the car. My husband said, casually, "You, know, just to make me feel better, I want you to blow in that breath test you got me. I'll just feel better." I followed him up the stairs with my heart beating a million miles a minute. I knew I was going to be exposed. I'd had 2 bottles of wine in probably 2-3 hours.

I had all kinds of scenarios run through my brain as I went up the stairs. Grab my purse and run scenarios. Escape out the back scenarios. And then we were in my bedroom and he was unwrapping the breath test and reading the instructions. My legs wouldn't hold me up I was so scared. I sat on the bed and took the test. He looked at it and dropped in on the bed and walked out saying, I guess the kids are staying here tonight.

And finally, for the first time ever in my life, I fell down on my knees and I begged for help with my alcoholism. I admitted to God that I was an alcoholic then and there for the first time ever. And I begged him to help me.

I don't know why it took a simple un-masking of my deceit in order for me to get help and find recovery. But that's exactly what it took. Prior to that, I'd been drinking for 9 months and hiding it - saying what I thought others wanted to hear, but never really "getting it" inside myself. Prior to that, I'd been openly drinking for 24 years without ever accepting in any way that I had a problem.

Don't assume a breathylyzer is mute.

Just because you can tell your wife has been drinking, doesn't mean a breath test couldn't be a powerful tool. And obviously, Jazzman, it's not intended for times when you aren't there to administer it. It's intended precisely for when you are there and she is lying to you.