Originally Posted by anvilhead

going back to the original post.....let's say for a minute the topic wasn't drinking, instead cigarette smoking. husband recently quits smoking which is a tough addiction to kick for sure and now he's saying to his wife who shares his living space with him, look i really can't tolerate you (or anyone) smoking around me in my own home. is that an unreasonable request????

for myself as a recovering crack addict i sure as heck cannot be around ANYBODY smoking crack!!! i sure can't have my other half bringing home a sack of sh!t and doing lines on the coffee table and not have a rather STRONG reaction, both aversion and craving. and i cannot continue in a relationship with someone who is lapping my drug of choice!!! just can't do it. self preservation pure and simple. my other half and i were at odds over this for a while as our recovery journies had different STARTING points and took slightly differing paths. i established boundaries and had a couple occasions to need to ENFORCE them, which i did rather poorly unless pitching a wall eyed fit and tossing clothes in an overnight bag and stomping off in a huff counts as textbook. but i made the point clear.......you can do whatever the hell you want, but do NOT bring that crap anywhere near me. if you do bring that stuff home, i will leave and i will seek other residence because i AM that serious. if you want to continue our relationship as it is, then you need to respect that. if not, i'm outta here.

i think anytime we so staunchly defend our "right" to drink or other indulge, and minimize how often or how much, to the point of deliberately & repeatedly drinking in front of a recovering alcoholic we may want to look at ourselves a little deeper. if it was OKRA would it be that big a deal? back when he was drinking, what was your most fervent hope? that he would quit? and that you would do anything in your power to help him if you could?