Astro

Absolutely, but there's a huge difference between the person I was while active and the person I've become in recovery. The program of AA, practicing the 12 Steps, has freed me from most of that remorse, and it's helped me to recognize that both partners play a part in the demise of a relationship. I also know that I'm on a journey, the path has taken me past this marriage and on to the next stage of my life. What was, just wasn't meant to be.

The remorse, regret, shame, and sorrow I felt for the first two years of my sobriety was crushing and painful, it was hard to look my friends and my children in the eye and feel that everything was my fault. Two weeks sober I was in a mental hospital from all the anxiety, two weeks after that I was lying on a mattress in a bare apartment, 4 months later I wanted to end my life. I cared, I really did, but at that point I felt like I'd been cast off and forgotten.

I think many of us have different experiences, I have no doubt that if we'd divorced and I continued drinking I would've shacked up with the first victim/hostage that fell into my trap and I would've started referring to my ex as the blankety-blank enemy and badmouthing her all over town. But that wasn't the case for me, I walked into AA and began the slow, painful, but freeing process of working on my defects and learning to let go of the past.

But sometimes I ask the same questions that you're asking. What happened to my best friend and love, and who is that stranger? What happened to the woman who greeted me with a 6-pack of beer on our first date, and was my drinking partner until our kids were born. Where did the mother of our children go, and who's this woman who started sleeping with her co-workers because she felt that I didn't love her, so she sought love in the arms of someone else? How could this person promise to love me forever and grow old together, then boot me out of our home and move her lover in a month later? And when I went into recovery, why was it too late, and why did she tell me she wanted someone in her life that she could share a bottle of wine with?


I'm sorry that you're hurt. I wish there was a way we could take away all the pain we've caused and the harm we've done, but the best I can do is to stay sober and practice the principles that AA teaches me. Yes, you're better off now, and so am I. So I have to ask, what are you doing for yourself? There's a much better life ahead of you. I hope you discover a way to reach out and grab ahold of it, you're in for the ride of your life in recovery.

Sending you (((hugs))) and compassion.

Scott