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Old 08-13-2011, 12:07 AM
  # 45 (permalink)  
mattmathews
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Join Date: Jul 2010
Location: Litchfield Park, AZ
Posts: 314
OK, here's a story for you:
The last 5 years of my previous life were like living in a small corner of hell. I had finally recognized that my wife was an alcoholic and I truly thought there was nothing I could do about it. I had resigned myself to what Thoreau described as a life of "quiet desperation." I found things to do to fill my days, but I was profoundly unhappy.
I realized later that I felt rejected because I believed that my wife loved the bottle more than she loved me. We couldn't talk without arguing. The tiniest nudge on her part made me extremely defensive...and I knew how to push her buttons just as well as she knew how to push mine. I was not in love, I was angry, it wasn't hate exactly but definitely "dislike."
In the final year of that life, my wife began missing increasingly scary periods of work for mini drinking vacations. We both had good jobs and made a good living, but between the two of us our money management skills sucked. I was paying most of the bills, and I felt comfortable doing that...but if she lost her job I knew I was sunk.
That's what finally did it: she was on a 13 day binge (I rarely saw her awake during that period and never saw her sober). On the second to last day of my life, her alarm clock went off while I was getting ready for work and I got so angry that she was too drunk to shut it off that I almost broke it into a million pieces. I'm soooo not an angry man...but that day I was. I realized that my safe, but unhappy, life was in danger of imploding. I realized that my life had become completely unmanageable.
On the last day of that life, I finally hit that point where I was ready for change. I believed that I could make it financially and I was ready to leave...but for some reason I did something completely out of character for me: I asked for help. And then, as I say, the miracles started happening.
I called her place of employment and got her boss to refer me to Employee Assistance. The company drug abuse counselor suggested a treatment center and I happened to catch my wife sober(er) that afternoon (because I'd hidden her car keys and cut off her source of booze). I told her that "I can't live like this anymore," and "by this weekend I'm getting you into treatment."
The next morning my wife surprised me by asking me to take her to see her company counselor, by that afternoon she was in treatment, and I felt as if the weight of the world had been lifted off my shoulders.
In the second half of my life (which started 16 months ago), things haven't been easy. My wife worked really hard during treatment and has been very aggressive about her recovery program. At the same time, I realized that maybe I had some issues of my own, and I've been in Al-Anon since shortly after she went into rehab.
I still didn't like her when she got out of rehab, she could still drive me crazy...but over time I started to realize that I had a part in that craziness that I, and only I, could fix. When she threw a plate on the floor, I didn't have to react to that, I could take a different path and sometimes all I needed was a little serenity, sometimes I needed a little wisdom and often I needed a lot of courage.
Sixteen months later, it may not be happily ever after. A small measure of our improved relationship is demonstrated by the fact that I can buy a Valentines day card without wanting to puke. Things are not perfect, but they get better. And right now? Right at this moment? Everything is alright.
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