If I can't take a little reality I have no chance of surviving this.
You guys helped a lot today and my first al anon meeting helped as well. Wife and I had a really good talk and I apologized for being a bit of an ass.
She messed up and the twenty minutes I spent holding her and comforting her helped but the three or four days I spent being frantic and miserable did not. I need to focus on my stuff and let her deal with her recovery. Thing is, she is doing just that. She could not tell me why it happened and why she did not stop because she did not know. It shocked her more than me. We learned some things....
We went away. At home she has her routine and her group and meetings and me. On vacation, she was in a new environment where everyone was drinking, myself included because she said it did not bother her. She also just lost her sponsor and got a new one. So I went to do one thing and she went to get breakfast and hang by the pool and she found herself walking past the liquor store and went in and bought that bottle.
She came home and has spent at least an hour with her new sponsor every day, is working her steps and now that my head is out of my ass she is opening up and discussing it.
Lessons learned:
1. The daily interaction with sponsor and group is important. Next time we go away we will prolly go to less of a party place and find a meeting there and she will talk to her sponsor.
2. Alcoholism is a sneaky SOB.
3. Confidence is a killer. We both looked ahead to the dangers after baby comes and figured pregnancy was a shield.... Like alcoholism cares.
4. I can't cure her but I can make it harder if I try to help, time to stop paving that expressway to hell with good intentions.
I'm exhausted but a lot more ....together. We hit a bump. Fortunately she freaked more than I did. The shame and guilt was enough without my whining. So we are starting over, 5 days in. Mom is ok, dad is ok, baby is ok.... Mom and dad are shaken but turning to one another instead of on one another.
I hate alcoholism more than I already did and love her more than I already did and tomorrow is another day for each of us to focus on our own issues and work on building our relationship.
So we got a little wiser and got a good scare. Fortunately she hated it and it was no fun and her lapse lasted about five minutes and did not re-establish the physical dependence.
Tomorrow I have my second al anon meeting and it's a men's meeting which I need. I need some guys to call when I'm stressed out and tonight's meeting was all girls. Al anon versus giants/cowboys in Dallas? Lol.
I'm going to keep ranting, venting, reading and learning here. I appreciate you guys and am feeling a bit humbled by your generosity - thank you. Tonight I will fall asleep my favorite way, with her head on my shoulder and my hand on her belly and some peace.
There will be tough days, today was a very good one and I will work on making tomorrow better. I have some control over that.
Cyr - graduate degree, cool title on my business card, over achiever and yes, I can save the beautiful damsel in distress too. Wow.... Nothing like knee in the nuts to let some air out of the chest.