honeypig

Ah, $hit...2 months gone by and here we are again. First of all, I'd like to thank all the fine folks here whose intelligent, caring posts I have been reading for those 2 months. W/o your input, I'd be a basket case right now. Here's the scoop:

My AH has allegedly been sober since mid March. As I had mentioned in a different thread some time ago, he is not a loud or abusive or fall-down drunk who goes out to the bar; he drinks upstairs in his airplane modeling studio and usually controls it to where I can't tell for SURE. I have had my doubts about whether or not he was actually sober, just b/c it never really seemed to involve any effort on his part, and from what I had read here about early recovery, that just didn't seem "normal." Well, be that as it may, that is HIS side of the street, not for me to worry about. I figured if he was still drinking, I would eventually find out about it, and have worked on my own side of the street, which has its own heaping piles of trash that need to be cleared up (and which it seems I am clearing up w/a freaking pair of tweezers, for all the progress I feel like I'm making some days!).

There have been several times lately where I have been fairly sure he was drinking but have not said anything--what would be the point? He has lied so many times over the past years, how foolish of me to ask. Today, though, when he got home from work, I asked him if he could check on something on my car. He went out to the driveway for a few minutes, then came in and said it wasn't anything obvious and he would have to put the car in the garage and take a look tomorrow but he didn't have time to do this today. Now this was at 3 PM--we had no plans until he needed to leave for his meeting at 6:15. Really? 3 hours is not enough time? Then he rushed upstairs, put on the same CD that he always plays when he's drinking and stayed up there for over 2 hours, coming down for dinner much later than he said he would. He comes downstairs, sits at the kitchen table and gets all teary-eyed and tells me "hon, I've been drinking again." Well, news flash, call CNN! Turns out he has never put together more than 2 days of sobriety since mid March. In fact, every day he comes home from work, calls his sponsor per their agreement and then most days goes and drinks. He tells me "I just don't fit in w/those people" (this after he told me that the reason he had gone to AA years ago was that he DID "want to fit in"...) and that he just doesn't "know what is bothering him so much that he can't stop drinking."

This, my great good friends, is where YOU all come in! I was sad and angry and feeling betrayed yet again, but none of those emotions was overwhelming, as they would have been in the past, AND I was able to say to him "what is bothering you so much that you can't stop drinking is that you are an alcoholic. That is what you do. You don't want to quit right now and so you aren't. There is nothing more to say or discuss about it." I could never have said that w/o help from all of you here. I would have been drawn into a long discussion that (of course) would have gone nowhere in the end.

I could certainly have handled it better than I did, as I did end up saying how when I thought about it, the lies relating to alcohol are in EVERY aspect of our daily life and how I will not live like that forever, when clearly I AM living with it for at least a while yet. (Cooler heads have advised me to give it a year before deciding to leave if that is what I do.) But I was very grateful to be able to circumvent that whole, big, sad, overwrought, manipulative, both-of-us-end-up-crying thing.

He went off to his meeting (as far as I know; that is what he claimed) in a huff. I imagine that was b/c I didn't play my pre-arranged part. I am disappointed and fearful as hell. This sucks. But I am not a devastated ball of self-pity as I would have been a few short months ago.

Thanks to all of you here--thanks for letting me lean on you tonight and helping me believe that if I keep on moving, one step at a time, the right thing will happen.