Originally Posted by
NWGRITS 
Someone related a story here once that might sort of make sense to you in regards to the effect alcohol has long-term. Say people are all cucumbers. Well, alcoholics become pickles due to the alcohol. A pickle can never return to just being a cucumber. Alcohol literally pickles the brain, and the longer it's abused, the worse that effect is going to be. You're never going to get back exactly what went before the addiction.
Yep... that was how someone who doesn't post here anymore described it to me when I first came and I relayed it in the thread with his motorcycle accident. It's a shame I lost her number when I smashed my Droid during one of hub'z drunkin rages.
But anyways... After living through something like alcoholism... it changes everyone including the non alcoholic. My husband made me realize that once he sobered up and I told him, I wish things were the way they used to be and he said, They'll never be that way. We'll never be the same. We can only be better. And he was so right. It all takes time though.