lawinct

This is my first post and it is a long one-sorry!

In October, my RAH underwent routine surgery and ended up in ICU for 11 days due to severe alcohol withdrawal. He was delusional, and incoherent, suffering from serious DT's, for seven of those days, and then just as he was starting to come out of the DT's, had to have emergency open-heart surgery when two massive blood clots formed in his heart. He was hours from death via embolism according to the surgeon.

After a month in the hospital and short-term rehab (physical, not alcohol), he is now home. He has been sober for 84 days. He has not sought help from any support groups, but is very open about his drinking, the fact that it nearly killed him and that he can never drink alcohol again. He wants our friends and family to know about what happened and has not tried to hide the fact that he is an alcoholic (in fact he finds it easier to use that term than I did in the beginning). He does not seem to miss drinking and says that he did enough drinking for a lifetime, and is okay with not being able to drink ever again. When I ask him if he thinks AA or another group would be good for him, he says no, that isn't his style (he is not one to open up to strangers). He says he just wants to heal physically and that all he has to do is look at the scar from the heart surgery to remind him of what alcohol did to him. He also remembers some of the hallucinations and the dark place he had gone to during the DT's. He promises that he will call his doctor, me or our oldest son if he feels the urge to drink and does not think he can withstand it.

I knew he drank, but he was a functioning alcoholic who hid the true extent of his drinking from me and our kids for about 2 years (a pint of vodka or tequila a day). Never physically abusive, just cranky and excessively tired early at night. He would go to bed early-sometimes soon after I got home from work. He has other health issues and is on a lot of meds, so I at first gave him the benefit of the doubt. I suspected for the past year or so that he was drinking more than he let on, but couldn't prove it, and of course, he denied it.

I have to say that the household is so much nicer now, no more walking on egg shells not to wake him up (that's when he would get cranky). We are getting along much better and talk about it every day. He confided in me that he had wanted to stop drinking for months but didn't know how. Not that he wanted it to happen the way it did, he is, in a strange way, glad that it did, because he probably would not have stopped otherwise. He is not religious, but feels that God has better things planned for him.

It just seems to be too good to be true that he can be so determined to recover on his own. Can alcoholics have such a life-altering event that they can stop on their own for good?

How can I learn to trust him again? He is unemployed and home alone much of the day. He does seem sober, and his behavior has not returned to the way it was when he was drinking, but then I find myself zeroing on every word or action, looking for a slur, or if he seems extra tired I start to imagine that its because he has been drinking. I'm not sure if I am paranoid or vigilant, or something in between. It is such a roller-coaster of emotions. I go from being thankful and hopeful to suspicious, skeptical and scared in a matter of minutes.

Thanks for reading my novel...any advice would be welcome.