10 Years
Today I silently celebrated my 10 year anniversary of sobriety. I just stopped drinking because I did not want to be the motivation for her to drink. It did not help her but it did help me. Tonight I celebrated silently because I was surrounded at dinner with heavy drinkers and alcoholics. Why? Because my spouse is an alcoholic and this particular anniversary would not be welcomed by her or by our drinking friends. I am grateful that I have stayed sober but I am also sure that I have not recovered. I tried Al-Anon for a few months but we travel a lot and it is hard to get roots. And I also felt that the folks in my Al-Anon meetings had problems that were so much more devastating than mine and I wondered why I was there. I read all I can to help me stay sane and I think it has worked. But there is no joy. There is just tomorrow and another day of witnessing my spouse get angry throughout the day until she gets to drinking. Then she calms down until she gets past the 6 or 7th glass of wine. Then it's our nightly separation. Tonight it was at 7:30. Well, I am sober but I feel like a widower.