Mizz,
Don't always post much, but I am a huge fan.
I was so sad to hear about your childhood. My parents were great, but my father was bi-polar and my mother cold, which left its scars, so I can only imagine.
I was just saying over on O's place, apologies to those who read it there, but I love Peter Michaelson's book "why we suffer". If you have not read it, I highly recommend it.
IMO he nails it. It is not specifically geared at addiction, although he has written expressly about addiction, but his general work also speaks to everything addicts do (and other forms of self sabotage) in a way that speaks to me totally.
His bottom line is that for some reason at a young age we attached to the negative emotion felt when we do something wrong, whether it be pain, shame, guilt. And we then go through life unconsciously creating situations that recreate the negative emotion.
So for people who had a really rough early childhood, these issues are so much greater.
Crazy, but for me totally true. And now that I see it, I can address it straight on. For 20 years, the drinking and my totally mean controlling ExH made it easy to feel bad, even when I excelled in other areas. But then I would self sabotage in those areas too.
Now I do not drink, have a great boyfriend, and am getting along better with my girls, so now I self sabotage in many other ways because, IMO, I must find a way to feel that shame.
It will only be when I detach from that shame that I am really healed. But for now, I will take the nice guy, sober life, and keep working on the rest.
Please stay with us. We are all rooting for you.
You will figure out what is best with your husband and you will work out the work challenges, because you are a strong and great sober woman.
You got this!