Thread: My Story
View Single Post
Old 01-20-2018, 12:08 PM
  # 12 (permalink)  
entropy1964
Member
 
Join Date: Aug 2015
Location: US
Posts: 5,095
Jlong

Welcome! And congrats on 11 days. As Dontremember said, time. While 11 days is great, its 11 days. I would think you need about 90 days of consistent sobriety to even start to chip away at the problems in your relationship. They are complex, enmeshed, probably full of resentments, guilt, anger. You love her. I'm sure she loves you or she would have left. As good ole Dr Phil says 'a pancake may be flat but it has two sides'. She has to recover and change as well. Change is scary, for all of us.

This is just me, but I'll share this. I have definitely been guilty of feeling like "HEY I'M SOBER! Look at me. I deserve a medal. Okay, so I was drunk for 13 days straight. I was SOBER for 6 months before that. Doesn't that count?". Unfortunately I've learned the hard way that it doesn't. Being sober, while a miracle to me, is kinda what is expected by most people as a minimum requirement for just showing up for life. Wow. Who knew? So something that is so pivotal in my life (booze) is merely a drink/drug to other people that know better than to abuse it. And quitting, which takes a huge commitment and effort from me, seems like it would be just 'simple' to someone else....who isn't a drunk. I've had a person close to me say to me during a bender 'can't you just stop?'. He just couldn't understand. And he dumped me. Don't blame him.

Anyway, rambling, sorry. Hang in there.
entropy1964 is offline