WoW BIG thanks to everyone for the wealth of experiences and conversation and wisdom regarding this!!!!! THANK YOU!
There are honestly so many things about all of it that is going through my head right now.
Regarding sobriety vs not vs relapse vs all of that - before I met him, he spent a year with AA (this was probably ten years ago) and I dunno why that never raised a red flag for me whatsoever - he framed it as, he spent time with it, got what he wanted from it, learned a lot about himself and eventually decided perhaps he could "try out" drinking again because he had a better hold on himself after that year. Well of course as I said before, we were essentially drinking buddies but I just took his word for it, being "mature" enough in his words to drink responsibly again. But I had my love blinders on, probably, and I was a young 20-something in a big new fast paced exciting city, so to me, of course I'm going to drink a lot with this wonderful new amazing man in my life who also drinks a lot. I was probably too idealistic or trusting to have even paid attention to that at all. I'd drank somewhat heavily in college, being a student with lots of friends and admittedly at that time, I used alcohol as a coming mechanism for some abuse that I'd suffered a few years prior - now however I no longer use it as a coping mechanism for that. If I'm totally honest I probably DO use it to cope with certain things, and actually when my husband's drinking was really bad, I used alcohol as a coping mechanism to deal with his destructive behavior. So you can see where that's going.
For the last two or three years he's tried a few times with "testing out" sobriety, and finally in this round seems to have admitted to himself that he's an alcoholic. He's tried various counselors, and ditched them when he was told he might want to see about going back to AA meetings like he did in the past. Basically he tried as much as possible to avoid people telling him to get help - and in the meantime, through many cycles of this, I eventually got to the point of not trying to save him anymore, and saying "this is fully on you, and I support you in recovery but it's not my responsibility" and so this year / this rendition of all of it has been WAY easier for me. I wonder actually if my distancing myself emotionally from his issue has caused him to think I don't care, or that it's no big deal.
so there have already been many "I'm drinking now" or "I'm sober now" moments in the past many years, and he's gone from outright being upset if I get to drink and he doesn't, to being passive aggressive if I get to drink and he doesn't. I've actually been forgetting (or subconsciously sweeping under the rug?!) that this is not the first time we've been through this. Each time he seems to commit more robustly to his sobriety which is great, but wow, what a recognition that this has not been our first rodeo.
He also has become distant around my friends who drink, I've told them of his sobriety and they're respectful of that and try not to get too crazy when they come over or when we all go to dinner. Alcohol or not, though, my friends and I gab on like crazy geese squawking and hooting and hollering because that's just what we do. My best friend other than husband happens to be a male, and we are in a band together. Husband has always been more than okay with me maintaining close friendships with men (I have all my life, and he knew that going into our relationship and marriage) but now that he's sober I get the sense that this was yet another thing he had been pushing under his own proverbial rug - the fact that me having male friends bothered him. It's coming out now, in very subtle little ways and I see it now if we all hang out together.
Last thing I guess for now, is that I'm noticing that the past year or so as he's been exploring his sobriety and AA and all that, he's seemed less secure in the fact that I'm a very independent woman, have lots of social connections, am basically high achieving for what I am doing, and that I'm very much my own person. I always have been, but - what I'm trying to say is that certain ways he has begun to regard me in the past year have been borderline misogynistic... Again I hope this is a phase, and that with time he will fully be able to appreciate that I am my own person just like he is his own person, and that his fear of losing control doesn't actually end up smothering me and pushing me away... BLAH
This has been an overwhelmingly sunny marriage / relationship so far even with all the drama of his substance abuse, but the question arises in my mind, was this a relationship that we entered into because he was dulling his fears with alcohol?! Is this a person who truly sees me, appreciates me, and wishes the best for me as we go through life together, or is this a person who has been pushing away these fears for 7 years and now will face them for the first time? And yeah, if so, what am I willing to put up with? AND valid question for myself as well - what happens if he goes back to that behavior? Every time, he framed it as a 'choice' to return to drinking, based on XYZ criteria so he made it seem very logical. If he begins to drink again Im automatically more worried about the drugs, because bottom line I think the drugs will kill him and if he drinks, he takes drugs eventually. The amount he was taking was ridiculous and I feared for a heart attack or death, honestly.
I think my desire to keep the peace has definitely come at the cost of my own happiness before in this relationship, and I don't want to make that mistake again, but I have no idea where I draw the line. It'd break both our hearts to end things, and I'm kind of a commitment freak but perhaps I need to work on that if it damages us both in the process!
Sorry for the long long comment, and this is just me reflecting on all this and taking it in. I would welcome any other thoughts on this!!!!!!
THANK YOU and bless all of you