Some hard words here, but sometimes we need to hear hard words to penetrate the big ol’ bubble of drunk we’ve blown out of our own behinds. Here’s an outline of my story: I hope it might help you.
I am a 43 year old woman, the mother to two children and a wife. I stopped drinking in January this year and sobriety is currently the most important thing to me. I grew up in a house with two alcoholic parents and so I was wise to the great deceptions alcoholics practice on themselves and those around them well before I had my first drink. I knew, and I knew well, that alcoholics love any kind of drama and upset because it lets them drink and I also knew well that support or rejection are the same to an active alcoholic. Hey, says the alcoholic, pass the bottle! I’m allowed to drink because they understand me or they hate me; it’s all the same to me and booze, hurrah!
And then I drank myself. And then I showed exactly the same mean, low, self-sabotaging and self-absorbed behaviors as my parents. Anything was an excuse to drink: tough day with the kids; husband cross because I was hungover; husband willing to help me stop drinking (ah, he sees me as a wastrel, better drink to mask the shame!)... The list just goes on and on. Point is, all these things are EXCUSES. And until I was done making excuses, sobriety eluded me. I was a ****** excuse for a wife and a mother, but I’d like to think I’m making amends now, because I’m not drinking. That’s what you need to do, too. Stop drinking, stop the excuses, and chase after sobriety hard. And leave your husband out of it: if you are anything like me, you’ll use whatever your husband does as a way to prop up your continued drinking. You get sober for YOU.