LDT

I've just read through this thread....hope you don't mind if I offer my "2cents".

I am a woman, also a professional musician/music teacher/wife......and also a recovering alcoholic. I understand everything you are talking about wishful. And while I am not out on the road touring, I still play gigs and still face the inevitable alcohol induced environment. Case in point: I just last week played a Mardi Gras gig. I knew going in that the booze would be flowing. As musicians we will never escape that scenario completely ...It's just A fact. (The only gigs I ever played that did not have alcohol around were church gigs.) When I first got sober I turned down a lot of gigs that I thought would not be "safe" for me. But ultimately, I knew that if I wanted to continue to play music ( which I have to because I can't live without it) I would have to learn to be strong and DEAL. ( hope that didn't sound harsh ). Funny coincidence that I also had a little self imposed rule that I would never play buzzed. And I didn't. But once the gig was over.....the corks were popped....and popped....and...

I would have to disagree with those that think they sound better or are more "creative" while under the influence. I know my friends don't sound better....and even if I wasn't actually drinking during a gig, I know I did not play as well in my former life as I'm playing these days. Getting sober was the best thing I could have done for my music.

Bonnie Rait got sober after listening to Stevie Ray Vaughan perform a gig after HE had gotten sober. Up to that point she was one of the ones that thought she couldn't produce good music unless she was drinking. She said after she heard Stevie play sober, and how amazing his music was, she had just lost the last reason she ever had to continue drinking.

Sorry this was more than a little "2 cents". It's a subject near and dear to my heart.

SoulGroove

Hi, Very Interesting Thread to me...

I'm a 'Dancer' and appreciate everything musical i'm only 8 days Sober, and next Saturday will be my first 'all-dayer' event without my usual (several) glasses of wine, my plan is to let the music be my drug as it sends me to another 'happier' place in my head, and the knowledge that I won't have to worry about stumbling around on the dance floor, or accidentaly falling into the decks/speakers will be my incentive to try it... I want to be 'Soul Groove' - Seen and not Blurred !!

Good Luck to you and let the music play.

TrixMixer

Hi Wishful,
Would you re-read your post and think about what is the upside of drinking for you? How is it you can manage to not drink for your"Talent" but you cannot manage to quite for your "Self" ....your life and your wife?

Wishful78

Great point Trixmixer. That's why posting on here is so helpful. It's so great to look at what I post on these subjects and be able to reflect on it. I have stayed away from drinking since last week and have no hope or ambition to drink anytime soon again. Before the failure of last week I was on 2 weeks. I am lookin forward to fighting a good fight and taking care of the rest of my life's issues with a clear mind. If my wife were to give up on me even while seeing that I will be working after all we have been through than I will be ok. That's how I feel rite now and I am trying to hold on to it. She has her own problems to deal with and it may not be alcohol abuse for her but the stuff she has to deal with is extremely important in us growing and getting beyond this. All I can do is try to work on myself. With a clear sober mind.

Wishful78

So just figured because I started this thread I wanted to update it. I am a full week sober my wife and I are working things out. She is willing to work on her side of things while I do mine. And eventually when i am home again do the couples thing. I will be visiting her this weekend from road too. But I guess one of the real bright sides of it all rite now is that I just feel so wronged by the booze. And I am holding that feeling and its keeping me away and disgusted at even the thought of a drink. Being on tour and being all around it may be tough but I am pretty confident. And I have made a phone session schedule with my therapist for every other day and she is acting as a sponsor if you will. I guess I just wanted to post a somewhat light at end of tunnel kind of post. I have a day off tomorrow and this is usually the night I would allow myself to get blasted. It would usually be after a week of great shows I would feel great that I didn't drink any night when there was a show next day and I would choose a night with a day off after to rip it up. Sure its 4:30 a.m and i cant sleep but usually i would be foggy or blacked out by now and up till 6 or 7 and that would mean a full day wasted on recovery tomorrow and it usually ruins the next day too. So glad I'm not doing that. Oh well off to sleep

ricmcc

I think that any musician recovering from alcoholism could do worse than look to Eric Clapton for inspiration; both he and his music suffered greatly from his addictions, from which, happily, is now recovering. I have been playing various woodwinds about 40 years (strictly amateur), and I know that my playing suffered when I tried playing after drinking.
Very glad that things are looking up, Wishfull, keep up the good work--best to you--rick

Wishful78

So here I am 2 days shy from a month of sobriety. While away on tour none the less. There has been a lot of excessive drinking going on around me every night but I have been fine staying away. My wife and I have done a lot of talking and she visited me out here. We have worked so much out and she knows I can be someone who can have a few drinks and stop. She has seen me do it so many times and knows I can do it. I know I can do it too but I don't like to. I like getting drunk. And when I make the decision to go past a point I give up power. My battle is with craving going past that point. She has promised to never use divorce card against me again. Of course unless I had an affair which she knows damn well won't happen ever. But she knows I don't do harmful things or become abusive when i drink. I just can be annoying and don't want to stop and it amps me up and makes me want to stay up all night and listen to music. Even with a hang over I am the most reliable person in her life. I did screw up last month and sleep through her calls when she needed me because I was hung over and that is unacceptable especially when I am away on your and she needs me. I should have never drank when I was as anxious as I was too. That was a rule I made and was sticking to it but failed the night before she needed me. i was anxious because of the very reason he called me. because our dog got into a fight and we didn't know how she was healing from deep puncture wounds. She is all healed up now though thank god.The way my wife reacted to me for missing the calls and being so hung over and well basically still drunk was out of control and beyond reason though and that is something she knows she needs to deal with and will be working on. She knows that if she wants booze out of my life I can do it but she just says she doesn't want to give me ultimatums or tell me i shouldn't drink. She doesn't think AA is for me and when I say I am an alcoholic she says you are the one saying saying that about yourself I don't say that about you. But either way this time I have shown that I can stay sober on tour which is a place I was insecure and unsure about. I feel better knowing that it is still enjoyable without drinking or anything mind altering. I guess I am confused as to whether I am one of those people who can drink but just has to fight real hard to not let the side of me that wants to get blacked out take over. The fact that I am thinking about it leads me to believe that I am not quite ready to state myself forever sober. I am a person that gets most frustrated if someone tells me I can't do something. Especially if its myself telling myself not to do something haha. Confusing. I go back and forth with my therapist trying to understand myself more and more and learn where the compulsive full throttle all or nothing side comes from. My mom couldnt have soda in the house when i was a kid. I would drink as many as possible in a hort amount of time and be off the wall. Numerous times i have recreated that scenario with alcohol. As my father has and still battles once in a while. He rarely drinks anymore but can be a real maniac. Which was a big part of my parents split up. I am different then him in so many ways though. At my age he was getting drunk and high all the time and lost jobs got DWIs. I have no interest in that world. But may have not lost full interest in the drink. Don't know. But I guess right now I can just be proud that proud that I did this month and it was in the most dangerous trigger filled place possible. I hope this post doesn't seem counterproductive or annoying to anyone I just felt like sharing where I am at.

Caldus

Wishful,

Good job on the month of sobriety. I understand the type of thoughts you have in your head like "this can't be really be it forever". It's tough when you first try to get sober. I think that you shouldn't let your wife dictate so much to you about your situation though. I get the feeling from your posts that you are letting her enable your drinking (even if it's supposedly "controlled" drinking).

Alcoholism and controlled drinking just do not coexist. It sounds like you are still sort of trying to figure out whether you're a true alcoholic or not. In AA, they actually tell people to try some controlled drinking and see how it turns out. Alcoholics can never both control and enjoy drinking. They either control it and not enjoy it or they can't control it. It's great that you're staying sober, but recovery is always an inside job ... not something that your wife can help you with except provide some outside support. If you don't truly want to stay sober for yourself, then you will eventually relapse (at least that has been my experience as an alcoholic).

PippiLngstockng

Wishful,
I am a wife (17 years of marriage, four magnificent children) to a brilliant, creative man. He travels lots for his work, too, and has provided our family with lots of material comforts.

But my AH, a binge drinker and someone - like me, actually - who adores adventure and intense experiences, was thinking he's different than others drinkers and could control it when he wanted to, was never going to completely wise up at the rate we were going.

I started finally coming out of my denial when his behaviors got so scary that I couldn't hide from the effects his alcoholism was having on our family. I went to Al Anon, and read lots on this site and I told him he either had to get sober or lose me.

Well, he started telling all of our friends and family members that I had big problems and that is why we were having 'marital issues'!

When you say your wife has issues of her own, how much of that may be due to your drinking? Alcoholism is a family disease. Maybe she had issues before, but living with alcoholism has plainly changed her and she needs support to understand things and start her own recovery.

Now that I know so much more about alcoholism, I treat my AH entirely differently. He has chosen to act as though the drinking is not the problem so in our case I have left him for good. But I suspect because I and the children have wised up about his disease, he is going to find it harder to avoid the truth.

Don't stop drjnking because you want to keep your marriage. Do it because you want to save yourself.

If she's anything like me, she is probably missing the you that was there before all the booze changed you over time and took you away from her - and yourself.

chuwantmybuffet

Hey wishful, Warwick ny huh? Im over in Middletown. Anyways, it takes time to heal a wound man. If you say your going to stop drinking, do it, actions speak louder then words. I can guarantee that if you stay clean for another 3 months, your wife will see the change. If not things happen for a reason, thats life on life's terms. AA is something for people who wanna quit, you have to wanna quit for the program to work. I can't tell you how many times ive went to AA/NA messed up and just left, or went their because my girlfriend or mother wanted me to. Now that I want quit using, I understand the program better, try getting a sponsor someone who will call you daily or you can call to check up on each other. Im sure if you had a close friend that said he'd break your jaw everytime you drank, you probably wouldn't drink, or that may be many trips to the ER.

Best of Luck

doggonecarl

Congrats on a month sober.

Prepared to get frustrated. Don't go down the road of "I think I can be a normal drinker." If you were a "normal" drinker, would you have ever gotten to the point where your drinking interferred with your relationship with your wife?

There are hundreds and hundreds of posts here on SR from people who were positive they could control their drinking. Many come back humbled by the failure to do so. Many never come back and I assume the experiment failed.

I have yet to see a post from someone who said they used to drink alcoholically and have successfully gone back to normal drinking.

Wishful78

Hey Doggonecarl I will never be a normal drinker I accept that. I just don't think this place is for BS and I am not going to say that I am fully ready on abstinence if I am not. I have made a clear decision to be on here discussing things and trying to help those who are in a darker place. I have yet to find anyone completely like me on here though. And I have yet to believe that it is so black and white and that the problem is just routed in booze only. Maybe it is I am unsure. Everyone is different though. I don't know I go day by day. Last year I did a 3 month sober run and was fine. Now doing a month and doing it on tour is another huge step. I am moving towards better things and that's all I can say. My wife knows who I am after all these years now. I told her I make no promises and that if I have a couple of drinks sure I can stop but I crave going beyond. If I try to be the one thing it is exactly that it's always me trying. And there is always the chance of me taking it a little too far. I also know and trust that even drunk as a skunk I would do nothing to screw up my job and my marriage. She needs to know that. It's just that the slightest screw up she acts like its square one. I was reading my earlier posts where i said i fell and scraped my knee. Well i found out a couple of days later everybody sober in broad daylight fell off the same damn thing it was a blind spot. I was and always can be so hard on myself saying it was drunkin me. Theres no denying drunken me has done some dumb stuff but in my life i just know there are boundaries that I am proving to stick to. I have been proving that more and more the past couple of years and its all been behavioral. But truth is if its something that has to be cut out of my life I will be damn sure to cut it completely. And I know in my heart that I will not get lost in a world of denial. I won't get lost in a booze soaked world and I will not stop coming on here. I do think however that if someone is experimenting with alcohol in their life they probably would not want to come post on here if its going well. That seems to be counterproductive for others to read. And like I said I am not in denial going well will never mean that the chance to be a shmuck isn't there. It always is.

paul99

"Terminal Uniqueness" has killed more alcoholics than we care to count.

Good luck with your journey.

PippiLngstockng

Sorry, but you sound so much like my STBXAH. Nine months ago these were his words, too.

Then he went psycho one morning and came after me and the police had to step in. Now we are separated, I have full custody, a sizeable pension, and the prosecutor here has decided to treat this as a criminal case.

He thought he had control of everything. He's losing it all. Especially himself.

Wishful78

Hey paul99 when you say terminal uniqueness it makes me think you think I am someone who believes I am better. I just meant not being able to find someone like me in certain traits that even outside of booze but why on here is the wrong place to search for this. And anyway that's something for between me and my therapist. But please don't think I am one to feel above or look down on anyone. Never would that be the case. Being on here is very helpful to me on my as you say journey and I appreciate every ones story and opinion.

ru12

Hi,

It sounds to me that you can put together sober time, at least occasionally. But when you drink you tend to binge drink. And that can be very dangerous. I'm not going to tell you you can't drink ever again. You are an adult. I will say that my life got so much simpler when I put the bottle down. I never blackout now. I never have a hangover now. I never fight with my wife about my drinking now.

I'm sure if you invest a lot of time, energy, and thought you might just possibly be able to moderate your drinking. But you stated that you don't like to only drink a few. I don't know any binge drinkers that can drink that way without some unwanted consequences.

Finally, I now enjoy my sober life. I dont feel that I've given something up, but that I've been given a second chance at life. I hope you give some thought to all this.

Wishful78

And pippi I have never and never will become violent when I drink. Just need that to be known. Just is not something I have never dealt with and will never.

Dee74

Read this again Wishful - it's worth repeating

D

Wishful78

ru12 very inspiring and the way that you live just may be the way I will want to live. I guess I just don't know yet but today's another day and I don't even care to drink so that's all I can say about that. And pippi one more thing never once did I claim I have everything under control I know that's not the case. I just wanted to update how I feel on here. Thank you to everyone who replied

PippiLngstockng

I mean this in a loving, not a taunting or mean way, wishful. He was in a black out and he still doesn't know what happened that morning.

I wish you all the best.