Astro

Here's my burning desire for the week. I took this quote from lillamy's thread entitled "Drunks, drunks, go away...... (I hope you don't mind, lillamy)

I'd like to hear from anyone who's had an A that went into recovery and "returned" to their life. Were they the person you married, or somehow better? Did your marriage go on to be better than you thought, or at least as good as it was in the beginning?

I'm not sure why I'm even asking this, other than curiosity. My ex has remarried, it's not like I'm dreaming of getting back together with her. I've got an intelligent, amazing, beautiful woman in my life so part of me is questioning what she sees in me. And then there's the codie in me looking for validation, trying to reassure myself that as an alcoholic in recovery I'm a better person, that I've somehow "returned" to the person I used to be. But that's the catch. I've been drinking since I was 14, so I was always the person that my two wives married, I was always an alcoholic when I was married to them. Even if I'd sobered up and "returned" they wouldn't know the person I am in recovery, and chances are our marriages wouldn't have worked anyway.

Thanks for sharing any thoughts you have. And while I'm at it, thank you for your daily support on SR. In a PM to another alcoholic this morning we both commented on how much we learn about ourselves from all of you. Your efforts here never go unnoticed. THANK YOU!

Zoey

Don't you see a lot of happy couples at conventions and round-ups that have stayed together? Clancy I and his wife were seperated for seems like 8 years, they were back together for a long time the last I heard. What about Best on here?

Astro

You're right Zoey, best is a shining example. The majority of couples I know have met in recovery. And I've also had the experience of witnessing quite a few relationships within the program that didn't last.

cagefree

After recovery, I doubt codies and alkies alike are ever the same again. A good thing IMHO

I think that if people grow together they remain together. If one grows and the other doesn't, or if they find they cannot grow inside the relationship, that is when they go separate ways.

Just my 2 cents

parentrecovers

i lived with an alcoholic man for many years. we never reunited or put closure on the relationship - because he never quit drinking...

he was in several relationships after ours.

when i attended his funeral last year with my daughter (he was her father and he never had a real solid relationship with our daughter either), his wife/girlfriend of 7 years was there. she mourned him like i have never seen anyone mourn...

i don't know if this has to do with any of this, but it just brought up that memory for me.

forgiveness is good.

blessings, k

Astro

I'll add that to my motto of "love and tolerance". Thank you (((k)))

lostnfound1961

When I was going to counceling my councoler and I talked about my not drinking and my wanting my husband to stop too. I kept talking about wanting the man I married back. She warned me I may not like the person he would turn into. I told her I didn't care. I would rather he got sober and devorced me than kept killing him self like this.

ICU

My exb was sober for about 4 months. During that time, there were major 'runs' of himself...the man I fell in love with. But, unfortunately in my particular case, there were other circumstances that reared their ugly head during that time...intense anger and violence! It was a very confusing time for me.

I think he thought that drinking would eliminate that behavior. I'm just guessing here for I truly don't know what he was really thinking. It's also during that time of sobriety that he resumed 'communication' (I'll just leave the rest to your imagaination) with his ex, who, was drinking heavily (as evidenced by slurred, angry voicemail messages on my phone). I choose to believe he didn't want to be that way and the stress of keeping that 'anger' under wraps led to his, as far as I know, permanent relapse after 4 months. I never saw 'the real him' again.

I hope for his sake that one day he will return. I mean return to his real self, not to me (just want to make that perfectly clear, LOL).

Jfanagle

I lived with a wonderful lady for 8 years, that was after leaving a marriage of 16 years. During both relationships I was a practicing alcoholic. When I got sober in 1999, while living with lady #2 we both discovered that I was no longer the person she had lived with. I left in 2000. We have remained very good friends and have dated on and off over these last 8 years, but stopped short of recreating the live in thing.

I am not the person I was when I drank. I hope I am better than I was, but that is for the rest of the world to decide. I do believe we are changed by sobriety and as the author Thomas Wolfe said, "you can't go home again."

It is my belief that we are expected to grow, and sobriety should make that growth for the better, but grow and change we do. The amends process requires that we do our best to repair the damage, however I am not sure that means returning to the demolition site!

Astro

Thanks Jfanagle! Good, sound wisdom.

Cheyne

I don't know that anyone can "return" to being who they were in the past.

Even when couples or friends become estranged and grow close again, it's a new relationship. So I don't think it's unique to As.

I do think people who deal with things by avoidance or procrastination are more prone to falling into the fallacy that time stands still for others unless they are actively involved. I am guilty of it as well.

Learning and growth is a good thing. For all we know, those we left at one point in time are thinking the same thing about us.

JMHO

hbb

Astro, i know for me, my exbf was sober for 7 months when we broke up, avoidance and procrastination was his middle name, he's wayyy worse sober now and broke up with me. I saw a person i did not fall in love with and i'm not niave to the fact that people change after sobriety but boy let me tell you, he's a dry drunk if you ask me.

Another thing i did experience is that my uncle was a raging alcoholic and only quit when he hit a priest in a car accident. My aunt and uncle divorced shortly after that because he was different i guess......

lillamy

I don't mind at all.

I worked with a recovering A 15 years ago. He had been sober for about 3 years then, and his marriage was very strained. Very, very, very strained.

I talked to him this winter, when he had just gotten back from a beach vacation with his wife. He said "it took so long, but we're finally back to where we were when we met, and it's so amazing to have this woman in my life who did go to hell and back with me. I can't even tell you how much I appreciate and love her."

And I thought about it and thought about how awesome and wonderful it is for them. But it took 18 years to get to that point.

I don't know that I have 18 years. I don't know that I care to wait 18 years. And that's God's honest truth.

Astro

Thank you lillamy. I'm not sure I'd want anyone to put up with my alcoholic nonsense for 18 years, to hell and back as you shared. But in your share I heard a message of hope, and that's something we all need to hear every now and then.

ARealLady

From all that I have learned about alcoholism since XABF began seriously drinking again, I know that when I connected with him and fell in love with the man he was a "dry drunk". I mistakenly thought if he wasn't drinking that he was sober (I didn't know about "white knuckling"), that he would never go back to the bottle, he had me, we had each other....boy was I wrong! I can honestly say I do not know who he is although I am sure he is basically a nice person. After his threats to me last week, I am not sure I could ever trust him again programme or no programme.

ARL

cagefree

I'm with Lady

I originally thought Alcoholic minus Beer = recovery

I don't think mine has ever stuck with "real" recovery except maybe a month or so during his 90 in 90.

It's hard to talk about whether or not he was better before or after, as he was a dry drunk the majority of our relatinoship. I don't really know when he drank, becuase he lied every time he did and was very good at covering it up - the man took 3 showers a day when he lived with me.

So I found out he was drinking and lying about it and I kicked him out.

Okay - so he goes through 90 in 90, gets a sponsor and a counselor and wants to build a friendship with me. We become friends again and this past march out of the blue he shows up on my doorstep which he used to call his doorstep, except he's throwing me out of his life, because as he explained, "I can't do this anymore", "We're not compatible" and my personal favorite "I was only thinking before, but I've stopped that and in touch with my emotions now"...but still tries to call me again and again, even though I never return the calls.

I could go on, but what's the point. There's more going on than alcohol and it took him losing a 3 year relationship with me before he went to 90 in 90 simply for drinking...how long would it take for him to go "OMG, I shouldn't treat people like whale poop at the bottom of the ocean" and go into recovery for that too?

Before/After...basically, recovery kicks up dirt...dirt is icky...if handled correctly, the dirt goes where it should and the water is cleaner than ever before. Mishandle the dirt...you're dirty and UGLY.

It's obvious there are more ways than one to recover...and unlike your multi-faceted recovery program you follow Astro, my XABF is only trying to stay dry. I really hope he does find FULL recovery as you did and are doing - and I'll give that to my hp today cuz I'm still enjoying no contact to try to find out for myself

Sorry this was so long...I guess it needed to come out

hbb

(((Cage))) I didn't know we were dating the same guy???!!!!!!!! LOL Your life sounds parallel to mine, but your much further along than me....good for you hope to like the fact that i have no contact but struggling with that at the moment, like i'm not worth fighting for......your an inspiration on this site, i value your posts. Thank you!

lillian

i have never understood the idea that the AH is a different person once sober-- i loved my husband very much, for eight years-- he was not sober then, but he wasn't a total full blown AH, either-- we talked, were intimate, travelled- were husband and wife. things got progressively worse him and me and us- then he sobered up and had a hard time facing things and he left me. maybe he had other reasons, too, but if he did, he never shared them with me. just said he was a different person. he just left, and became a person who cheated, lied and was cruel. why did he do those things when he got sober? because he was a different person, he said. now he is sober. i WISH he had given me/us a chance to have a sober relationship. i feel like i loved a PERSON, and that that person must exist/didn't disappear because he stopped using drugs and alcohol. i mean, if he was drinking from 14 to 48 years, how can that person be completely gone a few months later? i still love him, i miss him, and it hurts that he has disappeared--literally-- and that he thinks he has disappeared figuratively. we might not like to look at our former actions, or live with them, but do we have to say the person who did some of those actions, for better and worse, is just gone? what about the person who did all of the things i loved so much-- the person that loved me? that person is just gone? it makes me sad. i don't get it. maybe i will some day.

Astro

No need to apologize, I'm glad you got it out! Everything that's been shared on this thread has helped me to understand even more about my side of the disease.

mushroom

I don't see how an A could go into recovery and then return and be the person you had married. You married an unrecovered A although that person may or may not have been active in their addiction at the beginning of the relationship, or may not yet have developed the full blown disease but the roots were already there. Alcoholism does not just appear out of thin air. The whole point of recovery is to be a different person afterwards.

I once married a man with clinical depression, similar in many ways to alcoholism. I had known him before the disease manifested itself, and during the disease, and after treatment with antidepressants. He was three different people, one for each phase of the disease. It was there, waiting to rear its ugly head so high he couldn't mask it, right from the beginning, and I think alcoholism is the same. When people complain that antidepressants change your personality they are not taking into account that the depression itself changes your personality.

I know second husband, from his descriptions of his teenage years, followed the same pattern. Anyone who had known what to look for could have predicted that he would become an alcoholic. I married him during a period of abstinence, and that man was pretty nice but had definite issues that would have been red flags if I had known what they meant. If he is ever successful at recovery he will not return to being the man I married because the man I married was a dry drunk. He can always go back to being a dry drunk, but I won't accept that anymore. So there's no going back for us.