shinebright7

Was really glad to be able to read your thread here and see the journey you've been on, Under. Wow.

I can imagine that it was so hard to see your wife go to prison today after enjoying those 80 days of her sobriety and having the wife you love and always knew back with you and the kids.

It won't be easy, but my guess is that these 6 months will be easier than dealing with *the monster* that you put up with for so long before she got clean.

So have faith you can make it! And just take it one day at a time. Keep going to your Al Anon meetings and doing your best to take care of you and your kids.

I'm not sure how it works in prison, but I would love to think that your wife has access to AA meetings and materials in there so she can be reminded to take it One Day At a Time and stick with her steps and work her program to help her stay in her recovery too.

Thanks for sharing your experience, strength, and hope!

unsureoffuture

Thank you for sharing your experience with us. It sounds as if your wife has hit bottom and is ready to change. I am so happy to hear she is committing to AA and has returned to being more like her normal self. It sounds like you have learned some things along the way which will help you if she does relapse in the future. Stay strong. The most important things in life are those children. You are a great dad for being there with them through all of this.

Recover53

wow, simply put; thank you for sharing. These six months will be by in a hurry and things will be brighter and better than ever. Try to get to alanon meetings and dive deep into the steps. You're been though a lot, the best is on the way!

undertowzen

Glad to share everyone. I don't know if I could have coped long enough in the beginning without the words of encouragement from this site. Its pretty amazing seeing someone actually recovery from this. Especially it being my wife. I've had dealt with many alcoholics and substance abuse individuals in my life and none of them have ever come out of it. Its a roll of the dice I guess, except they apparently can only land on exact numbers for things to work out. This will be a struggle she'll deal with for the rest of her life. I'm hoping she can keep life as it can be in perspective. I just need to ensure that I constantly send words of encouragement to her while she is there. She will have access to AA while she is in prison. It just hurts so much given that I know what great strides she has taken and now that I do not resent her but respect what she had done so much. Its like seeing someone who spends their days doing good deeds to repay for the wrong they'd done marched away into jail just because at one point they were a bad person. If the justice system only worked quicker, we didn't find out she was actually going away until a couple weeks before it actually happened. She had been out of jail from the initial case nearly 3 months. The movie Flight puts this type of thing into perspective so much its crazy. Although things in that movie worked at a much quicker pace.

Thanks again everyone! As for if you can fix someone. Well you just have to know when to pull the trigger. Also as I stated above, the person in question also has to feel as if they are losing something. Rock-bottom is only in the mind of the beholder. If her immediate rock-bottom was "oh my I won't be able to drink anymore" I wouldn't be in my situation I am now. It took many situations over the year for her to finally understand what she was doing. Most the time it was "when can I drink again". Basically stop taking excuses. Allow yourself to hurt and suffer and those around you by ensuring they are out of your life. Encourage anyone else that would interface with the person to stand the same ground. Its kind of crazy I watched intervention for so long and kind of thought it was a joke. Its kind of how it works, if they have anyone to bunk with at the end of a night they will still fell as if they have something going for them. It really takes putting them out on the streets, at least figuratively. When I moved my wife out, I called and spoke with anyone and everyone and explained what was going on. It hurt badly. I did it however. Eventually her mom couldn't take it anymore and got her out, but no one else did. It worked! Thanks again everyone. I'll check in from time to time as I have updates. Good Luckl!