cynical one

Being a Chronic Relapser: The Husband's Story
~Jimmy Long (pseudonym)

I have 10 days back. And while I've been a member of AA for 24 years, I've been drunk for the last 12.

It was 1981 when I made my first AA meeting. I wasn't anywhere near being ready to stop drinking and using drugs. I can only say it was like having a veil covering my head. I didn't understand what all these people were talking about. I just didn't get it. So I didn't get sober until eight years later. By then I had hit a number of bottoms and was in and out of AA and treatment programs. I was also homeless and jobless, living in a New York City park and sleeping under a pile of rags.

Then it happened. Something clicked. I was able to accept help. People in AA were kind to me. They bought me a burger when I needed one and sometimes put me up on their couches. On my last night using, I had $5 left in my pocket, and for some reason, instead of getting another couple of beers, I got a pint of ice cream. That was my last day drinking for 12 years. Maybe it was the grace of God, I don't know, but I was able to stay sober.

My life got better. I got a job, a place to live—the first time in my life I held an apartment lease. I went to lots of meetings and did a lot of service. Because of my experience living on the streets, I was able to reach out to a lot of guys in similar situations and help them get sober. I run into a lot of people now who say I helped them during the 12 years I didn't drink.

So what happened? I never really did the step work. I did a lot of what old-timers call "two-stepping"—working the first and 12th steps without much in between. Don't get me wrong, I did some work and I knew the Big Book. But I still couldn't or wouldn't let go of some things. I was still playing God. I was still being dishonest, inconsiderate and selfish. I was filled with fear and shame.

So after getting into a relationship with a newcomer, I cheated on her and hurt her. She reacted badly as you can imagine. There was a lot of drama. I became serious with the new girlfriend and the old one wouldn't let go. I was trying to break up, something I should have done before starting a new relationship. But I felt guilty and would agree to meet with the ex and we would end up fighting. I got angry after one of these fights, in fact I was in a rage. And I drank.

This started what has become a 12-year relapse. I have now been relapsing the same amount of time that I was sober. I married the new girlfriend and she relapsed with me, and we drank together for five years until she got sober again. We are still together, but I haven't been able to put down the drink for any significant length of time. I stop for a few weeks or even months and then drink again.

The first day drinking went like this: After the fight, I got a case of the '"f*ck-its" and bought a suitcase of beer—30 cans from the beer distributor on Christie Street. I sat at home, put on music and drank all that warm beer. I remember talking to my new girlfriend on the phone, telling her how great Lou Reed sounded. Needless to say, she was quite upset that I had relapsed. I got drunk, then sick, and passed out. When I came to, I had a bad hangover. I had spent about $20, but I was home and nothing really bad had happened.

Nothing bad happening was the very worst thing about that first drunk, because I said to myself, "That wasn't so bad." In my mind I had the green light to keep drinking. But I didn't for three weeks. I went down to Virginia to see my girlfriend and we went to lots of AA meetings together. Still, in the back of my mind, I thought maybe I could get away with drinking once in a while.

So one night, after a meeting, I was home reading the Big Book, and I came to the part where it says, "If you're not sure you're an alcoholic, try some controlled drinking. Try it more than once." I thought, "What a great suggestion!" and went and got a six-pack. Then I went home, put on a baseball game and drank just four beers. I went to sleep and woke up feeling fine.

Then I was off to the races. I have heard people say that when we drink after a period of sobriety, we pick up exactly where we left off. What happened to me was even more dangerous: I "got away" with drinking for a while before the devastating consequences came back.

My girlfriend moved back to New York to live with me. Soon after, she relapsed. Now I had a partner. I'd be lying if I said we didn't have any fun. The consequences didn't happen for her right away, either. We traveled, drank fancy drinks. I thought I had arrived. I got a better-paying job and we moved into a nicer apartment. We got married.

It's said that alcoholism is a progressive and fatal illness, that over any significant period of time, alcoholism gets worse, never better. And so it was that when things started to go downhill, a steady momentum built up: I got arrested, and she was in and out of mental hospitals, as the drugs and alcohol wreaked havoc on her bipolar disorder.

We both kept going to meetings throughout our relapsing together. Going in and out, not being able to stop or stay stopped. Seeing people come and get it while we kept drinking. Running into other people who I'd helped get sober. It reminded me of the old joke: “Be nice to your sponsees, because they may someday be your sponsor.” I can't tell you how much shame and frustration I felt.

Then the unthinkable happened: My wife got sober. To do this, she had to move out. She told me we weren't breaking up, but she just couldn't be around me drinking and stay sober. I knew she was right, but I still felt angry and abandoned. She would come every day to check to see if I was alive. I think she thought that I would get sober in the face of losing her. But all that happened was that I drank and drugged even more. She said to me, "You are choosing drinking with your bar friends over me."

The truth is, I had lost the power of choice. I wanted to stop, but no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't. I lost the job and the apartment. I was arrested again, and had more health problems. I was falling apart in every way. And I still couldn't stay sober, despite the fact that I was going to meetings almost daily.
Then I met a sponsor who took me through the steps right out of the Big Book, quickly. I started to have a spiritual connection unlike anything I had ever experienced before. I made amends and started writing 10th-step inventories every day. I prayed and meditated, and did service. My wife allowed me to move back in with her. I stayed sober for 11 months and 14 days.

Then I went to the doctor. He wanted me to quit smoking and prescribed Chantix. I took it, and within 10 days, I was drinking again. I found out that some people have a bad reaction to the drug. My wife had told me to stop taking the medication because it was changing me. I was becoming depressed and angry.

Is this an excuse for my relapse? I really don't know, but that's what happened. I went from feeling the most serenity ever in my life, to rage and hate and depression, almost overnight.

That was four years ago and I haven't been able to surrender since, although I keep trying. I put a few days, sometimes weeks, together, and then I pick up.

Right now I have 10 days—I started this piece when I had one day back—and I'm feeling more hope than I have in a long time. I'm doing everything it's been suggested to do. And so far today, it has worked; I'm sober. I have to put all the uncomfortable feelings of being a chronic relapser in God's hands. So instead of feeling lousy about being in and out so much, I'm trying to look at it from the point of view, of how lucky I am to make it back and have another chance. I am grateful for today. I can't worry about what others think. I'm not here to people please. As I've heard it said, it's a 'save your ass' program, not a 'save your face' program.

I've really tried to surrender. I have worked the Steps, even more seriously than in the past. I've done service. I make meetings, and I've had a few different sponsors. I pray and write inventories. I even did my Ninth Step amends, including to the newcomer I was with before relapsing. She stayed sober and ended up marrying a nice guy from AA, which I am thankful for.

I've hit a lot of bottoms in my 12 years of relapsing. I lost a good job. I had a heart attack. I fell through a glass table while drunk, and also got a concussion when I hit my head on a filthy toilet after passing out in a bar bathroom. My marriage is in jeopardy.

People in the rooms mean well and are trying to help. I recognize that. But there does seem to be a lost art of carrying the message. When I first came to AA, people treated me like an equal, despite the fact that I was homeless, jobless and relapsing. They never spoke down to me or preached. They never told me what to do. They only told me what worked for them. I could take it or leave it. I felt no judgment.

Often now, I have people come up to me and lecture me on what I should do. Like, "Think the drink through." If I could do that when the obsession hits, I'd have nearly 30 years sober. I feel like they think because they have a little time under their belt, this is okay. Like I'm a stupid relapser and if I knew anything, I wouldn't keep going out. That "Take that cotton out of your ears and put it in your mouth" kind of attitude. This just makes me angry and rebellious. I know this is pride that causes me to become defensive.

Some people—people who have known me for years, even people I helped get sober—will tell me, "You've been around, you know what to do." And they are right. The problem is, knowledge without power is useless. So I'm trying to find that Power, to turn my will over to it. I really believe in my heart that it is only by the grace of God that I will be able to stay sober.

That's my take on staying sober. It's ok with me if someone else works it differently. I only know what has worked—and not worked—for me.

cynical one

Married to a Chronic Relapser: The Wife's Story
~Sadie Long (pseudonym)

My husband helped me get sober, then he went back to drinking, relentlessly. Today, I'm walking the fine line between staying sober and staying married.

I met my husband, Jimmy, at my very first AA meeting. I stumbled into the 14th Street Workshop, bloated and reeking of booze from the night before, in my pajamas. I hadn't showered in days, and I was wary of the people in the room. I didn't trust anyone.

Jimmy recognized that I was new (it wasn't hard to spot), and he put out his hand to shake mine, welcoming me and giving me a meeting list. I don't remember much about that first meeting, but Jimmy's kindness stayed with me.

A few days later, I was walking down 14th Street with a beer in a brown bag when I saw Jimmy in front of the Workshop. I tried to hide the beer, thinking he would be angry or disappointed with me. Instead, he told me not to be embarrassed, and welcomed me to come back to the meetings anytime I wanted.

After being used and abused by so many sleazy men in bars, this kind man was a new animal to me. He radiated the philosophy of “Let us love you until you can love yourself.” He had no ulterior motive in being kind to me; he wasn't trying to get in my pants. He was simply another alcoholic offering his experience, strength and hope—no strings attached.

I made a commitment to go to the 12:30 Beginner's meeting at the Workshop every day. A group of us always went to the Little Poland diner to fellowship afterward. Jimmy always bought my lunch. He was the elder statesman of the group with about five years sober. I remember laughing with him one of those early days at the diner and realizing, this is the first time I've laughed this hard in years.

I noticed that Jimmy helped a lot of homeless guys get off the streets—bringing them into his home and cleaning them up, getting them into detoxes and rehabs. I asked him if I should be doing this. He smiled and said that we each find our niche in sobriety where we can be of service. This brand of 12-stepping worked for him because of his experience. In time, he told me, I would find ways my experience could benefit others.

As I struggled through early sobriety, I was angry and depressed, and suffered from severe mood swings from untreated bipolar disorder. I should say that Jimmy suffered from my mood swings too, because I could be combative. He put up with a lot of abuse, but seemed to understand that this was my process of getting clean. He saw something in me that was good, that I couldn't see in myself. He was very forgiving.

We had fun, too. On my birthday I mentioned to him that I had never seen snow on the beach. He came up with the idea of going to Coney Island to see the snow and go for an icy dip in the ocean. I remember how warm the sun felt on my skin after jumping in the freezing water for a couple of seconds. I felt myself coming back to life.

After a few relapses, I finally put the plug in the jug and managed to stay sober. A big part of the reason for that was Jimmy's support and absence of judgment.

Jimmy and I went through a lot together over the years. I was in and out of psych wards, and he was always the first to visit me. He had his demons, too, and I tried to be as supportive as he was. I moved to New Mexico, and later to Virginia. We always stayed in touch.

We always said that if neither of us were married when I hit 40 and he hit 50, we would get hitched. But God had other plans for us. While living in Virginia, I realized that I had fallen in love with him. I got up the courage to tell him, and to my surprise, the feeling was mutual.

It was a messy situation, because he had a new girlfriend. But it really felt—and still feels—like our union was meant to be.

And then he relapsed after a particularly bad fight with the ex-girlfriend. He called me in Virginia, drunk, telling me how much better Lou Reed sounded with a few beers in him. I was stunned. We had just celebrated his 12th anniversary. I never imagined he would drink.

I never imagined that I would drink, either, but a few weeks later, I relapsed myself. On Nyquil, of all things. It didn't take long for me to start drinking in earnest. One of Jimmy's sponsees relapsed around the same time. I'm not saying it was Jimmy's fault, but there did seem to be a domino effect. In looking back, I think maybe my co-dependent mind told me I had to drink to be with him.

In any case, we were both off to the races. I moved back to New York to live with him. He landed a plum job and we traveled, drinking top shelf booze and dabbling in cocaine. We moved into a beautiful apartment. He proposed to me in our local watering hole. It was a spur of the moment proposal, and he didn't have a ring yet. The bartender, our friend, fashioned a ring out of a paper clip. I still have it to this day. We milked that engagement for weeks, with people buying us drinks to celebrate.

A few months later we were holed up in that sumptuous apartment, shades drawn, on marathon cocaine binges, paranoid that our neighbors knew what was going on. At one point we were doing two to three 8-balls per binge, then recuperating for a couple of days, only to repeat it over and over again. My nose was permanently stuffed up, and I was bloated and looked terrible.

Amazingly, we kept going to meetings. For several years, I went every Monday to my home-group with one day, only to be drunk and high again by Friday. People in my home-group were supportive, but no one understood what I was going through as much as Jimmy. It was a humiliating, frustrating experience. I don't know why I didn't give up. I think Jimmy had given me such a strong foundation in AA in the early years that I remained loyal to the program even while relapsing.

One night we were doing coke, and Jimmy was shooting speedballs. He overdosed. I looked at him passed out on the filthy couch, and then looked at the coffee table. I still had about a gram left. I didn't want to flush the coke down the toilet and call 911. I decided to do the rest of my share of the blow. By the time I was finished, he was still passed out. I decided to do his share of the blow, as well. When I finished, he started to wake up.

When I crashed, I realized: "My God. I chose cocaine over my husband's life."

He wasn't ready to stop, so I made the most difficult decision of my life: to move out. I knew there was no way I could get sober with him doing lines in front of me. I packed up and moved with my dog to a little apartment in Bay Ridge. It was heartbreaking. I missed Jimmy so much. I used to cry going back and forth to the city on the subway every day. Something about the anonymity of the subway made me feel safe sobbing. There were people around, but I didn't have to talk to anybody. I was so alanonic, I went to Jimmy's apartment every day to make sure he was still alive.

After a while he lost the plum job, lost the apartment that came with it. He was facing homelessness again and it seemed to be a bottom for him. I agreed to let him move in with me, and we lived happily together, sober, for about a year, until he relapsed again.

The day he relapsed, I was as stunned as I had been the first time. I panicked and took my dog with me to a Holiday Inn for the night to get away from him drinking. But over time, as he continued to drink and drug, I became desensitized to it and could actually be in the same room with him using and still stay sober myself.

People in the rooms think it is very dangerous to my sobriety to have him getting high in front of me. But the truth is, it doesn't look too attractive. He is as messy and sloppy a drunk as I was. He is only marginally functional, barely able to make it to work.

It has become routine for him to go MIA during the day. When I can't reach him by phone while I'm at work, I assume he's at the bar again. This happens at least two to three days a week.

I live in fear for the rest of the day, wondering what I'm going to find when I get home. At times he can be angry and menacing while drunk. He has thrown things in my direction, denting the wall. Once he threatened to throw the coffee table at me. So I do fear for my safety. I started packing a night's supply of my medication in my purse so that if I find him in a violent mood, I can get out and stay away until he's sobered up. This is not the man who showed me so much love and kindness. This is not the man I married. This is a drug and alcohol-induced “Mr. Hyde.”

So I wonder, will he be angry and violent? Will he be coked up? Will he go to work drunk? Will he be in the hospital again? He's already had a heart attack. Or will this be the day that I find him dead? He once showed me a noose he had fashioned with a rope. He's often suicidal during and after binges. When I ride the subway home on days he's MIA, I mentally prepare myself to find him hanging from the shower rod.

I started going to Alanon a few years ago and it has been really helpful. In Alanon meetings they say, “We can find contentment, and even happiness, whether the alcoholic is still drinking or not.” This has happened for me. I have been able to find joy and meaning in my life, separate from my relationship with him and his continued drinking. I have my own little business, I volunteer at the zoo, and I have a great support system, in and out of the rooms. My life is full.

The flip side to the peace I have found is that the situation with Jimmy has started to feel manageable and acceptable. Sometimes I don't know whether I am working a kick-ass Alanon program or if I'm in denial. It can be hard to tell the difference.

For months I prayed for clarity about what to do about Jimmy's drinking. Should I kick him out? I separated from him once before. Do I need to do that again? But the message I got was to get a sponsor and work the steps in Alanon, as I have done in AA. So I have a new sponsor and we are going through the Alanon Step book.

Someone asked me what I would do if I knew that he was never going to get sober. I thought about it, and I thought that I would break up with him. I don't want to live the rest of my life like this.

But I do have hope that he will get sober again. After all, this is the man who helped me get sober. He knows the program. He's done it before. I believe he can do it again. He showed me unconditional love and support throughout my early relapses. And so I have tried to be supportive to him through his struggle. At the same time, I try to “detach with love.” Let him have the dignity of his own experience, his own consequences.

Today my dear husband has 10 days. It's the longest stretch of sobriety he's had in months. I am hopeful and happy. I am so proud of him. But I don't want to count my chickens before they hatch. How can I be hopeful, but not naïve?

The answer is, just like with my own sobriety, I have to live in the day. Be grateful for this day sober together, without looking too far at the past or the future. We've had a long, winding history together, and I do hope we have a long future. But for now, we are just two drunks trying to stay sober for this 24-hours.

LoveMeNow

Reading these two posts just broke my heart and left me feeling so sad. It once again confirms how addiction is just that powerful, cunning, and baffling.

My friend shared with me tonight about her late brother. The story is just too similar. He came for a visit to attend a wedding, had recently been broken up with and made the devastating mistake of having a glass of wine after 14 yrs of sobriety and was very involved with AA. He was never able to get sober again and died 4 yrs later.

She saw him with the glass of wine in his hands, wasn't sure what do and decided to say nothing. Could she have changed the course of the direction his life would go? She will never no because she didn't try. It still haunts her to this very day.

cynical one

I thought they both were good reads, and find it interesting to hear the story from both sides. I'll try to remember to see if either ever write an update.

Ann

Thank you for these, Cynical One. I find the stories bittersweet. They portray the harsh sadness and reality of addiction/alcoholism and also of codependency, and the people who write the stories could be you or me or any one of us.

What strikes me in both these stories, and often in the stories of speakers I have listened to, is how long this all goes on, years and years and years. I remember when a counselor once told me my son might be 10 years or more on his journey before he found real long term sobriety...that seemed like a life time. Yet it has been twenty years and he is still lost in addiction, although he too has had years here and there of sobriety in between.

Sometimes I think the years just go on and on, but I know, with me, there came a time where I could not do one more day of the codependent dance and that was the day my life changed forever. I could not die with my son, it would serve no purpose, so I had to learn to live without him.

The saddest stories have hope, I know that because I have seen the most hopeless addicts find recovery. I have seen codependents find recovery too and move forward to a life worth living.

Every day I pray for those who still suffer. In the end, it's all between them and God.

Hugs

EnglishGarden

Those are beautiful thoughts, Ann.

I was raised in the southern Appalachian mountains, and my neighbors were a country family: severely alcoholic coal miner father, wife, five kids. I have known this family since I was 4 years old, though I no longer live in that region.

The father was such a great guy when sober and he sat on the porch swing and swapped stories with my grandfather and played bluegrass guitar.

When he drank, he pulled out his shotgun and went after his wife, who had to hide in the woods while his children hid in our cellar. When he couldn't find the wife, he roared off in his pickup to terrorize whomever else crossed his path.

He kept his wife hostage for 40 years.

After he died, she met a man, an actual honest-to-goodness nice man, out there in those hills, and she finally, for twelve years until he passed, experienced what it is like to be treated with gentle regard, to know that the person she loved would not hurt her, to count on him being there when she had a doctor appt or needed to go to the grocery, who was respectful to her children, and who kept every single promise he ever made.

She lost a lot of years, and health and well-being, to a relationship with an alcoholic spouse. But incredibly, God graced her with the experience of genuine love in her late life. And she will die a woman who knows what real love is.

Vale

We all know in our secret hearts that the time will come
when we are face to face with whatever/whomever you
want to call it....the almighty, the universe, or (most
terrifying) ....ourselves. The question will be but a simple
one---but our answers to it, profound.

What did you do with the gift of years? What tapestry did
you weave with those precious gifts? And who was made happier,
safer, or better for your having been here? Did you acquit yourself
well considering the cards you were dealt? Or did you throw away
the golden opportunities that cross EVERYONES path, whether
recognized or not?

These are not SR questions. They are the questions all sentient
beings ask. What SR has taught me is that running away and hiding from
these questions ---AKA doping one's self into oblivion....turning on the
'happy switch' in our brains biochemically-----is no answer. It is just a
cheat. One that places an incredibly difficult impediment....in the path
of an already formidable task.

Since the first proto-human looked into the surface of a calm pond,
saw their reflection---and became self aware....these questions have
haunted us, and inspired us.

I wish the addict I cared about would have faced up to life, before it was too
late. But therein lies a useful truth. The clock doesn't go on forever. For those of us
reading and writing these words....our time has not passed.

But it will, as sure as night follows day. That is the way of things.
What stories will we tell? Who were we? What tapestry did we weave?

This horrific disease of the spirit (addiction) brings us no closer to the answers
we seek. To know life in full is to know both great love and great hate. Before this
journey (and no journey is without lesson)....I knew great love.

Now I know great hate. I HATE addiction. Reading the story of Jimmy & Sadie Long
(and a million others)...only solidify my enmity.