Wife asked if I'd like a glass of wine
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Join Date: Jun 2013
Location: Big City
Posts: 3,895
Originally Posted by August252015 
Good job.
Maybe your wife needs to look at and learn about alcoholism? Lots of ways to do that.
Maybe your wife needs to look at and learn about alcoholism? Lots of ways to do that.
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Join Date: Apr 2007
Location: Australia
Posts: 211,444
When you've lived in entire life where your outlet and your means of getting loose, or just carefree has been through the bottle, relearning or learning for the first time how to have that kind of responsibiless fun is difficult. Maybe it's just a matter of accepting this season of my life is not going to include that kind of fun.
I really hope (and believe) you'll find that too, less.
D
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Join Date: Jun 2011
Location: here, now.
Posts: 1,236
Originally Posted by lessgravity
yes yes yes. It's not easy right? When you've lived in entire life where your outlet and your means of getting loose, or just carefree has been through the bottle, relearning or learning for the first time how to have that kind of responsibiless fun is difficult. Maybe it's just a matter of accepting this season of my life is not going to include that kind of fun. I don't know. It is something that is reoccurring for me at this stage.
At 2 1/2 years sober now, my life is also defined by work, family, and exercise. It’s different than yours: I’m not an attorney but my work is not unlike yours at all and I work alongside them every day, doing often the same thing they are. I don’t go to the gym but trail run with my dog, whom I’d adopted just 6 weeks before I stopped drinking. I don’t have a baby at home but I may as well for how much I go out.
I got a second promotion recently which requires relocation, which I’m beginning now. And I’m a mess. Reading this made me realize that my house of cards is built on where I live because having this stable home life is what I built my sobriety on.
I’m a better person in the world and all things I do, but I also eliminated many of the things I used to do.
Nothing changes if nothing changes. I wanted a change to save my life and live what I was born to live. I guess I had several potentials. I may have been a drunk who could have just continued on treading the same water. I think that’s likely. But, who knows. I could have crashed like so many of us. Sobriety opened the door to throw myself into my work and become really good at it. Looking back, it’s like a rocket launched after sitting on the tarmac for ten years. That is a huge change and it’s faster than I’m giving it credit for. A part of me is scared to plunge forward after mastering the potential of the life I’d started before. It’s the biggest change since, well, I stopped drinking.
I don’t know whether anything I’m saying helps or even relates to you, but you helped me. I can’t say you even gave me answers, but you did show me the path to framing my questions with this.
As for those low key or casual social interactions, when I was drinking, they didn’t give me anything meaningful. I maybe thought I was looking for normalcy or peace with them, but that comes in sobriety from being in touch with my own stillness, which is a place where I can draw my strength to keep on being awesome. Or at least, that’s what I think today.
Blessings, friend, and hope your back heals well and soon.
In Gratitude
-b
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Join Date: Feb 2017
Location: Right here, right now
Posts: 3,975
Ditto to what a few others said about the spouse suggestion leading to relapses. I am not blaming my husband, by any means. I am responsible for my own decisions. It didn’t t help though, him trying to convince me there’s no way I could have had a problem with alcohol. He would tell me “ but you’re a busy productive mom, have a good career with a good reputation in your field, a runner, volunteer for school stuff. “ He didn’t know that I was starting to drink in the morning, that I was going to work meetings buzzed, driving buzzed (a few times with kid), pretty much doing everything drunk and blacking out in the final days. That’s because I never told him, because I was so ashamed. Only parts of the whole truth are starting to come out in time. But back then, I can’t really blame him. We don’t know what we don’t know. No one can give a valid opinion without knowing all the facts.
I don’t know how I kept it together. I’m so lucky nothing horrible happened. And I’m so glad my husband gets it now.
Glad you stood firm!
I don’t know how I kept it together. I’m so lucky nothing horrible happened. And I’m so glad my husband gets it now.
Glad you stood firm!
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Join Date: Jul 2017
Posts: 3,027
Here’s the weird thing though, if you look at this objectively: it’s a drink.
It’s not people, it’s not meeting up in restaurants, or going to the beach, travel, a walk somewhere beautiful, seeing music, going to movies, going on hikes, gosh I could go on.
It’s just a drink. It’s something that I made the main activity when it is not.
What does going out mean for a sober alcoholic? It’s not just a AA meetings, work and the gym.
I fell into the same mindset early on in sobriety and sometimes I think I did all that work from sunup to sundown thing as a way to make myself a martyr, to show myself that i couldn’t let loose or have fun or be happy in sobriety, so that it could lead to its inevitable conclusion.
In reality, there is nothing you can’t do, no people you can’t see, very few venues that aren’t open to you. I can really only think of a couple....wine tasting or distillery visits...that just wouldn’t make sense.
I think the first 1-2 years is a time of sorting this out. How social do I want to be, without this social lubricant? What do I really think of people, when I am clear and not putting a chemical wall up in front of our differences? What do I enjoy? What excites me? What is it that I didn’t realize I hated, because I was drinking through it?
It wasn’t until my second year that I realized being out in nature and moving: in a free and wild way, not on a ski lift or with an oxygen tank or a guide or other constraints: could give me that “free” feeling that booze used to. Hiking. Swimming in the ocean. You get the drift.
It took a YEAR to know that. There are other things now too, but they are just hints of things. This is a long uncovering of what was covered up by alcohol.
What makes you feel like a child again, what makes you laugh with abandon, what do you look forward to? There are people, events and situations who embody those things, and not one of them has to have anything to do with getting drunk.
Just some thoughts.
It’s not people, it’s not meeting up in restaurants, or going to the beach, travel, a walk somewhere beautiful, seeing music, going to movies, going on hikes, gosh I could go on.
It’s just a drink. It’s something that I made the main activity when it is not.
What does going out mean for a sober alcoholic? It’s not just a AA meetings, work and the gym.
I fell into the same mindset early on in sobriety and sometimes I think I did all that work from sunup to sundown thing as a way to make myself a martyr, to show myself that i couldn’t let loose or have fun or be happy in sobriety, so that it could lead to its inevitable conclusion.
In reality, there is nothing you can’t do, no people you can’t see, very few venues that aren’t open to you. I can really only think of a couple....wine tasting or distillery visits...that just wouldn’t make sense.
I think the first 1-2 years is a time of sorting this out. How social do I want to be, without this social lubricant? What do I really think of people, when I am clear and not putting a chemical wall up in front of our differences? What do I enjoy? What excites me? What is it that I didn’t realize I hated, because I was drinking through it?
It wasn’t until my second year that I realized being out in nature and moving: in a free and wild way, not on a ski lift or with an oxygen tank or a guide or other constraints: could give me that “free” feeling that booze used to. Hiking. Swimming in the ocean. You get the drift.
It took a YEAR to know that. There are other things now too, but they are just hints of things. This is a long uncovering of what was covered up by alcohol.
What makes you feel like a child again, what makes you laugh with abandon, what do you look forward to? There are people, events and situations who embody those things, and not one of them has to have anything to do with getting drunk.
Just some thoughts.
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Join Date: Jan 2012
Location: West Tn
Posts: 3,043
My wife probably drinks a glass or 2 of wine or a beer or 2 ever 1 or 2 years, whether she needs to or not.
She doesn't drink enough to keep a bird alive.
But she sure remembers my struggles with alcohol and drugs and she would never do something like offer me alcohol.
Not by a longshot.
But a lot of people, particularly non-alcoholics, simply don't understand alcoholism and addiction, because in large part they can't understand something which creates different consequences and desires in their lives.
Addiction seems like a pretty simply concept to me - an allergy coupled with a craving.
1 drink would destroy everything about me and my life today.
Just 1, doesn't matter whether it's a nice glass of wine, a tall boy beer (or a quart), a glass of bourbon, vodka, gin, schnapps, brandy or whatever else may be available.
There is no part of jails, institutions and death which interest me.
I don't want any part of them.
So I have to not take that first drink each and every day of the rest of my life, one day at a time.
Many people who have no problem with alcohol think that "I don't have a hard time putting it down, so it makes no sense that he or she drinks to oblivion every time they drink."
The pervasiveness of this mindset is staggering to me.
But, when it comes to alcoholism and addiction, the old Harley Davidson saying comes to mind - if you have to ask (why it's fun to ride a Harley), you wouldn't understand.
The insurance policies that I rely on to help me make the decision to not drink each day are my relationship with God and working the 12 steps of AA, in that order.
They have worked for a pretty good while thus far.
And I will continue to "dance with the one who brung me."
She doesn't drink enough to keep a bird alive.
But she sure remembers my struggles with alcohol and drugs and she would never do something like offer me alcohol.
Not by a longshot.
But a lot of people, particularly non-alcoholics, simply don't understand alcoholism and addiction, because in large part they can't understand something which creates different consequences and desires in their lives.
Addiction seems like a pretty simply concept to me - an allergy coupled with a craving.
1 drink would destroy everything about me and my life today.
Just 1, doesn't matter whether it's a nice glass of wine, a tall boy beer (or a quart), a glass of bourbon, vodka, gin, schnapps, brandy or whatever else may be available.
There is no part of jails, institutions and death which interest me.
I don't want any part of them.
So I have to not take that first drink each and every day of the rest of my life, one day at a time.
Many people who have no problem with alcohol think that "I don't have a hard time putting it down, so it makes no sense that he or she drinks to oblivion every time they drink."
The pervasiveness of this mindset is staggering to me.
But, when it comes to alcoholism and addiction, the old Harley Davidson saying comes to mind - if you have to ask (why it's fun to ride a Harley), you wouldn't understand.
The insurance policies that I rely on to help me make the decision to not drink each day are my relationship with God and working the 12 steps of AA, in that order.
They have worked for a pretty good while thus far.
And I will continue to "dance with the one who brung me."
No Dogma Please
Join Date: Jul 2017
Location: SoCal
Posts: 2,562
I think if you can calmly say "No, I can't" without resentment, anger, doubt, or feeling like you have to explain yourself, sobriety is pretty solid. I think that's an example of emotional sobriety right there.
I've had that conversation.
"Don't you ever miss it?"
"Not really, no."
"You were such a resource of wine knowledge. Don't you wish you could taste again?"
"Not really, no."
"When you're around people who are drinking aren't you even a little tempted?"
"No, not even a little."
Etc etc etc.
I've had that conversation.
"Don't you ever miss it?"
"Not really, no."
"You were such a resource of wine knowledge. Don't you wish you could taste again?"
"Not really, no."
"When you're around people who are drinking aren't you even a little tempted?"
"No, not even a little."
Etc etc etc.
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