When You're Sober and Your Partner's Not

When I got sober, I didn't ask my then-husband to quit drinking. In the foggy, shame-filled logic of early sobriety, I felt guilty. After all, he had moved the booze from a locked cabinet (which I easily picked open with a kabob skewer) to some other super secret place in support of my recovery. Underground bunker? Mars? A few months in, though, he wondered if it would be okay to bring it all back home. "Yes," I said. "I'm fine. I'm the one who can't drink, not you." The cabinet was reassembled with the delicious clutter of scotch, gin, vodka, ouzo, tsipouro, brandy, kahlua, rum, tequila, and wine. It was mostly fine, except when it wasn't. At night, over dinner, he would pour himself a glass or two or a third splash of wine, and sitting beside him on the couch, I could smell that dark promise, just like the little vial marked "Drink Me" in Alice in Wonderland, filled with "not-poison" liquid that smelled of cherry-tart, custard, pine-apple, roast turkey, toffee, and hot buttered toast. I scrambled to remember that what he was drinking would indeed kill me. Maybe not right there on the couch in front of the blazing fire and the big screen TV broadcasting The Walking Dead and its rotting, zombie bodies, but in a few drinks, a few days, a few bottles. Alcohol flips the suicide switch in my brain. I might be sitting on the couch eating an arugula and egg pizza, but after a bottle of cabernet, I want to cut my wrists with the crusts. I believed that my recovery was my fault...
Source: Healthy Living - The Huffington Post - Category: Consumer Health News Source Type: news