5 years ago, I was literally circling the drain. We’d recently returned from a vacation in the Keys. I thought it had been enjoyable. Little did I know that my wife was mentally and emotionally letting go. She’d asked me not to drink while there and I had said I wouldn’t. That promise lasted all of one day.
I’d always been a heavy drinker for as long as she’d known me. We’d met not long after I’d left the Marines. I didn’t drive drunk, drink during working hours, and wasn’t abusive. I just tended to over do it on a regular basis.
I ignored the toll it was taking on my health. I ignored how each drop of alcohol I drank erroded who I was, and worse, the respect my wife had for me.
Then my mother died. I tried to drink the grief away. I used this as a shield against my wife’s requests that I do something about my drinking. It got worse and worse. As soon as I was “off the clock” I started drinking and didn’t stop until I passed out. Every single night. I was losing my wife and daughter, and was so wrapped up in my grief and drinking, I didn’t even care.
It was a Sunday. I withdrew to my basement workshop right after we got home from church. All I wanted was to be alone with my bottle. I was passed out in a chair by 2pm. Wife woke me up at 6pm and asked me to help cook dinner. I said “no” and went to bed.
The next day, I was getting ready for work and saw her looking at me. It wasn’t anger or frustration in her eyes. I’d seen those enough to know. It was a sad surrender, and I realized I was losing her. In that moment, I was convicted. I was guilty of being an absent husband. Didn’t matter that I earned good money. Didn’t matter that I didn’t cheat or be abusive in any way. I was absent. I wasn’t a partner or helpmate. I’d become a drunken roommate, and this only worse because I was an absent father too.
That was the moment I said, “no more, never again” and meant it. I’d rather die than see that look in my wife’s eyes again. That was 5 years ago. Much has happened for us since, most of it good, some of it great, and a bit of it bad, but we went through it together. Many sober vacations too, with only good memories, and no regrets.
Some of you were here on my day 1, and I’m eternally grateful for the welcoming and support I needed in the beginning. Some of you met me later in my journey, earlier in yours, and I am thankful for the sharing on our respective walks.
Today I won’t drink, because I don’t drink. I am a non-drinker. It’s who I was always meant to be. It just took me a bit of living to figure this out, and everyone I know and care about is better for it, mostly me!
well done on your 5 years sober thus far
