It is my wife’s turn to recover. She knows it. I know it. Getting here was anything but simple.
Alcoholism is a selfish disease. When I was drinking, I put my love of alcohol ahead of everything, including my wife and kids. I would never have admitted it, but it was true. When I decided to stop drinking, I put my work to stay sober ahead of everything, again, including my wife, Sheri, and our four kids. This time, the selfishness was necessary. But that doesn’t change the fact that my family continued to take a backseat to my addiction.
I sat crouched in the woods behind my house as the driving rain continued to lash my thoroughly drenched body. The temperature had dropped into the 40s, and I wasn’t wearing a jacket because I hadn’t planned to spend any time outside. I was drunk. Beyond drunk, really. I was in blackout territory as the lights of my teenage memory flickered in and out.
My wife, Sheri, tells me often that I walk around like I’m carrying the weight of the world on my shoulders. In fairness to me, I spend most of my time writing about some pretty weighty topics and communicating with people who are trying to keep their heads above water in the deep end of the pool. The work I do is incredibly rewarding and totally fulfilling. But my wife is right, it’s not very jovial nor lighthearted.
His cough made a hollow, painful, barking sound, and his breathing was labored. Her infant son’s struggles to breath and the sudden onset of it all was beyond terrifying. It was the middle of the night, and she scooped him from his crib to rush him to the hospital. Her confident actions were betrayed by the look of panic on her face and the trembling she felt through her entire body.
We all know that alcohol abuse wrecks relationships and destroys families. But getting sober doesn’t fix anything. Just like recovery from addiction requires hard work, when alcohol leaves a relationship, the couple must be prepared to address the damage the addiction caused.
“Go to Dairy Queen and get your favorite flavor of Blizzard,” says my good friend and 
New on the Untoxicated Podcast – Jason and I talk about my dance with addiction.