How To Love An Addict is a story of understanding. The most painful lessons in life can be the greatest catalyst for change. Because we are human, we all hurt the same, and we must all heal the same. The day by day principles for healing in this book are timeless and have worked for thousands of years. When we understand the universal elements, the magnificence of nature, and our own essential nature, we can come to know balance and find our place in the world, even in the midst of chaos and heartache.

HOW TO LOVE AN ADDICT

Balboa Press

Chapter One

Alcohol was at the forefront of my marriage for many years. During the course of time we'd been together, we attended marriage counseling twice, spent countless hours arguing into the wee hours of the night, with no resolution of course, and jeopardized every part of our relationship. It always takes two to tangle (or tango), but when one person is primarily foggy from the effects of alcohol, it makes everything less clear. When I first met him, he was a blast. He always drank more than I was comfortable with, but I thought I'd found my soul mate, and went right along for the ride. Our relationship was volatile for the first few years. It was passionate and tragic, all at the same time. As I matured physically and emotionally, I began to see the way things really were, rather than the way I wanted them to be. I tried everything I could, at the time, to make things better, or different, from my perspective. I tried drinking with him, I tried being sad, I tried being angry, I tried complacency, I tried begging, I tried talking, to not avail. Nothing seemed to make him see things my way.

The journey was somewhat lonely, but it's been mine. I have learned to love unconditionally; I've learned that we are all different in some ways, yet all extremely common in other ways. This person, who resembled Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde at different periods of time, is still the same. I am the one who has changed. I am the one who has begun to question a deeper level of happiness, to wonder what makes people act as they do. At the writing of this manuscript, I was at a place in my life that was the emptiest emotional state in which I had ever been, yet at the same time, I felt fuller than ever; more full of joy, more full of peace, more full of contentment. I felt self-confident and capable, and able to manage myself and my life. However, I also felt like I had suffered the loss of a very dear friend. Had I outgrown this person who shared my home? The man I had lived with drank at home on occasion, usually just one or two, but the majority of his activity took place at local social events, and at bars, lending to the fact that he was rarely ever home. So how could he be an alcoholic when he just likes to have a few beers with the boys?

I know there are more extreme situations, but I can't begin to detail for you the multitude of dysfunctional events that occurred because of alcohol. His drinking led to countless hours passed out in a chair, continuous driving while intoxicated, nearly starting the kitchen on fire from leaving food cooking on the stove, passing out and forgetting about it. There were birthdays that had been forgotten, feelings that had been hurt and infidelity that had occurred. Many, many times, I had been completely and totally embarrassed in public by his behavior, which led me to stop going out with him altogether when I knew we would be in that environment. There were many times when he flirted with or made lewd comments to other women in front of me, other times when he drug on with derogatory comments toward me in front of others, and complaining conversations about me and how irritating I could be to him. I used to walk away and attribute it to his "condition," until I finally had "the" talk with myself and made myself believe, and understand, I did not deserve to be treated that way. So many times the following day, he would pretend as though nothing happened, or just simply deny that it had. Most of the time, he could not remember that it had happened at all.

For most of our time together, the extent of his alcoholism was shared by me with only my closest friends. I kept it from our families for the most part, and I became used to ignoring the situation and going on with my life. Fortunately for me, I am a person who looks for positive things in my life that fulfill me, and I don't mind spending time alone. I even learned to go out alone to maybe see a movie or grab some dinner.

The person who resided inside the layer of excessive drinking is a wonderful man. He is thoughtful, kind, hard working and family oriented. This is the person I have stayed for. There has not been violence, and I began to revolve around making sure I was not available to him, or around him, when he was drunk. Much of the time was a vicious cycle of drinking one day, and hung-over the next. The situation was always extremely predictable.

Every time, and I do mean, every time, something happened in my life that was traumatic for me, the death of my 4 grandparents, countless issues with my youngest son, tragic issues in his own family, and a variety of other emotional events that occur in our lives, he was at some local bar. Whenever I needed my partner to be there for me to tell me everything was okay, he was not there. So many nights I would lay in bed and cry, not sleeping until he was home. Many nights I would go to bed and drift into a wonderful sleep, only to be awakened to the door slamming, the refrigerator door creaking, and then him crawling into bed in the middle of the night, after the bars had long since turned off their signs. I would methodically get up and move to the couch or the spare bedroom in an effort to salvage a few more hours of sleep, and to avoid the smell of him and his locomotive like snore. His selfishness and simple inconsideration made me so angry when I'd wake in the morning exhausted, sore, and irritable.

The final beginning of the end for me was a high school class reunion. He had never attended any of his class reunions before, and made quite an entrance at this one. He came home to get ready for it, already having visited the local cantina and well on his way to an eventful evening. He made a complete fool of himself, and that night, I was not proud to stand by his side. I knew a few people there, but for the most part it was my first time meeting most of them. We mingled and I spent much of the evening performing damage control and watching him bump into the walls as he walked to and from the restroom. Two women actually approached me and asked how I was able to "put up" with his behavior. These were perfect strangers mind you, and I was completely mortified. I promised myself then and there, that would be the last time I would allow him to do that to me. I promised myself, that even though there resided a good man inside the dysfunctional one, I would risk losing everything in my life to have the peace and joy I felt I deserved. That was my first recognition that I was truly ready for change, when I realized I would, literally, risk it all!

My intention in sharing these situations is not to expose, or mock alcoholism, or make public my most personal situations, but to make you aware of the many situations I allowed in my own life. It was a continuous cycle of dysfunction and I allowed it to affect every moment of my life. I continued to function well on my own, but decided that being alone and lonely, was far better than being with someone...