The Inevitable Relapse

Dear Michael,

Last night was yet another night I slept next to you smelling the thick pungent stench of alcohol coming from your breath and out of your pores.  Last night was different though. Last night...I gave up.  I fought every urge to wake you from your drunken stupor and endlessly pressure you until you cracked and told me what you had to drink.  What’s the point? Ultimatum’s don’t work on alcoholics and I can’t force you to want to get sober. 

When I noticed the change in your speech last week and your questions of, “Are you alright? What’s on your mind?”(knowing full well that I knew you were drunk and you were preparing to make excuses and blame my anxiety) the excuses to go to the Netto for things we didn’t need, and the sleep talking that only happens when you are drunk, a piece of me died inside.  I initially fought you, but realized we’ve reached a part of your alcoholism that you will no longer tell me that you have relapsed. You fear I will pack my bags and leave, just take the kids and go, but its not that simple and you know it.  So, I did what wives of alcoholics sometimes do and started researching.  I found this small article, author unknown, that spoke to me on a level that none others had previously.  It was titled 10 Things to Stop Doing if You Love an Alcoholic. Most were familiar: stop taking it personally, stop enabling, stop blaming yourself.  It was the ones I hadn’t really looked at before that spoke to me: stop trying to control the drinking, stop trying to cure it, and stop having unreasonable expectations.  All things I had been doing.  It’s time to try something different.  Under each bullet of what to stop doing there was simple advice and guidance.

Under Stop Trying to Control It, was the best piece of advice I’ve found in the time I’ve been married to you.  “Let a crisis happen” --simple really.  I have tried to keep you sober and of course I have failed.  It’s not my decision to make.  It’s not my hand pulling back from the bottle I want to grab.  This has to be your decision. Not mine. So, I’m going to wait for the next DUI or the next fight and I’m not going to bail you out when you call.  I’m going to let you sit there and face the reality on your own.  The best thing I can do is protect our children from seeing you the way I see you, keep them safe from your hazardous driving, and never leave them alone with you.  I also have to take care of myself in ways you haven’t taken care of me.  I need to keep focusing on my grades at school, get my degree, do things that make me happy and fulfill me. 

I knew this relapse would come.  I always know when you are drinking and I always will. You are different.  Not always bad, but not the man I love.  Not the man I want.  I’m done taking it personally. I know you can’t help your disease and I also know it’s not my fault.  What hurts is that I really do love you and I can’t imagine my life without you, but I don’t know if I will ever have all of you.

Love,

Victoria