Reframing Your Life in Sobriety With Compassion
By: Lizzee Bee
Tags: Personal Growth, Sobriety, Self Love, Relationships, Alcohol

Reframing Your Life in Sobriety With Compassion

Even when your partner isn’t on board the “self-care” bus with you

Ending the co-dependency

Alcohol has always cast a shadow over my relationship with my husband. He is a high functioning, long term, heavy drinker who denies he has a dependency, or in fact any problem at all.

Since we have been together, I have slowly slid down the slippery slope of overindulgence as well. I am happy to go days without, but then I will binge drink on the weekend.

But now I am on a path to becoming sober — albeit a rocky, winding path that sometimes doubles back on itself - and even though he can see the benefits it is bringing me both physically and mentally, he is not the slightest bit interested in even considering doing the same.

Even worse for me, he sometimes actively encourages me to drink even though he knows I want to abstain and really struggle with doing that. “Have a day off” he says.

Do I end the relationship?

So what does that mean for our relationship? I don’t want it to end as I do love him and at times our life together is very good, but how do I protect myself and my fragile sobriety while his drinking still brings chaos to our lives (although not as much as when I am adding to that chaos by drinking myself?).

My hubby isn’t going to change anytime soon. As he tells me, he “is who he is”, however now that I am trying to change in a way he doesn’t see the need for, it is obvious that he feels threatened.

It is a common theme that when a drinking buddy stops drinking, it can shine an uncomfortable light on the other person’s drinking habits. We have both used each other as a measuring trick to deceive ourselves that our drinking levels weren’t that bad, and now he has lost his standard excuse that weight for weight, I drink more than him. He uses that reasoning to justify his belief that he doesn’t drink to excess.

Over the last few months, as my husband became more and more absent due to his workload and his heavy drinking to relieve the stress he felt from that, I have felt sad and lonely. Being sad and lonely has lead me to feel angry. Angry at myself and angry at him.

This has then lead to a total lack of serenity and contentment in just about every aspect of my life, the little I had anyway due to those things having faded away anyway due to my drinking.

Reclaiming my serenity by extending compassion to others

I am so sick of always feeling on edge — to feeling sad, angry and lonely. And so my journey to reclaiming my serenity has begun.

This morning it occurred to me that it would help my feelings of anger if I showed compassion to my hubby, as well as to the compassion I have been trying to extend to myself. Otherwise, this anger is going to eat me up and lead me right back down the drinking path.

I realize though, that I will need to show that compassion to him in a way he needs it, not in a way I think would be best for him (ie nagging him into taking better care of himself).

So for the moment, I need to simply accept how he is. To let him go on as he is — overworked, over-drinking, stressed and not looking after himself.

Recently he was annoyed that I was complaining to him that he never seems to have time for me. He told me that I just need to “deal with it”. That his priorities are his work and his kids and that I need to get on with my own life.

Ouch.

That hurt and sent me into a very deep pit of despair. Of feeling forgotten. Irrelevant. Of wondering why I am even with this person.

So what now?

I have decided that I have no choice but to do what he said in that moment of anger and live my life for me and leave him sitting at his desk working and drinking himself to death. It sounds callous, but it is the greatest self-care I can give myself now. I will do it without feeling guilty and with compassion towards him and hope that he will change, but I can’t control whether he chooses to do so or not.

I will focus on my own healing. I will travel, go to the beach, walk the dog, eat meals and sit outside in the sunshine on a Sunday and read the newspapers all alone if necessary. This is OK. I will be OK.

Luckily, I am in a position where my kids are old enough to leave at home while I go off on travels.

Plus I have gained the confidence to try out new things when once my insecurities would have kept me at home drinking.

He expects me to be available when he can make time for me. I can accept that. We need to maintain some connection even if it is not at the level of a “bond”. It is not what I signed up for when we got together, and it certainly wasn’t like this 10 years ago, but I truly believe that if I don’t take these steps I will start drinking again, purely to numb my pain.

The trouble is that drinking makes my feelings of loneliness worse, not better. It adds a thick, viscous layer of self-loathing and shame on top of my sadness and anger.

I must remember this. Write it on sticky notes and post them all over the house if necessary because I believe it is the key to my journey to sobriety and reclaiming my true self.