By Tanya Hazelwood
Two way street
The most common question I probably get asked is whether my husband drinks in front of me. The answer to that is yes. Does it bother me? No, not really, the actual drinking in front of me. He drinks beer and since I never really liked beer it doesn’t get to me and he is usually hanging out with the “fellows” when he’s drinking so I’m not just sitting around watching him chug some suds. But I must be honest with you. It’s not always peaches and cream. I can get very upset that I had to stop drinking and he didn’t. How is that fair? Sure he doesn’t display the behavior I did while drinking. He doesn’t go to bars and all he drinks is beer, but still. I made a huge change in my life, for the sake of our marriage and although he is never mean to me and definitely never physical, sometimes, it does get to me. I am not very sure that a relationship can always withstand one being sober and the other not. I am still new in my sobriety and full of emotion, but as we all know, alcohol can make people act different and say things they don’t mean. Being the sober one, it can get to you a little more. Of course, I get upset when things don’t go my way and I can be a little over dramatic and make a mountain out of a mole hill and like to throw it in his face that I’ve gotten sober. I guess that I get so wrapped up in what I’ve done that I forget that he has made pretty substantial changes as well. When we first dated he spent every single day in the bar. He used to drink liquor and waste a lot of money on alcohol. Long before I got sober, he really made some changes and I guess I need to re-evaluate the credit that I give him, or lack thereof.
But all in all, I would have to say that unless you really communicate and work together a couple will have a very rough time maintaining a relationship when one is newly sober and the other drinks. That not only goes for a marriage but for people around you in general. A lot of times you are a product of your environment and it’s incredibly hard to stay sober if you’re surrounded by everyone around you drinking. Those people need to be a little more considerate of you if you are serious about your sobriety. The people that tempt you to drink or give you a hard time, those are the people who you need to eliminate from your life. But don’t be selfish. Just because I have a problem with drinking, doesn’t mean that everyone else in the world does. I’ve still have so much more to learn about being sober, about myself and those around me, but I have learned that sometimes I’ve got to stop pretending like I am the only person in the world going through this battle. Now that I am sober, I am not perfect by any means. It would be easy for me to go back to being that person I’m fussing about.