The worst thing I’ve come home to is my wife. I was an alcoholic for more than a decade and the worst night of my life is the night I decided to get serious about sobriety.
I had been trying to get sober for about a year, talking a big talk to my wife, but doing virtually no work to make it happen. Whenever an opportunity to drink would appear, I would take it and then I would confess to my wife and she would forgive me and it would be fine. But the repercussions of my actions were starting to slowly pile up; my wife was tolerating my drinking less and less; my health had gone to shit because I was always too hungover to work out; my friends didn’t want to be around me because I always in a bad mood; I lost my job and had trouble finding a new one.
Finally, one night, I decided to drink because I “felt shitty”, which is code for, “I have put in zero work into developing tools to help me cope with my irrational thoughts so now I’m going to substitute that work with alcohol.” And I did. Except that night, alcohol didn’t work at all - I got drunk, very drunk, but that pain inside me didn’t go away - in fact it just got worse. But, like a true alcoholic, I didn’t let that inconvenient fact stop me from getting in the way of my very important business of drinking more alcohol.
By the end of the night I was blasted. I asked a drinking buddy for a ride and they flat out told me ‘no’ (another fun thing about being an alcoholic is that those drinking buddies you think are your friends really couldn’t give two craps about you; it’s all about the bottle). Thankfully I had the wherewithal not to drive home, so I ordered an Uber. In that uber, sitting silently, reflecting on my night, realizing that I was about to come home to my wife, it all hit me. I remember feeling so powerless and scared that I had drank again, and so easily - in that instance I knew for certain that I had a problem that I could not control. I started to cry. I still think about that poor uber driver, having his passenger just start softly weeping. He never said anything - maybe he knew I didn’t have much to say anyway.
By the time I got to my apartment door I was a wreck. But, I thought, if I’m silent enough I can creep into bed without my wife noticing. So, I slowly went into my pocket looking for my keys to open the door and... nothing. I checked the other pocket. Nothing. I had somehow lost my keys. Which meant I would have to knock. Which meant I would have to face my wife. The feelings of fear and powerlessness came swooping back in. I shook as I knocked, loudly. I knocked again, full on heaving with my sobs. My wife finally opened the door and... she was not shocked. She knew what I had been up to. She wasn’t angry or disappointed at me - I was the one filling that role - she was just very, very sad. Seeing that look on her face, having to look at my own snot-covered face in the mirror, feeling that mountain of guilt and shame... I knew that I wanted to get serious about sobriety. I knew that if I didn’t, I would lose my wife, my life, everything that I loved.
Within the few next days I found some sobriety meetings (SMART!) and started attending; I started my journey into CBT and other therapies; I stopped putting myself in places and environments that could trigger me; I found sober friends that I could rely on and that I could in turn help them; I started to journal; in short, i started to put in actual work. That night was the last time I drank, smoked a cigarette or did any other drug other than coffee. As hard as that night was, it helped me realize how badly I wanted to be sober. I’m incredibly lucky that I never did anything with terrible long-term consequences while I was drinking but I know for a fact that had I continued it was only a matter of time. With alcohol, and any drug really, it’s only a matter of time.
I’m proud to say my relationship with my wife is better than ever. Without sobriety I wouldn’t have the mental space, the capacity for compassion and the emotional energy needed to make a relationship work. If sobriety gave me nothing else, that alone would make it completely worth the work needed to maintain it.