I don’t remember the details. All I remember is that one minute Thomas saw the glass on the curb, and the next minute we were both inside. Thomas was going from one closet to the next, inspecting every little nook and cranny, pulling out empty bottles of wine left and right. It was a complete nightmare. My deepest, darkest secret, the secret I hid so well for so long, now completely exposed. I felt my whole life shattering, just like the wine bottles shattering on the curb.
Why didn’t I do a better job cleaning up the glass? I thought to myself. That was so stupid! I should have just cleaned it up and none of this would have happened.
Thomas was being WAY too good of a detective. It was like something inside of him just clicked. A light bulb just went off, and it lit up the darkness surrounding my dirty little secret. He first called the grocery store and asked for a copy of the receipt to find out how many bottles of wine I had purchased.
“How many bottles broke on the curb? You bought four bottles. Where are the other ones?” It felt like he was screaming at me. What is happening?? I was confused and ashamed and just trying to keep track of all of my lies.
“Two bottles broke,” I told him.
“No. I don’t believe you. I looked in the trash. There isn’t enough glass in there for it to be two bottles. I think it was only one bottle. So where are the other 3 bottles?”
I had already finished one of the bottles before he got home. I’m pretty sure I was half-way through the second one, although I can’t be positive. It’s all such a blur to me now.
“It was two bottles! I promise!” I raised my voice as if that would make my argument more believable.
Thomas continued going from closet to closet, me following close behind him and hoping he wouldn’t open certain bags or look in other hiding places.
“I knew you had a problem. This whole time I just couldn’t quite put my finger on it. But it all makes sense now.”
“Thomas, I don’t have a problem!” I lied. “I know this looks bad but it’s not. I promise!” I needed this to stop. I couldn’t let him know how bad things really were. It was too shameful.
He called his parents and told them everything. Oh no. This is my worst nightmare. They are going to hate me. Thomas is going to divorce me. God, help me. Please! God, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. Please just help me. Make this go away. Make this stop. I needed God to pop out of his little genie bottle and come save me. Thomas talked to his parents for a while. I was livid. How dare he talk to them about this! This has nothing to do with them! He has no right to tell them.
Thomas spent the rest of the night looking up old receipts, trying to figure out how much alcohol I had been buying. Trying to figure out how bad the problem actually was. Trying to figure out how long this had been going on. I stormed off to bed, angry. At least that’s the emotion that came out. I was angry that he was mad at me. Angry that he told his parents. Angry that he was trying to control my drinking. He’s trying to control me! I told myself. This is SO unfair! How dare he! I can just see the devil agreeing with these deluded thoughts, encouraging me in the blame game I was playing. I don’t have a problem. This is all so stupid. I’ll show him. He won’t control me. I think I HAD to be mad at him because otherwise I’d have to allow myself to feel the deep, deep shame that I was desperately trying to bury inside. This was all HIS fault. HE was the problem. HE was the one who never helped me with TJ. HE was the one who made us move to Florida. HE was the one who worked all the time. HE was the one who got mad at me for not getting enough done around the house. HE was the one who was always mean to me.
The next few days were…strange. I was SO ashamed. I felt like a dog with my tail between my legs. But the devil is SO good at what he does. I was exactly where he wanted me. I was so broken and so vulnerable, and I desperately needed an out. I can just picture the devil whispering in my ear, “You don’t have a problem. This is all Thomas’s fault. He’s trying to control you by telling you not to drink. How dare he! You’re not the problem, he is!” (Let me just be clear, this isn’t a “the devil made me do it” excuse. The devil didn’t make me do anything. BUT he is real, and this is most certainly the devil’s disease. He embeds himself into your thoughts. And your mind, which is so messed up to begin with, can’t make sense of anything and is so quick to believe what he says. He takes advantage of your emotions, especially your shame. And he tricks you into believing the excuses and then tries to blame everyone else. The devil is hard at work here, I firmly believe it.)
I downplayed my drinking as much as I could and owned up to only what I could no longer deny. I told Thomas, “It’s not like I’m just constantly drinking a lot. Most of the time it’s not like this. I just have periods of like a week or two maybe where I drink more. And then I stop. It’s really not that bad.” He seemed to believe me.
Part of the problem here is that neither of us knew anything about alcoholism. I think we both thought it was something that the alcoholic could control. We both thought, at least to some extent, that I just needed to stop. “You just can’t drink anymore,” Thomas told me. “Promise me you’re not going to drink anymore.”
“You’re right. I know. I just need to stop. I won’t drink anymore. I promise,” I told him. But I was MAD. He can’t tell me not to drink! Why is he being so controlling? This is NOT okay. This is NOT how husbands should treat their wives. What do I do? I’m stuck in a controlling relationship. God, help me! What do I do? He can’t treat me like this! It’s almost comical how crazy my thoughts were. My mind was so messed up. And how am I supposed to just stop drinking? I’m going to have withdrawals! But I can’t tell him that. Ugh what am I going to do?
Thomas and his mom went to a Celebrate Recovery meeting a few days later to try to learn more about what they were dealing with. Of course, this was NOT acceptable to me. Who do they think they are? He’s going to a meeting with his MOM? Shouldn’t he be going with ME? This is NOT okay. They are both trying to control me. This is none of his mom’s business. This is so messed up. I don’t know what to do. I was working late that day, otherwise I would have gone to the meeting too. It’s not like I wasn’t invited or anything. But it also wouldn’t have made a difference. They were wrong. I was right. End of story.
After the meeting, Thomas and I talked. He was surprisingly really…nice. He told me several times that he was there to support me and wanted to help me any way he could. He told me that I couldn’t drink. Not even one drink. And if I did, that was it. He was going to file for divorce. The drinking couldn’t continue.
“I know. I won’t drink ever again. I promise!” And I meant it. I really did not want to drink ever again. But the problem was that he was still controlling me. I had the right to decide if I was going to drink or not. So that would have to be addressed at some point. But for now, I wasn’t going to argue. I just wanted this to go away. I’d stop drinking for a little while, things would be fine again, and once this all boiled over I’d be able to drink, only this time, in moderation.
So I quit drinking cold turkey. It took about 4 or 5 days for the shakes to stop. That was hard, especially because I didn’t want him to notice. So I had to try to hide it. But he noticed. It was hard not to.
After a week or so, I actually started feeling better. So this was what it felt like to be sober? Hmm, this wasn’t so bad. I started eating a lot, partly because I actually had an appetite again, and partly because I needed something to keep my mind off of things.
Thomas and I actually started having what seemed like a normal relationship. He was so nice, and he tried to make sure I knew that he was there to support me. We went shopping for some new clothes, a “fresh start” sort of thing. He wanted me to feel good about myself. He had no idea what he was supposed to be doing, but he was definitely trying. I just couldn’t seem to get past the fact that he was controlling me. I clung to that. It was my only hope of having some sort of vindication.
But neither of us used the word “alcoholic,” at least not definitively. It was thrown around, but I still felt like it was a gray area. In my mind, I decided that I had a drinking problem and I needed to get it under control. But there was still that hope that I would be able to drink again in the near future once I got my “problem” under control.
After a few weeks, I was cured. I had made it about 3 weeks without a single sip of alcohol. I went to a couple of Celebrate Recovery meetings, where I diagnosed myself with a co-dependency problem, because that’s what everyone else there had. I don’t want to say anything bad about Celebrate Recovery. I think it’s probably a great program, and I’m sure it’s helped a lot of people. And maybe the one I went to just wasn’t good. But it was essentially a bunch of women talking about their problems with co-dependency, all afraid to share too much. So rather than going to rehab or AA for alcohol treatment, I was attending once-weekly meetings for my co-dependency that I didn’t have. This just corroborated my thoughts that Thomas was being controlling, and I realized I needed to put boundaries in place and stop being so co-dependent.
I’ll break here before I dive into the part of my story where I truly hit rock bottom.
To God be ALL the Glory!
Love, Grace
