Greetings Jerry,

Thank you for honestly sharing your feeling with us. I can see that you love your wife a lot, and I can relate to a few of your feelings as I'm also a husband to a recovering addict. However, I'm also a recovering addict and as such I get insights first-hand into her needs and requirements towards her personal recovery.

I know it can be hard at times, like my wife, when she quit her smoking cigarettes too, she started spending a lot of time at Nicotine Anonymous meetings and with her friends from the fellowship. It did get on to my nerves too to a point where I have actually exploded on a couple of occasions with her in this context.

However, I have come to realize through my own experiences that my personal recovery has to come first, above everything else, including my loved ones. On my staying clean and sober depends any chance of my being there at all for my loved ones. Me being an addict, I have to make regular recovery meetings, I have to have a support system of recovery, regular contact with other fellow recovering addicts who can identify, relate and who can actually empathise with me as they have been there, just like me. It does matter a lot. In my early recovery, especially, for the first one year of my recovery, I was suggested to do nothing much than work my recovery program, meaning make meetings, take a Sponsor in the fellowship and work the Steps, keep in touch with other recovering addicts in the fellowship, either face-to-face, on phone or online. It does require such commitment and investment of time and energy to be able to stay stopped from drinking and using drugs initially.

During these times, it was not like I was not sad that I wasn't able to function as any other human being, showing up for the day, living my life with my family, pursuing my career, working and earning. But as a fresher in recovery, after years of drinking and drugging, I was left to face a very weird situation. I had not learnt to grow and live life like other people do. I have been far away from the daily humdrum of life due to my addiction for a decade and a half. I couldn't think properly. I couldn't feel anything at all. I was numb. I did not know how to say "good morning" to my very own loved ones at home. I could not sit and dine with them. I could not attend the door or our telephone when the bell rang. It takes time, and as a recovering addict in a 12-Step fellowship I've come to experience that there's no other easy-way or short cuts into a successful sober life as such. I have tried it all. I have tried to hasten up things in my life as soon as I came out of my rehab thinking that that would make my family happy. I have tried to take up my education again, I have tried to take up jobs, I have tried to share responsibilities at home with others, too soon than I should have. And as a result, I have relapsed too on many occasions.

I have a suggestion if I may. Please give her time. You must have tolerated the worst possible scenarios during your loved one's 10 years of active addiction. Now, for a year at least, tolerate it some more, this time for her wellbeing.

Also, there are hundreds of spouses that go through this situation like you are going through now, like I have gone through too. Establishing contact with these people, the loved ones of an addict, and meeting them on a regular basis has helped me a lot in this journey. I have taken a lot of such help and support from Al-Anon, Nar-Anon, and CoDA 12-Step Groups. Through these support groups and the experiences shared by other family members of an addict, I have come to realize today that by coming in between my addict spouse and her daily maintenance of her recovery program, I end up losing exactly what I think I would get by doing so. I have also observed that when my wife has been working her program very sincerely, that's when we have our best moments of healthy intimacy, commitment, communication and caring.

I would suggest you reach out to Al-Anon here at this Miracles In Progress website, and also try out a few Al-Anon face-to-face meetings in your locality. I assure you, you won't regret. I feel blessed and grateful today that such freedom and hope is available as a solution to my problems.

Hope sharing all this helps you in some way, Jerry.

Best wishes, prayers and blessings to you and your family