Sobriety Can’t Save an Alcoholic Marriage.

“I’m sober Sheri. I quit drinking for you! What more do you want from me?”

There are so many things wrong with that declaration and question I shouted at my wife on several sober occasions before I relapsed and returned to active alcoholism.

In my defense, my reaction wasn’t aggressive nor evil. I just didn’t understand the disease from which I suffered. Alcoholism is all about shame and secrecy. Since no one talked about it, how was I supposed to understand my own addiction to alcohol?

I didn’t understand why my wife, Sheri, was still mad at me. I gave up the other love of my life, my beer and whiskey, because I thought that’s what needed to happen to repair my marriage. Sheri had felt like the second most important thing in my life for years. Just because I was offering to stop cheating on her with my liquid lover doesn’t do anything to fix the pain of the years of betrayal.

I was so naive. I expected abstinence to fix everything. I put a burden on sobriety’s shoulders that it couldn’t possibly deliver. After decades of drinking, I stopped, and I expected all the pain to-poof-just go away.

Alcoholism doesn’t work that way. The resentments won’t let it. When my wife was still frustrated, untrusting, and sad in my early…