A New Path

by Wren R Waters 

            I don't really remember how I met Linda.

            No, I remember how.

            I don't remember why.

            Like so many of us, lost in the haze of an alcoholic marriage, I found my way to Linda's blog.

            It was refreshing.

            It was real.

            It was eye opening.

            And it was frightening.

            Her daily trials and tribulations with an end-stage alcoholic left me wondering,

            “Could this really be my husband one day?  Is this my fate too?”

            I must have made a comment on her blog or something.

            But I don't remember why it was we somehow made the move from Internet friends to real, live, talking on the phone, getting together in person friends.  That's a hard leap to make frankly.  But for some reason now lost to the files of time, there was a private “call me” message and then a phone call and then...

            At first look, it would seem we had nothing in common.

            She's a few years older than me.  (Like she's 45 and I'm 35.  Wink, wink.)

            Her children are grown and she has grandchildren.

            I was (am) still raising children.

            She got away from her alcoholic.

            Initially anyway but when he threatened to have their daughter be his caretaker, she acquiesced as any (most?) mothers would and, reluctantly allowed him back into her life.

            To date, I haven't been quite so lucky as to have my alcoholic husband cheat on me and leave.  (But one can always dream, can't she?) 

            My husband is what the industry euphemistically calls a “functioning alcoholic,” since he goes to work every day, doesn't spend the weekends in a holding cell, etc., etc.  I will say I am a little bitter, and completely skeptical of the definition of “functioning.”  Have we really set the addition-bar so low that if an addict – be it alcohol, drugs or anything else – simply goes to work every week and not jail every other weekend, he gets to be declared “functioning?”  Believe me, no matter what the outside world may see, there is nothing “functioning” about these men at home.

            But I digress.

            Back to me and Linda.

            I was married to a “functioning” alcoholic.

            She was married to an end-stage alcoholic.

            I was navigating the emotions of being married to an able-bodied husband who chose to sit in the basement, watching television and drinking beer rather than engaging with his family and participating in life.

            She was navigating the emotions of the being the caregiver to a physically broken man who was breaking her spirit on a daily basis.

            It would seem even with the common ground of alcoholic husbands, we didn't have a lot in common.

            But that first phone call?

            The one that dared to edge up against the unspoken boundaries of Internet friendships?

            The sweet truth is the friendship showed its strength from the very first phone call.  Over the years, we have been there for each other beyond what initially bonded us.  We've cheered for things that weren't alcoholic related; listened to tears that weren't alcoholic husband driven; given pep talks that weren't about surviving the crazy swirling around us. 

            But now the friendship has come full circle and we find ourselves once again with seemingly little in common as we stand on common ground.

            Linda is widowed.

            She spent over ten years of her life as caregiver to a man she no longer loved as a husband but  but for whom she couldn't turn her back on as a suffering human being.  Her grief and healing process is tied up in the complicated and convoluted feelings of caregiver and widow.

            I am not widowed.

            I am not even divorced – yet anyway.  It is my sole mission this year and so my grief, my healing process is centered on the dissolution of what I thought would be forever.  When was the last time you heard of a divorce/widow support group?  Never, right?  Because the emotions and feelings lack commonality. 

            And yet, what we do share is that we are both tired.

            So very, very tired.

            So tired that we can't write.

            And when we can't write we wonder if we've each said, respectively, all we each have to say on the alcoholic husband front.

            And when we wonder if we've said all we have to say, we question whether or not we should still be in the alcoholic-husband game.

            And when we question whether or not we should still be in the alcoholic-husband game...

            We realize we can't just walk away.

            Not from blogging and writing and connecting with other women who are trying to create sanity in the insanity of marriage to an alcoholic.  But maybe it's time to connect in a different way.  Maybe it's time to shift our focus from surviving being married to an alcoholic to thriving in our own lives despite being married to an alcoholic.  

            Linda and I have talked about this a lot and while she agrees “in theory,” she is also hesitant. She knows her readers have come to trust her for information and support regarding the whole alcoholic-husband thing.  And it is the audience we both feel a connection to and a desire to support.  We have been there!

            Boy, have we been there.

            And so when someone “new” to this fucked-up club reaches out to one of us, we want to be that solace in the middle of the night, that voice that says, 

            “No, you're not crazy.”

            “Yes, there is someone here.”

            “But how do we do both,” Linda asked me. “How do we move away from the alcoholic-husband thing while still being a source of support and information for women married to alcoholics?”

            “I don't know,” I said.

            “But I'll go first.”

            (And I'll write the post warning/warming up your readers to the idea.)

            I started with creating a new website,

           www.WrenRWaters.com.

            Linda started by allowing me to write this post.

            That's as far as we both have gotten but as we ease our way down this new path, we hope you'll find the same support, information and sense of camaraderie you've come to expect, even if we're not talking about drunken husbands.