Hey.

I see you.

When your partner quits drinking, it feels like everything changes.

Maybe they’ve suddenly got new routines in the morning or evening that are changing the way you do things too. Or they’re not hanging out with the same friends, or going out to the same places, and you miss that stuff. They’re starting to work through some old emotional stuff, and maybe learning a lot of new things about themselves. They might even feel like an entirely different person.

It feels like you’ve lost something, too.

It feels unfair, because you’re not the one with the problem. You’re not the one who had to stop drinking alcohol, so why does it have to affect your life so much, too?

Here’s the thing.

We love you so much that we want to be able to show up in this relationship as the healthiest version of ourselves possible. We love that we’ve chosen to create a life with you, and we want to work to make it truly thriving and fulfilling. We know we’ve caused a lot of hurt and a lot of damage. And in some ways, it probably still feels like we’re causing hurt and damage with all this new stuff, too.

All humans have quirks. Weird things we do, strange ways we react to things that others might not. And when we spend a lot of time with someone, like we have with you, we start to mold ourselves around each other’s quirks and weirdness. It’s how the puzzle fits together – all of our corners and ridges and lumps and bumps mold to fit with yours. We all do it. We’ve molded ourselves around your rough edges as much as you’ve molded yourself around ours. We’re not the only one with unhealthy quirks and habits.

Ours just included alcohol.

When we quit drinking, it becomes necessary for us to start smoothing all those rough edges. That’s how we stay sober for the long haul. That’s the part we refer to as “recovery”.

Sometimes that means we have to dig into the past, and figure out why we react to things in such powerful or confusing ways – and sometimes the past will be painful for both of us. Sometimes it means that we have to start speaking up about things that aren’t really okay with us… even though we never told you they weren’t okay before. Sometimes it means that we have to find new hobbies and activities that fill out our lumps and bumps a little bit better than the old ones.

We might ask you to make changes in our home that will make the early days easier for us, because the early days are really freaking hard. It’s impossible to describe if you’ve never been addicted to something. It’s like half habit, and half your brain was taken over by an alien. And dump a big pile of shame on top of that, because we feel terrible about it. We never wanted to end up this way. The shame makes it really hard to talk about it, so if we don’t tell you much about how hard it is, that’s because it’s embarrassing. We feel like we should be stronger. Like it should be easier. But it’s not.

We know you want to support us, and you just don’t know how. When we’re crying for what seems like no reason, you just want to make us feel better. When we get angrier than you’ve ever seen, and we don’t know how to handle that anger without numbing it with alcohol, you just want us to calm down before anything really awful happens. You’re over there feeling helpless, because you can tell we’re hurting and you just don’t know how to help. And of course you just want to make it easier for us – and to be part of the good stuff, too.

Here are a few things you can do to support Our Sobriety:

• Learn how to validate what we’re feeling. Don’t say things like, “Calm down. Just think positively. It’s not that big of a deal.” Those words are going to light a fire under whatever emotion it is that we’re overwhelmed by. Say things like, “It really makes sense why you’re feeling that way. I would too, if I was in that situation.” Or you can always say, “Do you want to tell me more about it?”
• Work on yourself. All those lumps and bumps and rough edges? You’ve got them, too. And you working to figure yours out is going to make us fit together smoothly again – which is what we both really want.
• Bring home fancy non-alcoholic fizzy drinks and gummy worms. Like, LOTS.
• Ask if you can be a part of celebrating milestones. Every day sober is a celebration, and many of them are hard fought battles. You might not realize it, but we are very aware of every milestone – a week, a month, 6 months, a year. We celebrate them quietly, but we don’t always talk about them. Notice our success. Offer to take us to dinner, or buy us flowers. Show us that this battle that we’re fighting is important to you and that you’re proud of us, even if you don’t entirely understand it.
• Educate yourself. Read some books that are about addiction – especially books from an alcoholic’s point of view, like a memoir. (We call those books “quit lit” in sober circles.) Grab a couple and read them. They’re a great way to get a glimpse of what it’s actually like in our heads sometimes.
• Come up with fun ways to spend time together that don’t involve alcohol. Plan a night out bowling or mini golfing instead of going to the bar. Take us out for coffee on a Saturday morning. Just because we aren’t drinking doesn’t mean we don’t still want to have fun and connect. And sometimes we feel guilty that we can’t always go do all the things we used to. Having you suggest activities will help soothe that guilt.
• Get to know your needs, too – and share them with us. We’re really focused on ourselves right now, and we’re working hard to take care of ourselves. But we still care about your needs. If there’s something you’re needing, share it. We’ll do our best to give you what we’re needing, while still maintaining our (new) boundaries. It’ll take some time to figure this out. But we really do want to show up for you the way you need us to.
• Be aware of all the alcohol around. Ask us if there’s anything you can do to help make things easier. That might mean not having alcohol in the house, or moving to a different table in a restaurant. It might mean leaving the birthday party early because all the drinking is getting overwhelming. It’s also really hard for us to ask for that stuff sometimes. We hate to be “difficult”. It’s nice when someone sees what we’re dealing with and offers support without us asking.

We know the whole world doesn’t revolve around us. But in the early days, we have to be a little bit selfish. Most of us have poured ourselves into others so much, and for so many years, that we let ourselves run completely empty, and started filling it up with alcohol instead. Just for a while, we need to focus a lot of our attention on ourselves. It takes almost all of our energy to stay sober each day, and we just don’t have much to give.

It won’t always be like this though. Eventually, things will get easier – for both of us. When it gets easier, we’ll have more energy to give to you again. And that’s really important to us. It’s hard to put ourselves first – it feels selfish. But we also don’t have a choice. We won’t ever be completely done with this – we aren’t just going to “quit drinking” and be finished with all this work we’re doing. But as time goes on, it takes less effort and energy. What we need might evolve too, so try to be flexible. We’ll try to be flexible, too.

We wish as much as you do that things didn’t have to change. But they do. We want to live full and beautiful lives. We want to be at peace. We want to feel really, truly happy again. We might have faked it well, but we didn’t have those things when we were drinking. So we’re working on creating them now. And we want you to be a part of it.

Because we really, really love you.

And we’re so grateful that you’re still here standing by our side as we figure this out.