I Am Married to an Alcoholic: Practicing Detachment and Turning the Attention Back to Yourself

Free Recover Your Soul Mini Workbook 🦋 www.recoveryoursoul.net/whatisrecoveryoursoul

I want to share something with you before you press play on this one.

This is a replay from about three and a half years ago, an episode I recorded after a trip to Sayulita, Mexico, where my husband came clean that he had continued to 'dabble' with drinking, even after the profound changes we had both made in our lives with recovery. Going back to edit it brought all of it up again. The grief. The love. The complexity of it.

Because here's the truth — Rich did stop drinking the way he had for most of his adult life, and that was real and significant. But over the years he has continued to dabble, and each time he eventually has come clean about it, it has hurt. And at the very same time, I can see that this is his journey to Recover Your Soul. Addiction is a beast that is not easy to tame, especially when someone hasn't fully admitted they are powerless over it.

What this trip opened in me was a deeper clarity that working on myself is the only place I have any real power. Not because I don't care but because turning within and finding my own self-love, my own joy, my own healing is the deepest work there is. And it is not selfish. Not even a little bit.

If you are loving someone in their addiction right now, this episode is for you. Together, we can do the work that will Recover Your Soul.

Join Rev Rachel for a weekend Retreat in Colorado of healing and transformation April 18th and 19th. 

This podcast is for educational purposes only and is not allied or representative of any organizations or religions, but is based on the opinions and experience of Rev. Rachel Harrison or guests. The host claims no responsibility to any person or entity for any liability, loss, or damage caused or alleged to be caused directly or indirectly as a result of the use, application, or interpretation of the information presented herein. Take what you need and leave the rest.

Transcript

Why We’re Replaying This Story

Rev Rachel Harrison 0:28

Many of you have found recover your soul because you have addiction in your life in some way. Maybe, like me, you're married to an alcoholic. Maybe like me, you have adult children who are struggling with addiction. Maybe like me, you're a codependent, a people pleaser. And because of that, we found this community. Today's episode is a replay of an episode that I recorded after going to Mexico with my husband and my mother three and a half years ago, where my husband shared with me that he had still been drinking after we had been what I thought we had been sober together for a couple of years, and that he intended to continue to drink on this trip. And it was just one more moment of disappointment and grief, really. And what's interesting about going back and editing this episode in preparation to replay it because of the upcoming memoir that's coming on April 13th, I'm going back over these episodes that are going to be part of the resource guide, is going back and revisiting it for myself, because I think that we can forget how far we've come, and we can also forget the importance of the journey of staying close to our own healing self. Because I'd love to report to you that after this, he did indeed do what he had promised at that trip, was that he would take his last drinks at that trip and be on the sober bus with me. But that's not what he did. He still has not chosen continuous sobriety to this date. Not that he's drinking in the way that he used to, but it's not a choice that he continues to make. And year after year, I keep hoping he's gonna choose sobriety with me, but he doesn't. But he does choose to be on a spiritual journey. And I think what I want to make sure that we're looking at in recover your soul is that

Acceptance Of His Ongoing Drinking

Turning From Fixing Them To Healing Me

Mexico Trip Setup And Expectations

My Sobriety And Our Past Relapse

From AA To A Spiritual Path

His Quiet Relapse Revealed

Sobriety Isn’t The Whole Healing

The Beach Confession In Sayulita

Party Culture And Choosing Peace

Grief, Boundaries, And Letting Go

Not Taking It Personally

Speaker 2:13

we stop putting all of our attention on the them, on their healing, that if we are gonna be okay, if they're gonna be okay. And we recognize that you can still be in relationship with somebody who might still be working on their addiction if it allows you to be your full authentic self. And for me, that is the case. But for some of us, we have to really look honestly at the what is and the choices that they continue to make because I am powerless over my husband's alcoholism. I'm powerless over his mindset, I'm powerless over his drinking, I'm powerless over his choices, but I am not powerless over me, and I'm not powerless over my own decision to heal and to be awakened. You know, I often say life is sticky and complicated and has a lot of challenges. But when we stop looking at everything as being difficult or as fearful, we can actually step into the curiosity about how we can look at every single situation, every single part of our life from a more empowered, hopeful, and authentic way. Enjoy the episode. Welcome to the Recover Your Soul podcasting community, a spiritual path to a happy and healthy life. My name is Reverend Rachel Harrison. I started Recover Your Soul after having profound changes in my life from my recovery of alcoholism, codependency, people pleasing, and control addiction. I was guided to share the tools and principles of spirituality and the recover your soul process to help others transform their lives as mine was transformed. For us to overcome external circumstances, we need to turn the attention to ourselves, focusing on our interchange and healing. Positive results in our lives will follow. This is Reverend Rachel Harrison. Thank you, thank you for joining me today for this podcast and this soul recovery journey. Together we can do the work that will recover your soul. So the last couple episodes, I'm talking about some of the experiences that I had on a recent trip that I went to Mexico with my husband and my mom. We went to Sayolita, Mexico from October 4th to October 20th. And in the first episode, I talked about expectations, this part of us that creates a story that thinks that we have this ideal of what we want it to be. And then when it's not like that, we're disappointed and hurt and the process of just allowing what is and being okay with it. And the next episode that I did, the last one that I did, was around people pleasing, that I had a real awareness even deeper than ever before. This part of me that feels the need to especially please my mom and my husband. And having them both on the same trip was super interesting and really healing for me to be able to explore that, especially when it's the two of them who really don't actually need or want me to be a people pleaser. It's something that I have created and done for myself. So I hope you listen to those two episodes. So this episode is around having an alcoholic husband. And this is how a lot of you are here've come through the door of Al-Anon, because this has been a door that I'm so grateful to have walked through myself. As you know, I'm a recovered alcoholic. I am over four and a half years sober. My sober date's February 10th, 2018. I got sober in that time, it was my second time around of real sobriety. I had been sober for three and a half years prior. And then Rich and I had separated in our dysfunction. And during that time, we both went back to drinking. And then we got back together and re rediscovered our connection with each other through drinking, which was not all that great. And then my drinking got really bad. And I definitely was going down a road that I was really just trying to drink myself to death. I was really unhappy and just felt like there was no hope for me. Some point along that time, Rich and Bodhi were becoming more athletic in terms of the river surfing that they did. My husband's a surfer and and they were out on the river. And so Rich's athleticism and his inability to sleep well or to feel good from drinking, he wanted to quit drinking, not because we fought every day, but because he wanted to feel better physically. And I think he probably knew that we would won't be as tumultuous in our relationship. But his real first reason why he wanted us to quit drinking was because he didn't feel good and he couldn't sleep. And I said, okay, I'm going to Thailand with my mom and I will wean myself. I'll have a detox during those three weeks in Thailand. So during those three weeks, I started the trip with a big zipper bag full of vodka shooters and slowly through the trip had done those and drinking beer. And slowly by the end, I think I was down to like one big tall beer a day and had my last drinks on the airplane coming home. And so my first day of sobriety was the 10th of February, 2018. Rich went to pick up his brother from California right when we got back from that trip. And so his last drinks were in California with his brother on that trip. And so together we were sober and went to AA and did recovery. And I started this deep soul recovery journey. For the first couple of years, I'd say Rich was really involved in his recovery. Our lives completely changed, our relationship completely changed. And we went from fighting every day to getting along, to having peace, to my doing this work of complete forgiveness and letting go of the past and letting go of resentments. And his relationship with his sons got better, especially his relationship with Alex. There was a lot of healing that happened along the way. Now, I quit going to AA meetings when the pandemic started. And I haven't been back to AA meetings because for me, my soul journey is really what's working for me. And that I am in a place where the spiritual awakening is my number one thing. I had do not have the desire to drink anymore. The Al-Anon is where I really think the rubber hits the road for me and where my work is. And then the last episode talking about people pleasing, that's a big piece of it. The control issues that I had of trying to make everyone's lives be okay to try to triangulate, to try to save all the dysfunction that was happening for feeling responsible for people's happiness. All of that comes from this place that we're where Al-Anon really has such strength. Recover your soul is not Al-Anon's. Recover your soul is taking some of those aspects of Al-Anon and all this other spiritual stuff and positive psychology and life that is my experience of feeling like you're recovering your soul. And so this is my main emphasis in my life that I'm sharing with you because I'm experiencing it. Okay. So last year, around September, I've shared with you that Rich went to one of the churches that I speak at. And on a Sunday, I gave my talk, and then we went out after church and had lunch. Out of the blue, completely like not expecting hit, Rich shared with me that he'd been drinking for probably the last year. Interestingly enough, in that moment when he shared that with me, I wasn't surprised. I wasn't hurt. I was in a calm, healthy place for myself, where what I saw wasn't a husband deceiving me. What I saw was an addict and the complexity of addiction. And at that time, I was practicing all of the principles that I've learned in Al Anon and learned in my journey of this is his stuff. This isn't me and my old ways of making ultimatums and demanding and saying, we have to do this, this is ours, and not asking him a whole bunch of questions, just letting him share. And he said he was wanting to not drink and that he was gonna do the this piece of not drinking and do recovery. And I trusted that. I trusted that. And so for the last year, I haven't asked him any questions. I've had suspicions, and I've mostly had suspicions, not because of the drinking, but because of the behaviors that come from alcoholism, the non-recovered mind. So there's not drinking anymore or not using whatever the substance is not where the healing comes. The healing comes when you do the emotional spiritual work. AA is actually a spiritual program. Step 12 says having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, it's about waking up and taking responsibility for your actions. It's about having awareness of how what you say and do affects other people. It's about letting go of resentments. It's about turning your life over to a higher power. It is a spiritual program. The healing comes when you actually turn it over to your higher power. The healing of your heart and your soul, the peace, in my opinion, comes from the connection to higher power. It's a spiritual experience. Over the last year or so, I feel like that progress that had been made and how we related to each other had kind of shifted a little bit. And so I've been working more diligently on my work to not be as affected when Rich is snappy, either with me or irritated with people out in the world, or some of the aspects of him that are harder for me to handle. And so I just retreat into my experience, into my world, and with such gratitude that you are all here to experience this with me, that this healing is uniquely my own. My assumption has been that he's been on this journey, but to be honest, I haven't asked him whether he had started drinking again. And I had not been spending too much time on feeling like he needed to be any particular certain way, because if I'm honest, I don't have control of him. So I'm just gonna work on me. I've just been working on me. So back to Mexico on our second day, and we had gone out, the water in Saulita is like 86 degrees. It's totally warm and beautiful and pretty mild, you know. There's some crashing waves, but you can walk out pretty far and get to where the waves are rolling before they crash on the beach and just be standing on your tiptoes and just let them kind of lift you up and be in the salt water. So we were all out there together and we're on hanging onto Rich's surfboard as a flotation device off three of us. And we're having this nice rolling time. And I think I never actually remember what happened or what I say, but I think I actually asked him if he was tempted to have a margarita while we were here, which normally I don't ask him stuff like that because again, for me, I'm leading, I'm putting in, am I controlling, am I am I trying to manipulate? But I was curious. And he said, Yeah, I'm glad you asked me that because I was gonna come queen that that I've been drinking, that I didn't actually stop drinking when I talked to you about it last year. And I'm out in the water with my husband and my mom, right? So I did not have the same gentleness that I had when he had told me last year my heart sank and I got a pit in my stomach. And I thought, I'm married to an addict, I'm married to an alcoholic, and I'm not surprised. I opted at that time to not talk about it more. The other situation was that when we went out to Mexico, there's some family friends that Rich grew up with, a guy that Rich grew up with, who their whole world was around drinking. Every single thing that they did together was around drinking. Every fun family event was around drinking. And that's how Rich was raised. You know, his dad, when they were old enough, took him down to Mexico, and the whole thing that they did was just go from tequila tasting shop to tequila tasting shop. That was bonding. That's how their family bonded. I'm not really going to remember all of the details of how everything progressed over the trip. But this family friend who lives in Mexico is an active drinker, a heavy drinker. So when we first showed up on the first night and they took us out on the beach to a restaurant, they're having a margarita and a beer. And so Rich shared with me, not out in the water, but the next time we had a chance to talk about it, we went out to dinner, just the two of us, maybe a couple nights later. And he said that he had been drinking this whole time, that it's not a lot, that he's been dabbling was his words. And that when he got to Mexico, that part of him that likes to drink, there was no way it wasn't gonna participate. And so he intended to drink while we were there. You know, I've been doing all this work and I work with you guys and I hear your stories, and it just sucks. You know, as you know to to look in the eyes of somebody that you care about so much and know that we don't have control of it. And it's interesting because being there in Mexico and in this particular town, Saulita, is just bars everywhere. You can walk around with your margaritas, it's loud music, it's like a major party place. There's just fun. And I thought to myself, interestingly enough, not drinking anymore, I'm not that much fun as I used to be. It's not the same because when you drink, you have this not real way of everything being amped up. And that's what it did for me, to be honest, is I'm a pretty mellow person. And so on some level, it allowed me to fit in with everybody who was hooping it up and having a great time and being with a husband who's likes that, who has that energy, and that allowed me to fit in with them. And so when we first got there, I was like, wow, the energy here, again, with the expectations from the first episode, was really like that. Hi, if you're not partying, you're not having fun. And I had to remind myself that I wouldn't choose a drink over the peace that I feel in my daily life for anything. That is my personal choice. This is the work that I've done. I don't feel like I don't get to drink. I feel like I am free from the poison that consumed my life for so long. So as I'm sitting at this little tuckeria, and they have the tables are out on the cobblestone streets, and it's so loud, and the cars and the motorbikes are going past, and the buskers are setting up with their loud music, and I'm looking at this husband of mine who is adamantly telling me that it's not a big deal, that this is who he is, and that he's just been dabbling and he d wants he wants to drink. And I went through all of that part of me that wants to control it. And then almost immediately I just went into the grief of me that wished it was different, that needs to allow him to be exactly who he is, and has that part of me inside that is strong enough to know that regardless of what happens with us, I'm gonna be okay. That this work that I do is for my own benefit. And it ends up benefiting the people around me, and that I'm wanting it to be something that is an us thing, right? Like when we first were coming and I was talking to that family friend, and he was like, Oh, what do you gotta drink? I'll stock it up. And I said, Oh, we don't drink. I will never again say we don't drink, I will say I don't drink, because that's really all I have control of is that I don't drink. My hope is that at some point Rich won't drink either, but it more than ever is clear that that is not my journey. So that particular taco dinner was pretty painful to have the two of us on these sides of him in the early part of the trip really like strongly saying, I don't want this to be a big deal, I don't think this is a big deal in my life. I hope you'll understand. I feel like I've done a lot of work, I've had spiritual benefits, I don't feel like this has been affecting me in a negative way. And I want to drink on this trip because that's fun for me. That's how I have fun. And my request was I just prefer you don't drink around me. And I allowed myself just to have the knowledge that I needed to process this out. And so as the trip went on, I had really great opportunities to do the work that we're doing, to turn the attention to myself and to allow myself to feel the truth of the fact that this disconnect that I've been feeling for a while probably has something to do with this. To not get caught up in feeling like I had been deceived or that he'd been lying to me or to be angry about how this is about me. I just did the four agreements in the bonus episodes. Not take it personally, don't make assumptions, be impeccable with your word, always do your best. This isn't about me. His alcoholism and his drinking is not about me. And I look at some of the people that I'm working with whose spouses, soon to be ex spouses, are really out. Actively drinking and really actively destroying their lives and the lives of their children and their loved ones. And I look at these beautiful human beings looking in their beautiful faces and energy, beautiful human beings that want something so much more. They want their family to be held together. And the reminder is addiction is addiction is addiction. And we can't be pretty enough or smart enough or good enough or people pleasing enough or who they want us to be enough to make somebody else make a choice. We have to choose ourselves. And in that moment, I could see the clarity of how much I wished that this was different, but it is what it is. I don't really enjoy rich when he drinks. And it's not something that I'm interested in. But in the end, this is his journey. And all I can do is I can continue to work on me. So as the truth progressed, and I'm processing all of this and having thank goodness the connection to my higher power to give me strength to know that no matter what happens, my work on me is the only work that needs to be done. When you get into recover your soul work and you start doing stuff yourself, your life will get better. And you hope that your relationship will get better. And you hope that the things around you will get better. But the truth is, it will get better, but it may not look like what you thought better would look like. But will always get better if you're working on yourself because you see it differently, you feel it differently. Rich's choice to drink on that trip or for the last two years when I wasn't really aware of it, is not about me. It is about him. I have been getting better myself. My heart feels better, my soul feels better. I am peaceful. So over the next couple days, he ended up going off with his childhood friend buddy and drinking with them and having time with them. And I had some of those old feelings of him coming back and smelling of alcohol and how much I hate that, and how my whole self wants to go back into my old anger. And I just did my practicing, my principles, and all my affairs, and just stayed into my own center of who I was. And through the time, Rich said that he wants to do recovery, that he was going to use this trip like I used my Thailand to have his last blast. I want to trust that that's true. I want to believe that that's true. I hope so. I can't give ultimatums. It's not mine to determine whether he wants a life with me or not. Only he can determine whether he wants a life with me or not. I'm not interested in going back to where it was. But I also don't need to drag all of that pain from the past with me. I need to be present in right here, right now. And even with all of that, Rich is still a substantially different person and a more enjoyable person for me to be with and to love and to cherish than it was in those ugly years. So I am going to continue to do my work of being present with who I am today and what our relationship is today. And his recovery is his own responsibility. And he said, I need you, even though recovery is your job, even though spiritual coaching is your job, to not take me on as a project, that I need to do this for myself. And absolutely he needs to do it for himself. He is not my project. As a matter of fact, anybody who comes to me for support is not my project. I am here to support you on your taking care of yourself. And I'm supporting myself by taking care of myself. And I could see that so, so, so clearly in this situation, even though my heart hurt, even though there was a pit in my stomach that thought, wow, this may not turn out the way that my mind wishes that it would. But it might. And I want you to know that you can weather any storm, that you are held and supported and connected to your higher power who is there for you. And there for me. And my heart hurts because I thought we were done with this. And the other part of me thinks, you know, that naivety, that part of me that I actually love about myself that can be childlike and naive, allows me to love, allows me to let go, allows me to accept. But I won't stand for a life that's not full, and I won't stand for a life that's not full of honesty and integrity and peace and contentment. So this part of me that is grieving the truth that we are not on this journey together, that I can't say that our sober date I can claim mine and I can allow him to claim his. And I claim my life. I claim my happiness. I claim my soul journey. More than ever, I am determined to choose happiness and peace and inner contentment and to do this inner work that is about my journey. And through that, I can weather any of these storms, I can feel that connection of higher power. I can allow myself to really trust and believe that this journey that I'm on is mine to choose what I want it to be. On the last night of our trip, my mom stayed home and packed, and Rich said, You asked me not to drink in front of you, so I'm gonna go out and have my last drinks. And I said, I don't want us to be apart. And this is your journey, and I'd rather that we hung out together and had our last night in Mexico, and I'll give you a hall pass. And I watched him drink, and I was able to just be present, not get caught up in being angry, and be hopeful that those are the last ones. I don't know, that's really his to determine. And we had a lovely last evening, and he had a moment in there after a huge mango margarita where he was acting in ways that aren't terribly funny to me, but I could just let it be and I could remember that I have my strength of who I am, and I could see the man that I love and the man that I want to support. But I will not go down with his thinking ship if he chooses to go in that direction. But I'm not gonna, in the detachment words, create a crisis, and I'm not gonna prevent a crisis. I'm gonna let him be on this journey himself. And I'm gonna be on my journey of my own spiritual awakening that I have such gratitude for. We're in this together, all of us. Some of you have spouses, kids, brothers or sisters that are addicts. Some of you don't have addiction, but there's dysfunction or narcissism. We're all in this together, and just the reminder that we have each other in this community to continue to support and have inspiration and share, and that no one is without the difficulties of being human. None of us. All I can do is continue to have had my own spiritual awakening as the result of this inner work and such gratitude for that. So we'll see what happens. We'll see what happens. I am married to an alcoholic, and I am an alcoholic. I am grateful for my recovery, for my sobriety. I'm grateful for letting go of the codependency that he has to be a certain way for me to be okay, that I can let him have his own experience. I'm grateful for my healing. So we'll see what happens. I'll keep you posted. Together, we can do the work that will recover our souls. Thank you for trusting me to be part of your journey to recover your soul and being part of this incredible community. There's so much going on, and I hope that you'll get involved. First, I want to invite you to our free first Monday of every month support group from 6 to 7 p.m. Mount Time on Zoom. This is where we come together in community, meet in small groups, and connect on our Recover Your Soul journey. I'm so excited to announce that on April 13th, the long-awaited Recover Your Soul memoir around my walking the steps that created the Recover Your Soul process and how it profoundly changed my life from codependence, addiction, people pleasing, an unhappy marriage, an unhappy life to what I am living today, peaceful, happy, and free. I also would love to invite you to join me for the Friday Recover Your Soul bonus podcast, where you get an additional episode taking a deeper dive into this amazing restorative process. You can become a Patreon member or an Apple Podcast subscriber to receive over 200 past episodes and get a new episode every Friday. Free members on Patreon have access to listen to new episodes for the first week. And of course, I'm on social media and I'd love to have you follow Recover Your Soul on Instagram and Facebook and even join the private RecoverYour Soul Facebook community. If you enjoy Rev Rachel's meditations, I encourage you to follow me on Insight Timer for an entire catalog of guided spiritual meditations. All of this, along with ways that you too can work the Recover Your Soul nine-step process to healing and awakening, can be found on the website recoveryoursoul.net. And lastly, thank you for sharing this podcast and community with any friends or family that you think it would support their spiritual journey to healing and awakening. And those five stars and great reviews help us spread the word and increase the algorithm so we can reach even more people. Together, we can do the work that will recover your soul.