- Alcohol
- Friends & Family
Submitted by: Susanne Johnson
Susana was born in the USA, to a Columbian family. Her ex-husband is in recovery and will celebrate twenty years of continuous sobriety this year. She met him after he had been sober for a year. His mother is also in recovery and now has about 25 years of sobriety.
Susana’s ex-husband struggled with alcohol use but was unable to go to a treatment facility. They both attended 12-step programs and, with the help of their supportive church, they were able to reach a life of sobriety.
“I’m so proud of him. He is the father of my eleven-year-old daughter and she has never seen him as an active alcoholic,” says Susana.
Susana’s ex-husband has over 19 years of sobriety and still goes to meetings just as often as he did when he began his recovery process. He believes that individuals in recovery can’t stop going to 12-step fellowship just like they should never give up on having a support network. “No matter what happens, or how he feels, he always goes,” adds Susana.
The 12-step fellowship became part of Susana’s life, too. Being together with an alcoholic required her to learn. When they were first together, she attended open meetings with him to find out what it was all about. “I have learned a lot. Other members of my family should enter the recovery path, but they won’t go,” she adds. Some of her family members are still in total denial, thinking they don’t have a problem and that they can manage their drinking habits well. Others went to treatment, but the idea of a life in sobriety didn’t stick with them and they went back out into the world of high cost for a low living. They do make it to a year or two of sobriety in between, followed by a longer relapse until they try again. Susana is sure that it all happens only because they stopped going to meetings.
“My ex husband never stopped going to meetings and he was always fine. Once they stop going and associate with the wrong people again, it’s only a matter of time until they drink again,” she states.
Susana enjoyed going to meetings with her former husband. She believes that the 12 steps are not only good for people who suffer from an addiction, but they also have a lot of very good insights that anybody can apply to life. “We are all humans; we all struggle with something, even we struggle with different things,” says Susana.
She also points out that anybody can become an alcoholic so easily and that there is so much pressure in society to drink. She feels tired of giving explanations why she does not drink. Always people ask her, “why don’t you drink?” She wishes that a simple answer of “Because I don’t want to” would be good enough of an answer for anyone. She mentions that her cousin (who is also in recovery) kept telling her friends that she is taking medication that doesn’t allow her to drink alcohol—just to get people to stop asking.
During her marriage, Susana would not drink in the presence of her husband. She wanted to make it easier for him. But when she would go out with her lady friends, she sometimes had a glass of wine. Either way, she never cared much for drinks. In her opinion, t is not necessary to drink around an alcoholic.
They never had alcohol in the house, even at their wedding they toasted with apple cider and it was great. “The wedding was the important part that day, not what we drank in it,” she says with a smile.