Hello to all that may read this. I couldn't decide which forum to put it in. It is a little long, so many will skim or pass, but that is absolutely fine. The main reason I am typing it out is for the healing. I don't really care if anyone reads it actually. One could consider it selfish, but others will know what I mean.

It is my story of the pain and misery of infidelity, addiction and alcoholism.

I started drinking and drugging when I was 12. I recently came to the realization that part of the reason for my early drug/alcohol use was that I was sexually abused one night when I was 10 by a family member. I've been clinically diagnosed with depression.

I had no soul it felt to me as a kid and throughout like. I was empty inside. Didn't believe in God, didn't believe in anything except drugs and the fake friends they bring around. For awhile I just assumed the closest thing to God was Jimmy Page and went through a period of believing his riffs were made only for me as the blotters kept "working their magic" before the ludes were finally swallowed to stop the magic for another day over and over and over.

Suicidal at times. I remember the first time I really thought it'd just be for the best to check out was when I was 15. I was just too scared to pull it off. I likened it to wanting to try sky-diving but afraid of leaving the plane.

Fast forward 30 yrs later and thousands upon thousands of dollars spent on drugs, alcohol, mental wards and court costs...

My soul felt long dead. Who was this God fella everyone keeps talking about? I still sought spirituality in a bottle of spirits and nowhere else knowing I would never find it but at least I could forget about it.

I found myself married with child.

My wife of 10 years, friend and lover of 13 years, stood by me during the roughest of times. I went from 1993 to 2000 in a "dry drunk" state. I quit drugging and drinking, but did not find AA/NA. Did not find spirituality. I tried to do it on my own, couldn't understand why life remained miserable even while "sober". I realize now I was not sober during that time, just wasn't supplying the chemicals to alter the natural chemicals and electricity already in my brain as I'd been doing for so long. I hadn't learned yet how to live at the age of 42.

I was still that same 15 yr old afraid of sky-diving.

Then at the beginning of this year, I found out my wife had an affair last year.

I became self-righteous.

Angry.

Resentful.

I realize now I'd always been those things; Angry, resentful, and even worse, self-righteous, but now it was tenfold.

I spent the next seven months verbally abusing her. Not letting her sleep. Refusing to understand the pain I had caused HER after so many years of neglect. I had stripped her of her womanhood within a decade. I refused to realize she'd stayed with me for years being faithful, hoping I would heal myself, hoping I would be her husband. I know for fact, in a way that proves 100% it was her first affair, yet I considered her a ****** ****** that did something to me. ME, why ME??? I asked over and over and over. I hadn't done anything wrong to YOU! I hadn't slept with other women. I was in the house every SINGLE night!!

This is what I shouted inches from her crying face not even understanding, or more aptly REFUSING to understand I was indeed continuing a 30 yr affair with chemicals and booze. She'd been betrayed long before I was. When drunk, I didn't feel alone. My wife didn't have that option.

I used her affair as an excuse to sink lower than ever. Two trips to ICU, jail and institutions within the first seven months of this year.

At exactly 30 days sober, I relapsed 3 times while attending AA. My anger had subsided at my wife. I began to realize her pain because I began to read and educate myself on myself. I looked deep within for the first time ever and knew deep down inside my wife was not like the former wayward wife of a normal man; Sometimes...maybe all the time, there is no excuse. But the wife of an active alcoholic can only begin to understand what the wife of an active alcoholic lives with...day by day. One day at a time.

I cannot judge wayward people now. I cannot judge anyone. Who can?

I became wayward myself during the midst of reconciling with my wife. I became that split person again that AA was finally drilling into my head to stop being; Living two lives and hiding one of them.

I honestly don't think it was for revenge or grudge or whatever it's called. I believe I did it to one last time wrongly try to fill the void. The Void I now believed my wife widened with her affair. But how could a one night stand with a loose woman fill any void? I didn't spend enough time asking myself that as I hit yet the next 30 day sober mark walking into the store for the vodka I knew I would need in order to complete the dirty deed. Once again I had started the insanity circle, I couldn't do it sober, so how could the vodka and a woman who only wanted sex, sex with any man, fill my void?

I woke up in a sleazy motel room off the interstate and left her there and slithered back to my car like the greasy snake I was. Drinking the remaining vodka in the hospital parking lot, I checked myself into Detox. I knew my life was over. My wife...I looked at the cell phone missed calls list, then at the hospital doors, then at the phone. I called her sobbing like a baby and told her what I did. I knew it would only be a matter of time before she found out because of the credit card and more so because when she saw me, she would know. Drunks are good liars, but I couldn't pull this one off by any chance.

I felt like such a hypocrite. I felt vile. Worthless. I thought about sky-diving.

They take your shoestrings so you won't try to choke yourself when they admit you. I remembered that from last time. I looked down and realized I was wearing the same shoes as last time I walked through those doors. Bad deja-vu. I called my sponsor and then went inside for 5 days knowing when I came out my life as I knew it was over. No wife, no job, no home.

But not more than two weeks later, I still have all three as of today. I am beginning to understand that what some people may regard as coincidence others may regard as destiny. I'm starting to realize something out there, some force, makes the leaves fall to the ground only to grow back again.

I realize now I was a locomotive laying track down in front as I sped 100 miles along in waiting to crash. I finally hit my rock bottom and I'm trying to climb back up. I realize how lucky I am to have such a wonderful, FAITHFUL wife who loves me after all I've done.

I think I'm starting to live and might just make it after all. A doctor, he told me, next time you come visit us, come as a visiter and share with the patients to help them see what you see now. Remember the phantom itching foot of the amputee I told you about? Remember that next time you feel the need to "scratch".

Thanks for letting me share.

Wow, powerful story. How long have you been sober? Are you and your W in MC? What a wonderful gift God gave you in a wife that would stand by you. Is she attending Ala-non? If not please encourage her to do so. I would also recommend "Codependent No More" by Melody Beattie for your W to read.

Eldente,

Thanks for sharing. Life for you seems to have been a very bumpy road.

I am glad you realized in time what you have, and have a chance to appreciate it, 'before' losing it!

Some are not as lucky.

If posting and sharing here will help in anyway, you can count on our support.

Thanks for sharing. It's amazing that after all that you are making it.

Your tale tells of a lifetime of struggle, and reward.

I don't know you, and I don't know your W, but she must really be an amazing person.

She saw something in you, and held on for it to shine it's light, and now it has.

Be careful of those demons, they are around every corner. But you sound as you've been through enough to realize how fragile, and how precious life is.

Best of luck to you and your family.

Hi again.

Yes my wife is a wonderful woman and I am very lucky/grateful, I can now even use the term "blessed" with ease without it feeling fake, to have her as my wife. Especially after I did the most vile thing ever. She forgave me before I even got out of that hospital, and I know it was true forgiveness and not relief from her own guilt. I hurt her bad doing what I did, having that one night stand. If I think about it too much...it can really bring me down to my knees.

But, I know the past is the past and I cannot change it, I can only be the husband she needs from here on out. The greatest thing is she knows this too.

One thing I have learned now, is that FWS pain is REAL and just as bad as the BS pain. I hurt more now as a FWS than I did as a BS. I cannot believe she is so much stronger than I, for I raged on many a month when I found out about her six months with the OM before I truly forgave her. I now understand what she felt like in that, it is very hard giving up the details, but she did. She told me everything I wanted to know and a lot of it hurt. I drove for miles crying in cars thinking of the mental images for several months. Couldn't listen to music, because never before had I realized how many tales of infidelity lay within the lyrics.

I know my story is a bit different than most, because of the addictions, but I wish the BS could understand more easily the truly remorseful WS pain. It is incredibly strong. So strong.

My sister has a neighbor, she found out he was a recovered alcoholic with over 20 years sobriety, because she broke down in front of him and his wife and told them about me. This was during a time when I had stopped breathing and had to spend 24 or so hours on a breathing machine in ICU. My family didn't know whether I was going to make it.

Later, this neighbor of my sister's invited me to a closed AA meeting where a small group of men have well over 100 years sobriety combined in the room. I would have considered it a simple coincidence at one point in my life, meeting someone like him who has shown me others like him, but now I believe it is something far more. This group of alcoholics have been teaching me things that all the therapists before never could.

There is no coincidence in that. That man is my sister's neighbor for a reason I now understand.

I am very happy for you. You are truely blessed to have a wife like yours. I am glad you have found your way. It is better to find it lae than not at all. Keep strong. You should be proud of yourself. I am sure your wife and child have missed you very much.