Alcohol Erased Their Reality

And ours too…

From the current online Grapevine issue – “A Child of Woodstock”, additional validation of many years of my adult life. Similar thoughts had been expressed to me well after the divorce when I had seen my ex for the first time in many months. She didn’t appear to be the person I had known and I brought it to my sponsor. His explanation was quite close;

“What is relevant here, as I began to realize slowly in AA, is that it was alcohol that made our marriage possible for all the years we stayed together. We drank as our parents did, and liquor flowed into the fissures between us. It erased our reality. It cloaked our deep estrangement from each other and ourselves. It made deception and inauthenticity livable.”

My wife rarely drank and didn’t drink alcoholically (then). Alcohol had a profound and direct influence on her humanity through her family before me. I added new chapters.

The words that ring true for me in this lady’s sharing are the erasure of reality, deception and inauthenticity. Alcohol definitely does that, from my personal experience. The paths were not identical yet our reality wasn’t real, we deceived each other and we weren’t able to be authentic with each other. She might not see it the same way. The point is the level of damage alcohol brings to a relationship that had hope and wonder. Alcohol created hopelessness and bewilderment. Which, despite the amends, will always be part of that first “life.”

I must continue to remember that my God has graced me with a gift beyond my wildest imagination. He transcends all the earthly troubles. I am grateful.