I do not ever think anyone but an addict fully understands the disease of addiction but as a spouse of an addict there\u2019s a lot I have learned. Turbo runs in circles of sober people and has had to cut people out of his life to keep himself sober. I think sometimes this makes recovery\/sobriety too \u201cnice\/easy\u201d and I just received a phone call that made me realize that\u2019s not the case. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This might sound selfish but I did sometimes harbor bitterness towards Turbo. His addiction came before our marriage and family. During his rehab program, his rehab came before our marriage and family. Now, his on-going sobriety plans always come first. There are times I get frustrated that he gets hours away these days no matter what to work his sobriety program. His sobriety has to come before making dinner, helping get kids into bed, helping with homework, etc and while he pitches in when he can I am always aware that he needs to work his on-going program. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tonight was another night when our house was just off because of crazy schedules but Turbo had to leave when it was time. I got things together with the kids and tried to take some time to do something I enjoy and then I got an unexpected phone call. A family friend who is also in recovery called me tonight hysterically crying. I am not really the person he should have called but he could not reach Turbo and he needed help. His original mentor from his first home group had unfortunately accidentally overdosed and passed away. After calming him down, reminding him not to use\/drink and convincing him to find a meeting we got off the phone but two things about our call really stuck with me. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The first thing is this is a reality that could happen to my husband. He has the same disease as this person and is not immune to relapse. There is no guarantee that my husband would survive a relapse either and get a second chance, the person our friend called about did not get another chance. That person had multiple decades of sobriety and still managed to succumb to the disease of addiction. It was a good reminder for me that no matter how frustrating or inconvenient it is for me to make sure Turbo can fit his on-going recovery in our schedule, I need to do it. The same way Turbo cannot get complacent with his recovery\/sobriety I cannot think he has been cured or outgrown his disease. So the small inconveniences are worth it if it means Turbo can continue his recovery from this disease. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The second reality is how harsh addicts are judged. I understand the frustration with them first hand but when our friend called me tonight and told me why, it was another reality for me. Our friend said on the phone that I was the only person they could reach out to that would understand because \u201cno one cares when an addict dies and no one understands being upset about an addict dying.\u201d While I understand addicts have mothers, fathers, children, siblings, friends, etc that care about them, there is a lot of truth to what our friend said. Loved ones of addicts sometimes have to suffer in silence because of the stigma of addiction. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

We keep our struggles to ourselves or within protected circles because people judge us. We keep our sorrows and heartaches to ourselves because a lot of our feelings are dismissed or not understood. I\u2019m so thankful for my husband\u2019s dedication to his sobriety and his on-going programs. I am also aware that if he loses that dedication and focus then nothing stops our family from being another statistic. It would be so easy for our kids to lose their dad, and me to lose my husband. We also would not have much support because \u201che was just an addict.\u201d I really hate the disease of addiction and I hate that more people do not understand it.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I do not ever think anyone but an addict fully understands the disease of addiction but as a spouse of an addict there\u2019s a lot I have learned. Turbo runs in circles of sober people and has had to cut people out of his life to keep himself sober. I think sometimes this makes recovery\/sobriety … <\/p>\n

Read more “A Sobering Reality Of Sobriety”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[6,12,33,13,15,10,32,34],"class_list":["post-364","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-addiction","tag-drug-addiction","tag-no-one-cares-about-addicts","tag-recovering-addict","tag-relationships-with-addicts","tag-sobriety","tag-staying-sober-during-the-holiday","tag-the-pain-of-addiction"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sharingourrecovery.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/364","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sharingourrecovery.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sharingourrecovery.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sharingourrecovery.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sharingourrecovery.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=364"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.sharingourrecovery.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/364\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":365,"href":"https:\/\/www.sharingourrecovery.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/364\/revisions\/365"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sharingourrecovery.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=364"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sharingourrecovery.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=364"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sharingourrecovery.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=364"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}