For those with a WAS...How do you cope?

[Gardener]

Courts,

Gardener, if I may ask (and will totally understand if you don't want to answer), what made you change (you said you were there - buzzed)? And if someone (like your S) would have said something to you, how would you have reacted? What would have been the best way to talk you about it?

I changed due to several factors, First I admitted I was doing it (I grew up with an episodic binge alcoholic father and I swore that if I ever detected a problem in me, that would be it). Secondly, I had begun lying to my wife. She would come home from work, we would kiss and she'd ask if I had been drinking(?)" and I would say, "Sure, just poured us a glass of wine. Here's yours."(I was on my third). OR, "Did you just brush your teeth before dinner?" "Yep, I was cooking with garlic and ate some" etc, etc.
Third, one night I did get drunk. She came home and saw me. No hiding it. I owned up to what I had been doing and we both went for counseling the next week (thank God she agreed to come with me).

I will not knock 12 step programs because they do so much good for so many. However, it was not for me. I was turned off by the religiosity of it, even though I am religious man. I am also a capable and determined man and 12 step did not resonate with me because I did not believe I was "insane", "diseased", "powerless", or that "my life had become unmanageable," et cetera.
After much research I found Rational Recovery which, among many other insights and strategies, suggests that drinking irresponsibly is sometimes simply a case of "stupid behavior in a non-stupid person." That book and approach did it for me, thank God.
I quit Feb 6, '06. Never had a problem, an urge, a temptation, an uncomfortable moment or white-knuckle balls-out effort to stop. Never drank again. Never once missed it. Wish I had done it years earlier but like most things, my breaking point and finding that book came at the right time, in God's good time.

If wife had approached me earlier, I would have downplayed it, patronized her and said "Fine, I'll cut back." If wife had laid out a no-bull$hit hard-and-fast boundary, I probably would have said "whoa," and straightened out my act.

Over-answering as always, but that's the entire answer.

I asked that if he wanted to have a beer to wait until our DD went to bed. That way - he could have his beer to relax, my DD didn't have to see it, he wasn't drinking around her, he wasn't at all impaired around her and I knew if he didn't have a beer until 8:30pm or so that he wouldn't have a chance to have more than 1-2 or a night.

A good, beginning boundary. What are the consequences for violating it?

But, I know he thought it was another version of me trying to be a controlling biatch.

Tough. Who cares? Your home. Your call.

Onto a different topic. He sent me another text message with a sexual comment so last night I sent this, "u can get a flipping clue, dude. no man is gonna treat me the way u do & get sex! hello....R E S P E C T...find out what it means to 2 me." I was annoyed and I just snapped back at him. Don't know if I should have just ignored him or what.

That's what I always say, don't know, don't know, don't know. Ugh! Maybe I need to change that to - don't care, don't care, don't care.

Ignore him. Or reply (hours later) "No.", or post it on this forum and get the advice, insight and conviction you need here before replying.

Keep going.