Throughout addiction recovery, many external circumstances may interfere with your ability to maintain sobriety. If you are recovering from alcohol use disorder (AUD), such circumstances may be greater in number since drinking is often the center of social gatherings and celebrations. Further, if your spouse still drinks, you may feel triggered and tempted to reengage in alcohol use. While this situation is not ideal, your sobriety does not have to be the end of your relationship.
- If you’ve quit, can you stay with a partner who isn’t ready to get sober?
- Research has shown that addicts in early recovery are much more likely to be successful if they live in a sober space.
- When you feel triggered by others who are drinking, you must remind yourself that everyone is on their own healing journey.
- No two people are the same and substance abuse that has posed a problem in your life might be totally acceptable for your partner.
- While their external behavior may be very different, folks in early recovery have the same character flaws they had when they were using.
- The newly recovering person will almost certainly not want to meet at the bar after work, and most partners will understand this and adjust social activities.
When one spouse drinks, but the other doesn’t
According to 2018 research, supportive relationships with family, spouses, and sponsors help those working toward sobriety sustain their recovery. I’ve read about a 20 percent increase in divorce rate when abusive drinking is in play. But I’ve never been able to find statistics about the divorce rate of marriages when the abusive drinker is in recovery.
In couples and family counseling I am often asked, “What do I have to be careful not to do or say? I don’t want to push them back to drinking/drugging.” I’m quick to point out that affected others are not that powerful and that accountability doesn’t work that way. Sober people and their partners understand that sobriety isn’t a joint effort. The person not drinking is the one doing the work, and there are others best positioned to help them in this ongoing effort.
What Happens When You Get Sober, But Your Partner Doesn’t?
Once you set those boundaries, stick to them—boundaries have to be maintained. But of course, there will be times when it is most appropriate to move on from a relationship. In each case, it’s probably wise to seek out the guidance of family, close friends or trusted confidantes. It may be wise to take your time with the decision to leave. You’ll want to move forward with no regrets, and that might mean staying until you’re sure that you are making the right decision.
Your situation is not an uncommon one and plenty of treatment services offer options for counseling and mediation between couples whose problems center around substance use. If you’ve gone through treatment for addiction, you know that your environment and support network play crucial roles in your long-term success in sobriety. It’s a regular part of recovery to reassess your relationships in light of your new goals and set boundaries if you need to in order to protect yourself. This can be an uncomfortable but manageable process when you’re distancing yourself from friends who might be detrimental influences. However, it can be much more difficult to navigate if the unhelpful influence is your spouse or romantic partner.
The impact of recovery on a spouse
- Then, of course, there are some people who arrive in recovery convinced that their relationship is doomed.
- Because it’s hard to know what you need from anyone, even yourself.
- Marriage can be particularly challenging for anyone to navigate in recovery.
- When I came home from rehab, he had moved out of his own apartment and was now living in my apartment since he didn’t have a home of his own.
Some of us try to convince ourselves that things will be fine now that our loved one is sober. Yet, it’s important to consider this choice for the well-being and personal growth of both yourself and your partner. It might be time to leave your partner if their behavior jeopardizes your safety, well-being, and personal growth.
If you’ve gotten sober, you’ve probably already made it clear to your partner how seriously you’re taking your sobriety. The next period of time is going to present many changes for both of you. Your partner may see you differently and you may see their actions through a new perspective as well. Substance use can bring people together and once it’s removed from the equation, it can leave you feeling imbalanced. A therapist can help you learn more about the role you may have played in a codependent relationship and learn healthier patterns.
Questions About Online Suboxone Treatment, Answered
So it wasn’t until I got the strength to free myself of that relationship that I actually got sober,” Banks told HuffPost. One of the biggest challenges of having a spouse who is not sober is that you may feel like you’re always walking on eggshells. It can be hard to relax and enjoy your life when you’re constantly worried about im sober and my spouse is not marriage and sobriety what your spouse is doing or whether they will make it home safe.
The best thing to do is communicate honestly about what you need, with no expectations for them to change their behavior. Don’t stew in silent resentment while your partner drinks or gets high as usual, unsure if you should speak up. They might have no idea it’s affecting you or making you uncomfortable. So talk to them (when they’re not under the influence) about what you’re feeling.
Our recovering loved ones have the same fear we do – that they will return to using/drinking. The difference is that they have 100% control over whether they stay sober and we have none. The pitfalls for the affected other (people affected by a loved one’s drinking or drugging) are many. We hope that being clean will return them to the person we once knew. But she’s learned that his sobriety isn’t dependent upon her actions.
And I really viewed this moment of COVID as a time where I could quietly quit,” Royle told HuffPost. Leigh says that being in a relationship with Lee leads her to drink less, and she sees that as a positive overall. “If he did drink, I think potentially we would be drinking a lot more.
Communication Is Everything
I can only urge you to prioritize your own safety, health, and happiness, whatever you choose. Often when we’re using substances in an unhealthy way, we have unhealthy boundaries. Although it may be tempting to rationalize your partner’s substance use once you’ve gotten sober, keep your eyes firmly peeled for signs that it’s influencing your recovery. The last thing you need is to shoulder the burden of overcoming two addictions. You’re being in recovery doesn’t mean that you can magically heal them or fix their problems and to place that on you is setting you both up to fail.
Some relationships are unhealthy regardless of how much love and patience we throw at them. In these cases, we can find a way to leave without bitterness, and move on to something better. The Al-Anon family groups is a great place for the families of alcoholics or addicts to seek guidance and comfort. Many of us have found that getting sober and undergoing the transformation required to stay that way has led us to deeper and richer relationships than ever.
No matter how long your family has lived under the oppression of addiction, there are bound to be residual concerns, issues and feelings. The ONLY person who is responsible for drinking/drugging is the addict themselves. While their external behavior may be very different, folks in early recovery have the same character flaws they had when they were using.