Through years of sober experience, good and bad, he learned about love, faith and sharing the fun
Relationships are hard. I’m not sure if they are harder for alcoholics, but they certainly aren’t easier.
My first day of sobriety was the day after a very messy Valentine’s night [see Doug’s February 2014 story, “My Messy Valentine”]. The relationship I was in ended, but soon after, we got back together. That had happened many times before, but this was it. This last run together lasted for the first few months of my sobriety. As I stated, to get a clear head, with the help of people in the rooms, I finally realized that our relationship was not working. Eventually we separated. Now I was alone. With no girlfriend and no drinking buddies to hang out with, I started working on the hardest relationship of them all, the one with myself. Thankfully I took the advice I heard in the rooms and gave myself a year to work on me.
Soon after that breakup, a friend from my AA meeting asked me what I was doing for Labor Day weekend, which was coming up. He mentioned that there was a sober camping trip in the mountains of Pennsylvania and that I should come. At that time I was so scared to try new things, so I told him that I had plans for that weekend. But after I kept seeing him at other meetings, he convinced me to go.
And I’m so glad I did. On that trip I met people from all walks of life. In the past I used to change the way I acted, or even the way I dressed depending on who was hanging out with. But on this trip I started to realize that if I just be myself, people will like me for who I am and not who I’m trying to be.
During my first year, I began to mend other relationships in my life. I worked for our family business, so I started becoming a better son, brother and employee all at the same time. I came to work on time, worked hard and didn’t complain. I became a better uncle by showing up for my nieces’ and nephews’ birthdays and soccer games. I became a better friend as well. I helped people move, walked their dogs, showed up when their band played and went to their art openings. AA taught me how to show up. Some of these friends I met in sobriety have become my closest and dearest. We have had many adventures along the way and hope to have many more.
Since I had been single for over a year and my other relationships were in good standing, I started dating. My first relationship in sobriety was with another sober alcoholic. This lasted for a few months, but I broke it off because there was just too much drama. Before I got sober, my relationships were surrounded with drama. A lot of that was probably my fault. When I started to sober up and work on myself, I became less attracted to the drama. I dated around both inside and outside of the rooms for a while. I even got legally married to someone so they could stay in the country and we could continue to be together. Four out of five of my groomsmen were men I met in my meetings. After a few years together, that marriage ended up not working and we went our separate ways.
After that relationship, I realized that I had changed in many ways. When I looked back at the first 10 years of my sobriety, I realized that I didn’t owe any of these women amends! Sure, there were plenty of mistakes made, but I had righted those at the time. I was having relationships with people and not causing any real harm. Something was working. I was finally learning from each relationship and growing as I tried to be a better person.
About nine years ago, I went on a date with someone who I really connected with. At first it didn’t seem like we had that much in common, but we got along really well, and we had fun together. The main thing I learned from my earlier marriage was that two people in a relationship need to have fun together. Without that, it’s hard to make it work. She and I had so much fun together and still do. We went from dating to living together, and eventually we got married. Even though I have done a lot of work on myself, and my wife has also, we realized that relationships are hard and ours is no exception. We are constantly working on ourselves and trying to make our relationship better every day.
The most difficult part so far happened fairly recently when we started trying to have children. This put a huge toll on us as a couple. We tried almost everything available, but nothing seemed to work. The roller coaster of emotions from month to month was extremely difficult to bear. We tried to have faith that everything was going to be alright as we bounced from hopeful to hopeless so many times. After several years of this, we decided to put our focus on adopting. We joined a program, got a lawyer and did all the paperwork. We got cleared and were ready to adopt. Shortly after that, she and I went on a six-week cross country trip in a van that I built. A few days after we got home, we found out that my wife was pregnant!
In April of this year our daughter was born. Now I have the opportunity to work on a new relationship—the one as a father. I know that I will make mistakes along the way. But thanks to AA I’m sober and I’ve spent the last 20 years of my life working on being the best person I can be. I also have an amazing group of family and friends (both in and out of AA) who will help and support us along the way. So far, being a husband and father has been an amazing experience. I can’t wait to see what’s next.