Georgina's blog: Life After Rehab

Over the summer, my husband went into rehab and completed an intensive 28 day addiction treatment programme for alcohol dependency.

Did I really just type that?

I genuinely struggle to believe it sometimes. He’s the last person I’d ever expect to accept the benefits of therapy, let alone to turn away from drinking.

Alcohol has been a problem for so many years. He has always been the life and soul of a party, often the tipsiest person in the room, never the designated driver.

But over the last few years, the problem has moved from a social one to a private one. Hidden drinks when my back was turned. Bottles under sofas, behind bookcases, in coat pockets. It was a dirty secret, my secret. A constant knot of anxiety in my stomach, pricks of tears at the betrayal of it all, suppressing the upset in case it angered him, getting on with life. Seemingly endless lies and broken promises.

After years of pain and then months at crisis point, finally I hit my limit of what I could handle. It had to be over. I couldn’t, wouldn’t continue like this any longer. I drew my line in the sand and stuck to it. Held my ground.

Finally, it was rock bottom. I thought we’d been there so many times, but no, onwards we had to go, until I was at my lowest. At last he went to rehab.

For him, it was absolutely amazing. Life changing. The penny seemed to drop quite quickly and I could hear a difference in the way he spoke on the phone. 5 hours of therapy a day, AA meetings every evening for 28 days. He recounted his life story to his peers, analysed his behaviour, his triggers, the toxic narratives that justified his addiction in his own mind, the impact it had had on others. He was psychologically stripped bare and then rebuilt.

For me, it was an odd time. I didn’t feel the instant relief I thought I would. I worried that he’d fight the process, that it wouldn’t work. About what life would be like when he returned: how long would I need to give it this time? It took me about 2 weeks to allow myself relax, to start to uncoil the tightly wound spring inside me. I slowly started to trust that he was safe and finally getting the help he needed. I was so busy handling ‘life’ but without the backdrop of alcohol: worrying, planning, suppressing.

I was asked how his behaviour affected me, and I wrote a letter explaining. It was very cathartic. I was taught: I didn’t cause this problem, I can’t cure it, nor control it. The three Cs. It’s hard to accept this and I still remind myself most days.

We’re now nearly 3 months post rehab. At first my walls were strong and high: how could I let this man back into my life? I was braced and ready to be let down again. I knew he’d start out strongly, proud of everything he’d learnt. But what about when real life kicks in, when something frustrates him?

Very slowly, I’m daring to let my walls come down, to believe that these changes are for life and that they are working. Without alcohol, life is good. He’s a good man. A wonderful father. A loving husband. Finally part of our family ‘team’. He has to work hard every single day to stay on track but he’s doing it. Life isn’t perfect, he wobbles sometimes and I find myself panicking, being triggered by small things, but it’s all normal and to be expected. We’ve been through a trauma.

From such a hopeless place, we have found light. A glimmer of light that grows, one day at a time.