Recognizing the Addict

When I met my husband, I understood that he was an alcoholic, because he told me. Actually, he told me that he had "had" a drinking problem, and had been through outpatient treatment. He told me all of the circumstances around his excessive drinking, which made perfect sense to me, as they were fairly extraordinary. Then I let myself believe that he no longer had a problem, even though the first months of our relationship were marked by his excessive drinking, until he got wise enough to effectively hide it from me.

Despite the fact that I am in a profession that has a lot of contact with alcoholics and addicts, I never thought I understood what addiction really was. In my family of origin I couldn't identify any addicts. My parents didn't drink or do any drugs. Yet, when I went to my first Al-Anon meetings, and listened to the other Al-Anons there talk about the craziness and secrets and darkness of their homes, I knew they were describing my home growing up. It was a big mystery to me. I didn't grow up with addiction and I didn't understand it, but why did I end up with an addict anyway?

I've been listening to some talks from a recent SA/S-Anon conference today on my iPod, and I heard some of the same things echoed in what the speakers shared. It occured to me that a lot of codependents seem to say the same things, if they didn't have a very obvious addiction in their home growing up: that they didn't "get" or recognize addiction. It is interesting to me how we are emotionally drawn to this thing in other people that we instinctively understand, even though we block our minds from consciously recognizing it. They say that there is always a reason that we as the codie/co-addict were drawn to our addict. It doesn't ever just "happen" and we DO "get" addiction on some level, because that is what we know. Even though I am fortunate that I do not have a compulsion to drink or take drugs or do (overtly) destructive behaviors to excess, there is a part of me that recognizes an addict and feels some harmony, perhaps in saving that person, or in trying to make the story end the right way this time.

One of the speakers at that conference said a lot of things that really resonated with me, and they were very simple. One thing she said was that it is okay to love a sex addict, because what another person does is not a reflection upon us. This is something that I really struggled with in the beginning with discovery and all the turmoil of a couple months ago. My husband was trying to start his recovery and begin putting his life back together, and he couldn't understand why I didn't want him to tell anybody that he had cheated on me. I tried to explain the profound shame that I felt in anyone else knowing that he had had affairs with other women, but I couldn't get it across very well. I very much felt that his actions, in his disease, were about me and were a reflection on me. Since then, I've learned through S-Anon and Al-Anon that it's not about me, that it never was. His acting out with other people didn't say anything about what I was like as a wife or lover or partner. It only spoke about him and his disease and how he felt deep down about himself. I didn't cause the acting out, or the disease, I couldn't control it, and I can't cure it.

This is still hard for me to accept sometimes. I am ashamed to admit that I still am fixated on certain qualities of the women that he had extended relationships with. I feel that they are less attractive, less fit, and much older than I am, and that this reflects on me: it shows that I am actually less attractive than I think I am, or that this is the kind of person he really wants to be with. All I can really say is that this belief of mine says a lot about me and my own insecurity. I don't know why my husband chose the people that he did to act out with. I have some theories, and my husband has been gracious in discussing them with me and even agrees on some points. But I have to learn to accept that the people he acted out with are a part of the disease, and the disease is not about me. They might say something about him and what he was thinking or trying to achieve by choosing the partners he chose, but they might not. And no matter what, they aren't any better or worse than I am, and they were acting from a place of pain as well, as was my husband.

I am so happy today to see a bit of progress in my own recovery, and to see progress in my husband. I am tremendously proud of the work that he is doing and proud that he is acting from the best parts of himself in trying to get better, the parts I always knew were there, the parts I fell in love with in the very beginning. In the times when we are able to have real heart-to-heart discussions about our recoveries and where we are right now in our lives, I see the man that I have always loved and I rejoice that he is there. It is okay to love a sex addict, and to be loved by one. I can love freely, without feeling shame that his actions in the past say anything about me or who I am, without feeling that I can't be with him because of the things that have happened in our relationship. I don't know what will happen tomorrow, but right now I have a lot to be thankful for.