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My WH and I were having a conversation last night about his affair. A little back story: Caught him cheating with COW a year ago this August. I immediately kicked him out and got a lawyer. He trickle truthed me for months until I met with the COW and got more info. He got a new IC and starting making progress and sees the IC regularly. He moved back in and things are ok. He appears to be getting it and owning it. Time will tell.....

He is a recovering alcoholic. Throughout the years, jobs were affected, some attempts at stopping, going to AA and no changes. In the fall of 2014, he almost died from drinking. He was in ICU for a couple of days then in the hospital for a couple more. He quit drinking cold turkey that day. Pretty much if he drinks again, he could die. But, he never got help for why he drank so much. Fast forward to a job change/demotion in late 2015, early 2016 and his affair with the COW starts in December of 2016.

I guess I am wondering if not addressing the issues that led to him drinking so much were not dealt with, was the "high" of having an affair like being drunk? I have a friend who is in recovery an actively works AA and she has indicated that a lot of times recovering alcoholics become addicted to something else. Porn, cigarettes, coffee, etc. He is working through this with his IC, and I am not looking to make excuses for him at ALL, just curious if anyone else has been in a situation like this. I know massive amounts of drinking rewires the brain and does having an affair hit those old drunk pathways? And another curiosity for me, I wonder what the percentages of otherwise decent people who are recovering addicts end up chucking one vice for another and does the pattern repeat over and over or is there ever a complete stopping of the addictive behavior?

Thanks for bearing with me. Not sure if I am making sense and conveying the thoughts running through my head!

WW here. Being an addict for me was about avoiding pain, numbing or a great distraction for what ailed me. I often self medicated with other people including the OM. I have to stay vigilant to make sure I don’t get addicted to something else. BH does worry about this too. I had other soft addictions but they did cause damage to my family (think being online for 6 hours straight).

The cure for me was to find healthier ways to cope when life sucks or doesn’t go my way.

Reeling,

I am in this boat right with you. My WW is a recovering alcoholic and drug user. Only difference is that she had her A with someone from AA. She totally did switch addictions. We are both in IC and MC and she is working on her "whys" for her A. You are not alone and I'm sorry you are going through this.

It's tough on the brain to be sure. Can you both find something to be fascinated in together? I read that people who do a sport together or anything that produces the feel good brain chemicals will create a bond.

Laughing, eating, sex, sports, having a shared passion and goals.

Try and get his body some TLC with plenty of water every day and fiber and sleep. If your body gets fiber, sleep, water and no excessive calorie intake , your liver can start healing from the damage. After your liver gets healthy, good things start to happen. The body will start clearing out stored fats and toxins. People feel better, their mood improves, the brain engages it's critical thinking areas. When your body is poisoned, your poor brain is running on survival mode. How can you make good choices in survival mode?

Resisting bad choices that yield instant gratification takes dedication. There has to be a reason higher than the self to keep you on target. Can he tell you his motivation and then you both celebrate x months of progress and milestones? Reward a year of sobriety from any addictions with something special? The brain loves rewards.

There are definitely some possibilities there.

I recently read that people with depression often seek out affairs, drugs, and alcohol because they are in pain and they are desperately trying to get out of pain. I can see something similar for dry drunks.

To be honest, though, this is your WH's responsibility to figure out and to ameliorate -- that's why he is in IC.

Thank you all for your comments. My WH is classic non-confrontational, avoid everything and it will go away kind of guy. I think he gets it honestly as his parents are the stiff upper lip kind.

Root, I believe you were able to verbalize what my husband thinks and feels, but has a hard time expressing. (BTW, were you a Person of Interest Fan? ~~ Root?) Are you like my husband that when life appears to be going well that you do something to sabotage it? It appears from our history that he does. When I mentioned it to him, he recognizes it, but doesn't understand the why of it yet.

JeffRuss, I am sorry you are in this boat with me. It is definitely a hard hit to think your WW was working on bettering herself and your life together, recognizing the damage she has done, and she turns around and blows up your world.....

Affairs stem from an inability to cope with whatever bad feelings are going on inside. Instead of cheating, the wayward could have started:

Gambling

Shopping

Drinking

Smoking

Popping pills

Running

Working

Cutting

Starving

Vomiting

Not joking about the running. I have friends about to divorce over the 25 hours the H is out running every week. He won't stop. He can't stop. And she has had it--he's an absentee husband.

Unless someone addresses the underlying pain and inability to self-soothe or properly cope, a different poor coping mechanism will eventually emerge.

Are you like my husband that when life appears to be going well that you do something to sabotage it? It appears from our history that he does. When I mentioned it to him, he recognizes it, but doesn't understand the why of it yet.

I don't know about Root, but my WH absolutely does this. The happier he is and the better things are going, the bigger the sabotage. And yes, he's an addict. Drugs, alcohol, collecting things, shopping, porn, apparently escorts for a time...totally an addict in just about everything he does.

He was okay for a time, but when he's not working on recovery, he's screwing up somewhere. And lord help everyone if life is going really well. That's when it really hits the fan.

I actually know a lot of recovered/recovering alcoholics and the overwhelming majority of them are painfully honest about their shortcomings and their pasts and the horrible things they've done.

NONE of them (except one guy) had cheated on their spouses during their active years of drinking or in their ongoing subsequent years of sobriety.

I think it's a convenient excuse, in my opinion. People cheat because they want to, and because they chose NOT to resist temptation when the opportunity arose. There are TONS of people who cheat and they aren't alcoholics - yet, they made the same exact choice your husband did. What are all THEIR excuses?

I'm just saying, cheaters use the old alcohol excuse for everything they CHOOSE to do. Put the accountability where it belongs - on his shoulders alone, not on the booze bottle.

I am a betrayed partner and a recovering alcoholic.

In my recovery it has surprised me how similar the behavior patterns are between my alcoholism and my partners’ infidelity. I used any excuse and lie to continue my shitty behavior. Im happy, drink. Sad, drink. Tuesday? Drink. Let’s drink together. Piss me off, I’ll drink at you alone. And you would of too if you walked in my shoes. You see, I have ptsd. Doc told me so. So I’m going to drink. If only I could treat the ptsd, the root causes of it, dig really deep and find out the whys of why I drink, then I could stop.

Or maybe as I’ve discovered that’s all bullshit, not everyone with ptsd idrinks, and I drink because I’m simply an alcoholic. And maybe this personal exploration isn’t really going to do a damn bit of good. Stop looking in at myself to fix the problem. Start looking out. After all, I am the problem. I want the world to see how hard I reflect on myself and my behavior, to judge me by my intentions. Meanwhile, I’m really judged by my actions. And my actions say I am an alcoholic.

As I now think it is with cheaters. Lots of people have bad marriages, not all of them cheat. Lots of people have unmet emotional needs. Not all of them cheat either. Shitty behavior is shitty behavior. Knowing all the whys in the world doesn’t do anything to change it. What does do something to change it is, amazingly, changing it.

Incidentally I don’t buy the addiction analogy. I’ve gone through withdrawal. Have experienced a kindling effect. Been hospitalized, hallucinating, and placed on drugs to prevent delirium tremens more than once.Its abject misery and life threatening. That’s addiction. Going cold turkey from an affair doesn’t even compare.

Where they are similar is a obsessive/compulsive mental state that perpetuates shitty behavior. So ya, I think he’s picked a another opportunity to demonstrate shitty behavior. Now he’s an alcoholic and a cheater. I think the solution is the same.

[This message edited by doin just fine at 12:33 AM, July 20th (Friday)]

Hi Reeling,

For sure alcohol fueled my A. My A fueled more alcohol. Sometimes it definitely feels like all these addictions can get intertwined and feed off each other.

I was able to redirect my stoooopid behavior thanks to an angel that was with me when I crashed and burned. Sometimes just hitting bottom is needed before real change can happen. I think some men are just especially hard wired to act in ways we know is counterproductive to our well being. Why, I'll never know. Sometimes we just never grow up.

No Mercy, my WH hasn't blamed his affair on being a recovering alcoholic. My post was me wondering aloud if there was a correlation of not working after his near death experience on what drove him to drink so much and if those reasons made him choose to have an affair. And I am with you on that he had a choice. And he sure as shit did not choose wisely that's for damn sure. I am happy that he is doing that now with his IC, but I do wonder why it had to take him so long to figure out he needs help. And trust me, this jury is out on if IC will work and teach him what he needs to make smart choices in the future.

Lucky77, I thought almost dying from drinking was the bottom for him. I think now he has reached it and sees how far down he had gone and appears to be genuinely puzzled on how he got there. He is working on it and I hope he gets it. I've always been the "fixer" in my little family unit and the one thing this whole debacle and therapy for myself has taught me is that I cannot control the outcome and if he wants to change, he will put in the hard work and do so. So far, I see progress, but once bitten, twice shy.

Your husband is not a recovering alcoholic.

I'd start there.

When your husband starts actively doing things to not THINK like an addict, like going to AA, working his steps with a sponsor, and really going to IC, then he'll be a recovering addict.

Sobriety does not equal recovery.

I'm married to a (recovering) sex addict.

I think the term "recovery" is pretty loosely used, and not always used correctly. I would not consider an addict who is just switching what they use to get high to be in recovery. Because getting high actively isn't recovery.

My husband is 43, and likely been getting high for 30 years, now. He was the equivalent of a dry drunk the first time around. Now I think he gets it. He has not chosen to use something else to escape, to get high, to numb himself.

That said, alcoholism runs in his family, and he's always been super careful about that. We don't have the money or means to procure drugs. He's not a smoker. He's a saver, so I don't have to worry about gambling.

So. I don't think my husband will move on to something outside of sex addict. But, he also has plenty of ways for his addiction to escalate...so

Yes, if he is a dry drunk and not working toward recovery, he is likely moving to a new high. Many cheaters do the same thing; white knuckle being faithful. They stay faithful until it’s too much or find a new a high. The cheaters on SI are the rare birds looking to change, and even the ones here are not often successful.

My STBXWH is an alcoholic and a sex addict. The sex addiction came first with porn, then alcoholism when he could legally drink, then the sexual acting out. He avoids conflict and has pretty serious self esteem and anxiety issues.

In his mind, the best ways to calm the internal pain is to make himself feel good for a few minutes. I.E. getting buzzed/drunk and having sexual encounters of various forms.

I do not recommend staying or even trying to work things out with someone who isn’t willing to address their self destructive tendencies. AA isn’t enough if there is a secondary addiction, as some addictions either fuel the others, or lack of first substance causes the secondary addiction morph into something far worse than the original addiction.

[This message edited by CurseBreaker at 7:50 PM, July 20th (Friday)]

After she told me about the affair I turned to alcohol to cope. As a person that is heavily into clean eating and wellness I had never been much of a drinker before but I lost myself for months. I drank almost every day, usually to the point of drunkenness. It seemed to be the only thing that dulled the pain, but I didn’t realize I was actually creating another problem for myself.

I lost my job and probably emotionally scarred my son. I became extremely depressed and suicidal and actually ended up temporarily institutionalized. It was the best thing that could have happened to me. The program helped me address my depression as well as the drinking. Before the affair I had been through a lot of life problems and survived them and considered myself to be strong enough to handle pretty much anything. I used to think therapy was stupid and only for people who didn’t have inner strength to solve their own issues but I was very wrong. I was well on my way to developing a serious drinking problem but now I have things under control. Instead of downing glass after glass of something that will destroy my liver I go for a long run or use my punching bag or pray or do some yardwork. I refuse to go down that path again.