The old cliché about addiction recovery is that an addict must accept that they have a problem before they can successfully get sober, and this adage has mostly stood the test of time. If the addict is not personally convinced that there is a serious problem and that treatment is necessary, any efforts to get sober will likely be short-lived and shallow.

If your spouse refuses to accept that addiction recovery is a necessary step, you may be feeling worn out and hopeless. But do not give up; there are things you can do to make your spouse see the light.

·       Change your tone: When your efforts to get your spouse to enter addiction recovery are continuously rebuffed, it may be tempting to take an increasingly pushy tone. Instead, back off a little and recommit yourself to the effort in a more loving and caring vein. Try to understand where your spouse is coming from, and address the issue from a sympathetic perspective.

·       Withdraw from enabling: Identify any habits that may enable your partner's addiction, and cut them out entirely. You do not even have to express your intention verbally. Use your actions to express that you will no longer accept the status quo.

·       Encourage general self-improvement: If the addiction has become a sore spot in the household, perhaps you can approach the problem in an indirect way. For example, is your spouse's addiction related to depression or stress? If so, encourage him or her to get help for this problem, and addiction recovery will likely follow naturally.

·       Plan an intervention: Interventions are often used as a last-resort effort to get an addict to seek treatment after all other methods have failed. If you have been the primary person trying to get your spouse into rehab, then you might want to get someone else—a close family member or friend of the addict—to take charge of the intervention. Plan with care, as these events must be handled perfectly.

I'm fine as long as I'm not at work, not in a grocery store, not passing a liquor store, not sitting in a bar or restaurant that serves beer, wine, liquor. What the hell man. I work in a bar. Liquor and beer stare me in the face on a daily basis. I don't think anyone around me knows just how hard it is to stay on this sober streak or whatever you want to call it. It sucks, it's hard and I don't want to do it. But, I'm doing it. I think I'm doing it more for everybody else right now instead of me. If it weren't for everybody else, I'd probably be really lost and lonely and drunk! Is that enough for me to stop?  Why is this so difficult? How can drinking a certain beverage make you,er, me so different? If I could just be different when I drank.... I've tried and tried and tried. I've tried not to drink too much, not to drink liquor, not to do shots, to drink to a minimum...it doesn't work and it ends up bad for me and everyone around me. I still don't know why my husband decided to marry me after all the hell I put him through by my drinking. The embarrassment, the fights, the belittling, the screaming, the hitting, the suicidal tendencies. I just don't know why someone would put themselves in a position to have to put up with that forever.  But he did and he's sticking by my side. I still don't think he knows how hard this really is for me, I've tried to tell him and I just don't think he gets it. It wasn't hard for him to stop so why is it so hard for me? I guess I have a problem and he doesn't or didn't. I don't know. I'm just bored, I'm always bored. I want to be entertained all the time. I think this is part of my depression as well, but it seems I'm always trying to come up with ways to maybe, maybe try to pull "it" off. I never go through with it because I don't want to let my husband, my daughter, my mom, my sister...you name it, down. Like I said, I think I'm doing this for everyone else right now. I want to do it for me, but I just don't have that desire for myself. I think, it'll be easier if I drink it away, it will be more fun if I drink, it'll make me feel better. I know all these things are just ways I'm trying to cope with quitting but it's always there, in the back of my mind.  I hate feeling this way. When is it going to get easier?

Throughout my drinking career, all I wanted to do is learn how to drink like a normal person. Everyday my morning coffee was accompanied by the usual "oh crap" as I began to vaguely remember the night before. The usually anxiety would set in as the committee in my head would start to review the tasks for the day. It seemed as if I would play out every possible situation and outcome of the day's events in my head before I even left the house. At this point I was faced with a dilemma; drink or white knuckle it until I got home. The problem was that if I gave in to that urge to drink, it was admitting to me that I was an alcoholic. This was a fact I didn’t want to come to, after all alcoholics live under bridges, don’t have families and certainly don’t hold a job like I did. I seemed to convince myself that I had another problem, anxiety. It would account for the shakes and the uncomfortable feeling I had until I got home and had that first taste of my good old friend Jim Beam.

Although I dint realize it early on, but my day was always filled with fear; not the kind where you hide under a desk waiting for the apocalypse, but the type of fear where you feel like the world is against you. If I only had more! More money, more friends, and more people who understood the stress I was under to provide for my family. They needed to understand that I was born with this seemingly bad luck. That fear of not fitting in or not being understood. Why was it so hard for everyone to see that my life is different from theirs, I was plagued by this unfavorable karma. Must have been something I did in another lifetime.

The night of my last drunk, I had reached that point where my actions exceeded my morality. The feeling of guilt, shame and remorse came almost instantly.  I’m not going to get in to what happened; I believe it's irrelevant considering we all have different bottoms. At the end of the night, I found myself sitting on the kitchen floor with a disposable razor i snagged from the hall bathroom. I made a few slices on my forearm and then I had this thought, it was an epiphany of sorts; I finally realized that everything was a direct result of my drinking. Not only the stupid things I did when I was drunk but everything. There was finally no one to blame anymore, the world was not against me. My friend of 20 years, Jim had leaded me on the path of destruction without even knowing it. My mind went blank at this point, as in I just could think anymore. Completely numb, I bandaged myself and fell asleep.

For three day I sat on the couch in what I can only describe as an emotional coma. I just could feel anything. I replayed the past 20 years in my head over and over. This was not new to me but this time I saw each situation in my life from a view outside of myself. I looked at my arms cut a dozen times with slices, not enough to reach an artery but enough to leave a scar. I don’t want to die; I just want the pain to go away.

Over three days I contemplated death and life, either choice would have to be final, I simply could not go on the way that I have. I knew that my neighbor went to AA meetings; I had experience with them 10 years prior. I slowly walked across the street and humbly asked her if she had a meeting schedule. With an "It’s about time" look on her face she was able to find one lying around here house. I turned to the page listed with meetings for Wednesday night and found one that was only a few miles from my home.

I don’t remember too much of my first 30 days but I will never forget my first meeting. The church that was kind of rural. I drove around the building until I can see people smoking and drinking coffee, this much I do remember from my past experiences of AA. The meeting was a campfire meeting in the middle of March. Still cold, there were only a few people there, maybe 5 or 6. The recognized my pain instantly as if I was a long lost relative. For the first time in years, I had a feeling of ease and comfort without taking a drink, I knew i was home.