For enjoying a glass of wine again

You’re welcome.
I’m deliberately not reading any other posts on your thread because I know the spiel.
People don’t see many non AA/ NA people because we just get the fuck on with it, and no one tends to believe there is any other way other the extremes the acronyms offer.
Balance in all things if you can. If you can’t , it’s your responsibility to find what works. And if that’s AA, great !

(Have a look, if you haven’t at a book called Chasing the Scream by Jonathan Hari. It offers alternate perspectives along the lines of what I am saying and what you are as well. )

good luck.

this, said much better than I did

I’m 4 years sober and this post resonates so much with me.

OP, you’re still thinking like an alcoholic. Bored, lonely, sad? Alcohol will make things better!

I wouldn’t throw away a good, long term relationship and sober life for a few glasses of wine.

well true but the OP has to decide if she will accept that that means the relationship is over.

His sobriety is his responsibility. Nothing to do with you.

Absolutely this.

Once and alcoholic, always an alcoholic.

It seems your husband is the only one of you who understands this.

Nothing about you is cured. It’s just been dormant.

Have the zero alcohol versions of the drinks you like.

But not all.

I think 4 glasses of wine every week as a minimum is quite a lot. Drinking occasionally on a night out sounds a reasonable compromise but it’s not magically going to make you happy and the fact you think it is does sound like you have a worrying relationship with alcohol.

I am a recovered addict.
But I am not one that advocates for or has ever attended NA. Don’t agree with the tenets, the higher power or endless recounting use horror stories like a dry drunk high. I have never had issues maintaining control over my sobriety for over thirty years. So I am not going to beat you with a “ once an alcoholic…if you need alcohol….if you can’t have fun with out…” . They’ve all been said or will be. You know you now, or you should, if this is a problem for you. If not, do some more therapy.

BUT.

I also accept that for some folk sticking to the path, the culture and the lifestyle AA/ NA offers becomes a very necessary thing to navigate life. Your OH ‘s behaviour on alcohol sounds enough to have firmly fixed his path, and if he was a violent drunk - good on him. He’s probably justifiably scared of what would happen if he slips. And maybe you should be too.( don’t know, but worth considering).
But it’s more than a choice for some. AA and its tenets become a religion and that religion has rules. I think this is what you are seeing here. He’s watching you drink very closely- waaaay to closely and I would bet big money this is not about you, but out of concern for his own hold on his sobriety.
( did he ever do independent therapy aside from AA ?- sometimes people don’t and they should).

If this was seen as not being about policing you, but holding onto his own alcohol free space - I’d stop at home completely if you want to remain married to a sober non- violent individual. And do some marriage counselling or private counselling to get to the cause of why you are posting. There’s a problem here, I just think your odd drinks here and these are masking it.

x

firstly I don’t know if you have an issue with alcohol but I think you need to take a big step back and be honest if you do.
if you have an issue with alcohol none of this thread matters really because that is the thing you need to look at with an honest eye just like you did all those years ago
I’m someone who had an issue years ago when my life was very different and difficult so stopped for a while but for the last 20 years has been able to drink usually half a bottle of red on a sat night with dinner without it being a problem or to excess which may be similar to you but maybe not. If I was using it as a crutch or it became a more regular occurrence I’d immediately stop again. I even al these years later keep an eye on myself just in case.

Let’s take drink out of the equation for a second. You seem to have used this a way to gain confidence to change things that you weren’t happy with but I don’t necessarily see it as the only issue.

you felt lonely and isolated but now you don’t because you have made changes in those areas but you seem to be equating the most recent changes in your happiness with the alcohol but isn’t it actually the being out or socialising and connections to friends and family again? If you had these things without the alcohol would you still feel the need for the alcohol.

to cover other areas mentioned.

its your choice to drink but it’s just as much his choice to not want to be around it so you have to decide what you want more or you BOTH need to decide a rule that lands somewhere in the middle like you can have a glass when out with friends but not in the house with him or something.

holidays, again he shouldn’t have to be forced to be around it but equally if you fancy a cocktail in the sun you should be able to have it but does that need to be a holiday with him? Could you do a break once a year with your children or friends instead?

ultimately though I see the problem is that you married an alcoholic as a sober person and now you have significantly changed the goalposts.
he thought things were one way and now they are in fact the opposite so he within his rights to not want to be associated with that.
the other side though is that this is your life and you should be able to live it however you want but that might mean the consequences of that is that you don’t have a marriage anymore.

can I ask though @Funnierthantheaveragemum taking this specific issue out of it are you happy in your marriage? Is this actually a symptom that things with you both are not ok and if that’s the case is there a way for you both to work on things together (because it does take two people to make a marriage work) so you both are happy together again?

This. "I think you may be unconsciously relying on the old faithful booze that your brain remembers so well, you're romanticising it and seeing it as a solution to your problems. When in fact, what's in your glass doesn't define you, you can be sociable and happy without it and you may just need to look at your relationship."

I don't think its the amount. I think its the OP's comment that stopping drinking sacrifices her own happiness. I think the OP needs to get clear in her own mind whether its her life with her partner...the being left alone while he does his own thing and the not socialising at home.....or the not drinking as a separate issue, that is making the OP unhappy. I am speaking from the outside. I don't have an issue with alcohol and never have but my husband had a job where for months at a time he couldn't drink alcohol for safety reasons. We were in a situation where no alcohol was available so i didn't drink either. When we returned to the UK for leave, then we enjoyed alcohol but our relationship didn't change. I suspect that alcohol is neither the problem not the solution here.

I'm an alky and haven't drunk for two years, so way less sober time under my belt than you so I don't want to come across as patronising. I think that I could probably moderate. For a while. But moderate drinking would awaken the old familiar neural pathways, the dopamine rush will slowly but surely shut the dopamine receptors down until I'm back to drinking at the levels I was before to get the same rush. Fat, depressed, ill, anxious, ruin everything I've achieved. I don't think anyone can resume normal drinking after problem drinking because the brain never forgets the pleasure that alcohol brings. All the hard work I've done to rewire my brain will be undone. I don't think it matters whether you've been sober for three years or thirty years: we're playing with fire. I think you may be unconsciously relying on the old faithful booze that your brain remembers so well, you're romanticising it and seeing it as a solution to your problems. When in fact, what's in your glass doesn't define you, you can be sociable and happy without it and you may just need to look at your relationship. I could be talking utter bollocks of course and you may be in the tiny minority who's brain is washed clean and you're like a sensible person who's never been addicted. I hope so

Op says she's not an alcoholic. Her husband agrees.

And yet, people here are certain that her 4 glasses of wine a week, make her an alcoholic 🙄 🤔

She's not being "diagnosed" over the internet - she's the one who used alcohol as a crutch, decided she had such a problem with her drinking that she needed to go to AA and then went sober for 22 years. 🙄

She has a history of problem drinking/alcoholism and now she's decided having a few glasses of wine is what makes the difference between a social life & happiness and misery & boredom- and that doesn't scream she has a problem to you?

I can see it from both sides.
Can you just drink when you go out? It seems the alcohol is creeping up a bit?

Are you happy with him? You seem so sad?

I'm not an alcoholic

No, so you’re not really comparing like with like then, are you.

Over the years he has gradually stopped any socialising in our home

You mean you're not allowed anyone over?

He sounds generally controlling.

I have about 4 glasses of wine a week. I like them. I'm not an alcoholic. I wouldn't appreciate being diagnosed as one by a bunch of people on the Internet! I'd be inclined to say OK... don't live here then.

and if you are talking about a glass, or a bottle, or two

I think he isn’t being unreasonable to ask you not to drink around him. However, he sounds quite controlling in other ways - limiting your social life etc. I’d agree to not drink when he’s there (even if that means no opportunities to enjoy a couple of glasses) but work on other ways to create happiness in your life in your way not just crocheting at home because that makes him happy. What would your ideal life look like? How could you achieve that or at least work towards it?