My husband is 9 months sober!

In 2016, my husband was in the military and came back wounded from deployment, I did my best to be there for him in his recovery but ultimately he would never be the same after that, for months (years) he faked it, pretended to be okay while drinking his feelings, he wouldn’t accept the idea of him needing help, he would find an excuse on why he couldn’t keep a job, why he was drinking and even lying on how much he was drinking, I saw it get worse and worse but waited way too long before doing something about it, I still regret it a lot.

He had a “better” period where I thought he was back to his old self when we moved in my FiL’s farm, we decided to start a family, maybe it was too soon, maybe he wasn’t going as good as I thought but things got worse after I got pregnant, he was fully functional through the day and honestly at this time I had no idea how much he was drinking, but he would drink himself to sleep every night.

When I got pregnant with our second son, his drinking got worse, unlike before, I could see the damage of alcohol but also could see some mental issues. I started to get scared for my kid, I didn’t want him to be alone with our kid as he clearly had issues, whatever from alcohol or depression or both but my guts feelings told me to not let him be alone with my oldest nor wanted him in the delivery room. That’s when things got worse to get better, we hit rock bottom, he felt betrayed because he didn’t realize he was a danger for his kid, I tried to reasoning him, I made him seek help and told him he needed to go somewhere else until he actually gets better, he wasn’t sleeping home but he would come around through the day to see the kids and I, I still wanted to be here for him and support him while making clear that we couldn’t be a family as long as he doesn’t seek help.

He did a substance abuse program online with the VA and as he was gradually reducing his alcohol consumption some ptsd symptoms started to show up and it became scary, and one day, he had a psychotic episode and I had to call 911 on him, he was hospitalized for 35 days (that’s how bad it was), he was extremely mad at me, he made it hard for me to get any information about him while being in the psych ward. I thought there was no coming back after all of this, but after he was discharged, we had a really hard conversation with a lot of crying and questioning but also lot of hopes.

He has been sober for 9 months, has a treatment for his mental health issues and we are both in therapy. I’m grateful that he has seek help even if it took a lot time, I could have done more as well, we both made mistakes but we have leaned to let go of the past, we will never be who we were 2, 6 or 8 years ago and that’s okay. It’s not perfect, some days are harder than other and this is part of our lives now and we have to accept it and deal with it, it’s a long journey but we’re learning to be happy again. We are both living in the moment, rebuilding our relationship, our love is still there and stronger than ever. He’s now the father I always knew he would be and I got my best friend back, my heart is full ❤️