Hi everyone!  Gosh it's been awhile since I've been here.  Things are really good on the home front with AH.  It's been a good three months since AH has had any alcohol.  I am not sure what made him decide to stop drinking, but he did.  He never told me he was going to stop.  I guess he was just going to let his actions speak louder than his words, which they are.  There are only a couple of things that I can think of that made him rethink his decision to try to control his drinking and get sober again.  Both involve his alcoholic friend, and his alcoholic friend's fiance.  

Before AH decided to stop drinking, his friend had gotten into a terrible car accident and very well could've died.  He was drinking and driving, and ended up with his car being up under an 18-wheeler.  

The next thing that may have had an influence was there was one night that the same friend called AH and said that he needed him to come pick him up.  His fiance and him had a huge fight, and she drove him to his dad's shop and told him to go find somewhere else to stay because she didn't want him there.  He couldn't drive because of the injuries due to his accident, and also because he was also very drunk and couldn't drive anyways.  So AH went to pick him up so he could stay the night with us so things at home could calm down for him, and would go home the next day.  This was about 9pm when we got him to our house.  The entire time he was here, his phone was blowing up with text messages from her.  We all went to bed not too long afterwards.  He put his phone on silent so he could get some sleep.  Since he wasn't answering her texts and phone calls, she decided to start calling AH's and my phone.  Of course we didn't answer, and put our phones on silent.  Around 11pm, she shows up at our house drunk ringing the doorbell.  She found our house because she has an app on her phone to be able to tell where he is, so she followed those directions to our house.  AH answered the door, and he was very upset because we were all sleeping, and the kids had school the next day, and we had work.  AH got his friend up, told him his AF was at the door, but told him that they had to talk outside so they didn't wake up the kids.  He ended up going home with her.  

So I think after all the drunken mess that he has been seeing his friend go through due to alcohol, it was kind of a wake up call to AH.  

A few weeks ago, he actually admitted that those four months of drinking was a relapse.  He saw an old acquaintance at the lake, and they got to talking about the last time they saw each other, which was about 13 years ago, and they were both drunk.  The acquaintance told AH that he has been clean and sober for the last 3 years, and that he has turned his life around.  AH told the guy that he had 9 years of sobriety, but had recently relapsed for four months, but was sober again.  

Not too long after that, our 7 year old son told AH that he noticed that he hadn't been drinking beer in a long time.  AH told him "You're right, I haven't".  DS7 said "Well I hope you never drink that stuff again."  AH told him "I don't plan on drinking ever again."  

Now that he isn't drinking, my stress level has been greatly diminished.  I am so happy that AH decided to get sober again.  He doesn't go to AA or work any sort of program, but even though he doesn't, he isn't showing any signs of being a dry drunk.  He is currently in self-discovery mode right now, and is doing a lot of self-improvement work.  

He was actually talking to me about that a couple of days ago after an argument he had with a drunk neighbor, and also with a co-worker.  Even though he feels that he wasn't at fault in any of the arguments, he told me he was doing a lot of thinking about how he could've reacted differently during the arguments so things wouldn't have escalated.  He told me that he realizes that he is the common denomiator in both of these situations, and even though the arguments started due to the other people taking offense to him joking around about stupid stuff and took him seriously, that maybe he needs to tone it down on the joking around and sarcasm.  Sounds like to me just by the way he was talking that he has some great insight and is showing a lot of growth about how he comes across to other people.  I am very proud of him for getting back to where he was before he relapsed.  

So anyways, that is an update on what is going on in my neck of the woods.  

Kimmy