My Wife, My Hero
The old addage drugs, sex and rock and roll must have been someone’s hallucinatory dream because in my experience? It did not happen quite that way. I liked music, loved it. I grew up on the greats like Journey, Cheap Trick and Styx. So what happened? I partied hard in school and had my pick of all the pretty girls. So what happened?
Drugs. Alcohol. They led to bad choices. They led to bad grades. They led to my dreams being just that: dreams. While most of my buddies went on to get degrees and make something of themselves, me and a couple of others wasted our lives and our time.
I eventually dropped out of school and got on at a local factory. I married a girl who had crushed on me in high school that in all fairness, I had not paid much attention to back then. Maybe if I had, I would have reached my goals. There I go again, giving others the responsibility my shrink says I need to take on myself.
We had some lay offs and my wife stepped up to the plate, working two jobs while I began drinking again. I stayed clear of the drugs this time around but I was just deluding myself. My wife tried to be patient with me. Still, when I could not even vent my frustrations in a positive way, making love to her, I really freaked. My shrink and my physician both said it was the excessive drinking that was causing my problems in the bedroom.
One morning when I got up, my wife was still at the table instead of at work. She told me she was taking the day off from both of her jobs because we needed to talk. She told me that she loved me and she supported me but she could not keep enabling me. Puzzled, I look at her. She explained that enabling me was allowing me to drink and making excuses for me. She told me she knew that deep down inside of me was someone who had the courage to fight back and get through this.
We talked a lot that day. She did not yell at me or nag me. She simply looked at me with love in her eyes and told me I was the man she knew me to be, the man I did not believe I was. She restored my faith in myself when the truth was, she was the strong one in our marriage.
That was three years ago. Between my wife, my shrink and my doctor, I sobered up and started going to AA. I got back on out at factory I worked at and also took a few classes. Last year I finally got my degree in business and went to work in a large firm. Things are going well for me and my wife. We just had our first child, a boy. I think I can be a good dad now and I know he will have the greatest mom there is. I know she was certainly my hero when I needed one.
