It didn’t exactly come out of the blue, but, it still stung the night my ex announced our marriage was over. Our marriage had been in decline for some time. We had made choices trying to save something that was already breaking, and that night it all came to a head. Words were exchanged and after I nearly struck her I hightailed it out of the house.

I needed to numb the anger.

I jumped in the car and drove to the Beer Store just down the street.

I sat in the parking lot and stared at it for about five minutes before a little voice in the back of my head said if you drink today, you’ll lose not just your marriage, but your house and your kids tomorrow. I looked at the clock on the dashboard, 7:30, I knew there was an AA meeting not far, so I put the car in gear and drove to the meeting.

I don’t remember much of the meeting, only the relief I felt that instead of picking up the first drink, I thought the drink through to it’s logical conclusion. Getting drunk wasn’t going to restore the lost love between us, if anything it would destroy whatever feelings were left between us. I could guarantee she would throw me out of the house and bar me from seeing my children. And whatever happened between us, my children would have seen a version of me I never wanted them to see. No, gettting drunk might have felt good in the short term, although I highly doubt it after at that point 21 years of sobriety, but the long term effects would have been devastating.

I moved into the basement that night and we lived like that for another 4 years until my ex-wife met her current partner and she moved in with him. The thought of drinking to drown any sorrows about the end of my marriage never materialized again.

I didn’t save my marriage that night. That ship had sailed. But I may have saved everything else.

Sobriety didn’t stop me from feeling rage, heartbreak, or fear. It didn’t magically make me a saint.

What it did was give me just enough clarity to think the drink through. That’s all.

Just enough.

Enough to not make a bad night into a life-changing disaster.

Enough to get to a meeting instead of a bottle.

Enough to wake up the next morning without having made things worse.

Forty years in August.

Still one day at a time.