Married To An Addict: Surviving 10 Years Of Love, Lies, And Liquor

Today, I sit down with Alicia Bloss, the wife of Damien Bloss, who joined us in a previous episode to share his journey of addiction and recovery in what he calls Breaking The Silence. This time, we’re flipping the script and hearing from the loved one who stood by his side through it all to get insights from the loved one of an addicted and recovering individual.

Alicia opens up about what it’s really like to be married to an alcoholic—covering the emotional toll, financial strain, and trust issues that consumed their marriage for over a decade. We talk about what it means to love someone through active addiction, how addiction can quietly destroy families, and why many spouses feel forced into silence out of shame or fear of judgment.

We explore the unique pain of being a loved one: hiding the truth from family, protecting the kids, and carrying guilt that doesn’t belong to you. Alicia also speaks on the powerful role of prayer, setting boundaries, and rebuilding trust after sobriety. We touch on triggers, communication breakthroughs, and the small but hard-won victories that come with recovery—for both partners.

This conversation is for anyone who’s loved an addict, is loving one now, or has ever wondered what addiction does to the people around it. If you’ve ever felt invisible in the shadow of someone else’s addiction, this episode is for you as we try to foster community for the loved ones of addicted individuals who feel alone.

Damien's Episode: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/breaking-the-silence-20-years-of-addiction-and-suicide-loss/id1657865479?i=1000708811302

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Transcript

 Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to another episode of Couple of Nukes. As always, I'm your host, Mr. Whiskey, and today's episode is very interesting because it is not a follow up, not a throwback, but it is a connected episode to my previous one with Damien Gloss. I am here with his wife to speak about the loved one side of.

Addiction and recovery. So a couple weeks ago I had an episode with Mr. Bloss on Breaking the Silence, and the highlight of that conversation was after 20 years of addiction, he recovered. So the message was one of hope that is never too late. But during all that time, there's a lot that goes on, especially behind the scenes, and it can affect friends, family, coworkers.

And interestingly enough, when you're in that position, especially of someone close like a spouse, a husband, a wife, or a mother, father, sister, sometimes we're the last person to realize it and sometimes we're the first to pick up on it. So it, it can work out very interestingly. But we are here with Mr.

Bloss wife. Alicia, great to have you here. And like I said beforehand, we started recording here. So glad to have you coming on and sharing your side of the story. Yeah, absolutely. Uh, hi. My name is Alicia. I am the wife of an alcoholic. Uh, I truly, truly appreciate you inviting me to be on the show. Like I said, it, it's very unusual for I.

For anyone that, or people to really wanna hear our side of the story. Uh, it doesn't matter if it's the spouse or a child or, you know, cousin or family or just a friend. Nobody ever wants to hear our side of the story. Um, because it's, it's, it's, it's about the addict. It's about the person that's going through it, you know, what they've overcome.

So when I get to be asked to do, you know, things like this or, or speak about what I've been through with it, it's, it's a huge honor. It really is. Because I don't, I don't get to do it often. Right. And you know, I, I definitely know that a lot of addicts prefer to work with and hear from people who are addicted to themselves as well.

Right. But I'll tell you, as someone who. Still has an addicted father and who hosts a show working with individuals who have been addicted or work with individuals in addiction recovery, I've definitely learned a lot along the way. Mm-hmm. And I think it's important for addicts in recovery or active use to kind of also here, I know they're not always receptive to it, especially when they're actively using, but I think when once you recover.

You know, part of the 12 steps, uh, or even if you're not doing the 12 step program, you know, is making amends with people. And so hearing and realizing the amount of damage you did to them, whether it was physically, emotionally, financially, which oftentimes it's all three. And I think it's so important to hear that, especially, I know for me, the financial aspect always got me as a kid seeing how much money my father spent on alcohol that could have gone.

Mm-hmm. To us that could have gone to these things that the family needed. And it's, I think it's interesting how people who are financially hurt, um, will still be addicts and it's addiction is one of the most expensive things that can happen to a person. Yeah, yeah. No, it absolutely can. For, so we've been together for 15 years now, and the first 10 of those years he was in active addiction.

And the first 10 of those years, I supported the family. You know, we have three kids and the two of us. And you know, it's not easy in this economy, especially nowadays. Like, I don't know what would happen if, you know, he was still doing it, but back then it was difficult. You know, I wasn't, I was, I had a decent job, but it wasn't enough to survive on my own.

I don't know how I made it to, to. Survive with five of us. It was extremely difficult. His money was his money. You know, he would help if he could, but I knew that it was, it was almost pointless for me to even try to get anything out of him because, you know, he would make excuses as to, oh no, I didn't get paid this or this much this week, or, you know, I had this bill to pay and I, I knew darn well that he didn't.

Because I took care of everything, so his money legitimately just went to the liquor store and for years, when I. Uh, so we do share a bank account, but obviously, you know, we have our, we have our own account, so he would use the money out of his own account for his alcohol. But I would, you know, log into his bank account and I would look and see what he, you know, when he is been to the liquor store, there were sometimes, there were four times in a day that he would go.

And if I confronted him, I knew it was just a flat lie. It was, you know, oh no, it just takes a while for the pending to go away or whatever. And I think after, honestly, I think that probably lasted about two or three years before I just gave up. I was like, I'm, I'm not, there's no point in arguing you're, you're a grown man.

You know, I'm not raising another child. This isn't my fourth kid. Um, so, you know, you do what you gotta do. I, I couldn't, at that point I was like, I, I just can't, can't do it anymore. When we bought our house. You know, we have to get bank statements and stuff like that. And he was terrified to hand over his bank statements because he knew the amount of times that was gonna be showing on there.

And, you know, obviously I looked at them, but I'm like, you know, these people, they're not gonna judge you. I might, yeah, but they're not. So the, the, the financial aspect, it was, it was very, very rough for us for those first 10 years. 10 years is a long time to deal with. Something like that. And I don't, I still don't know how I did it, but you know, I did because I had to.

That's how I felt at the time. I know my father's excuse was always, why buy the cheap vodka? And I'm like, but it's still a bottle a day. And if you do the math over the course of, yeah. And he's been drinking since he was like 12 or 13, but I know at least for 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 years, it was a bottle of vodka every day, plus all the little airplane bottles that.

Especially once he tried hiding his addiction. A lot of airplane bottles, which, um, just, just add up, like you said, every day. Adding up, uh, you mentioned four times in a single day. I mean, even if that was 10, $20 a trip a couple times a week, it adds up fast and yeah. So you mentioned lying as well, which I know one thing my father like to do, which he still does, but more so when he is actively drinking, he's currently on the.

Roller coaster of sober, un sober for the past six years now where he has his phases and um, depending on where he is at, he'll do a thing called withholding The truth does not equal lying. Mm-hmm. And I know there's a lot of times where my mom would ask him if he was drinking or text him and say, are you drinking?

And he wouldn't answer. And he took that as being integrable and not lying. Mm-hmm. Um. Or do kind of partial truths, like he would always try to make it seem like he wasn't lying, but especially by just not answering or redirecting. Is that something that you experienced at all? Oh yeah. Oh yeah. There was a lot of partial truths.

There was a lot of, oh yeah, I've only had two drinks. You know, when you watch like cops or live PD or something and they're always pulling people over, oh no, I've only had two drinks. Yep. That was my husband. Um, it was more the, the, the partial truths when it came to the drinking because he knew that I knew him better than anybody ever did.

You know, I could. See it in his eyes. It wasn't just, you know, the, the, of course a smell, you know, you have certain smells even today, right. It still triggers me with certain smells. You know, you can clearly smell alcohol and he would try to hide it in raspberry tea and, you know, put raspberry vodka and raspberry tea.

I'm like, you know, you can still smell it. Um, but it was, it was the partial truths of, yes, I have, but I've only had two. And I couldn't get him to understand that, you know, I, I know you, you don't act like this when it's only two. Clearly it's been all day. You have the look in your eyes. He always had different, you know, his eyes would look different.

He would, he wouldn't look at you even if you weren't asking him. You know, a direct question about the drinking. Just having a conversation with him. He wouldn't look at you. Mm-hmm. Um. So I'm like, I, I know that you're doing it, so if you're lying to me about this or your partial truth, what else? Then what else would you be lying about?

Yeah, so it was, it was a lot of, it was a lot of trust that was broken, but the trust wasn't broken right away. The trust actually took a couple years for me to. To give in, I guess. Like I, I, I wanted to trust him. I wanted to believe him, right. But after so many years of dealing with it, one little thing, all the trust was gone.

It literally would take, just coming home from work and see that he's, you know, completely wasted. And I would ask him, no, I'm not. It was in that instant, all of the trust was gone. So it took a while for that to go away. Um, and I am, to be honest, like I'm not a very trustworthy person to begin with. I've, my entire life has been built around people that have just used me or lied to me, right?

So when you're with somebody that you know, you're, you're supposed to spend the rest of your life with. You're supposed to trust them. So he was the first person in my life I ever trusted. And I think that's why it took so long for that to go away. 'cause I wanted to believe him. I wanted to believe that all of his partial truths were full truth.

I wanted to believe that, you know, he, he wasn't gonna lie, that he wasn't gonna steal that, you know, he wasn't gonna spend all of our money, that he wasn't going out and doing whatever the heck it is that he wanted to do whenever he wanted to. I wanted to believe that he wasn't that person, and it took many years for that to go away, but it also has taken many years for that to come back.

I think you kind of hinted at something that a lot of us fall into, which is almost a, a state of denial. You know, you don't wanna believe what you know is, is, is being lied to you about, because, you know, this is supposed to be my husband or my father or my mother. Mm-hmm. And I think it's so important for people to know that like, even we, we wanna believe that these people are good, but that addiction is a strong thing that people break moral boundaries for, for addiction.

Yeah. They do a lot of bad stuff for addiction. Yeah. I mean, I, I've, you know, hosted people who, uh, they were burying bottles in the backyard to hide their drinking. I have people who mm-hmm. Have lied about, you know, a lot of things I've. I remember, uh, one time I had to take alcohol away from my daddy and he almost physically attacked me because he was so addicted.

You know, or because they, they become very reliant on it. So I think it's a state of denial because you don't want to see a person you love and care about be in such a state, especially when it comes to the physical symptoms. When you start seeing that. Mm-hmm. You know, it's like, I don't want to believe this is what they've become.

Mm-hmm. I know the first time, like. Mentally and emotionally. The drinking had taken his toll on my father for many years, and I was used to it, but I hadn't seen him in a few years. And when I saw him and he had lost like a hundred pounds, he was down to that alcoholic, skinny look and always cold. And when I saw him that, I mean, I couldn't help but cry because like that was like the physical confirmation, you know?

Mm-hmm. Because the personality kind of, like I said, goes in phases. It comes and goes, yeah, and this and that. When I saw the physical toll of alcoholism on my father, I mean, that was the hard proof right there. There was no way he could look like that and not be an alcoholic. And it was so sad to me because he used to make fun of people.

We would drive around, he would say, look how skinny that guy is, and look at his calves. He must be an alcoholic. And then he became that. Mm-hmm. And it, it was so heartbreaking to. To see a man who was strong, full of vigor and, and, and muscular and tall and handsome, just waste away, you know? So it is hard and, you know, to see your, your husband who comes home from work and is clearly drinking and, and now you're like, was he drinking all day on the job?

And you don't wanna believe that he would take that risk and endanger your family financially, so. Mm-hmm. I, I get it. I think a lot of us get into denial and we need to. Realized sooner rather than later that addiction causes people to change. Oh, it, it definitely causes people to change. When we first got to got together, we met through a friend, a mutual friend, and like, so I had heard stories.

We had met, I guess three years before we actually started dating and. You know, I just, we knew of each other, hung out, you know, at bars and stuff like that, but we didn't, I didn't really know him. So when we first started dating the mutual friend, you know, kind of gave me a little bit of a backstory and she was like, you know, just so you know, he, he does drink a lot.

Like he's had some major issues with it. And I'm thinking, yeah, it's, it's not that bad. You know? It, that's what everybody says, you know, people used to call me an alcoholic all the time, but, you know, I technically wasn't, I loved to drink at back then. So hearing the stories and then, you know, getting together, building this life together, and like you said, slowly watching him just fade away.

When I was pregnant with our youngest is when I realized that he was hiding the alcohol. You know, he would say, oh no, I found it in the back of the fridge. I'm like, you didn't find it in the back of the fridge. Like, I know what's, what's in there. There's not much in there because you know, you're spending all my money.

So, you know, there's not much in the fridge. But you know, that was when he first start, when I first started noticing that he was hiding it. And then over the years is when he would hide the vodka bottles on his car. And then like I can gradually, like I can look back at my Facebook pictures and I can pinpoint each issue that we had at that time in our life.

And you can see him slowly, like you said, withering away. The look in his eyes was gone, his eyes were sunken. His, you know, he's not a big guy. He is tall, but he is like really skinny, but like his stomach was getting bigger, but that was the only thing on him that was getting bigger. He was swollen all the time, you know, he wasn't taking care of himself like I, it was.

Pretty much like I had a fourth child and this is the man that, you know, I fell in love with the man that promised me that, you know, he was gonna be there for me through everything and we were going to do this life together. And that man was gone. The only man looking at me at that 0.5 years ago was the alcoholic.

My husband was gone. It, it literally took him, the alcoholism literally took him from me. And at one point, I guess it was about two years before he got sober, somebody had asked me, well, if it's really that bad, why don't you leave? And I, I, without hesitation, I looked at them and I said, well, 'cause everybody else gave up on him.

And if I give up on him, what's that gonna do? You know, when you're, I, I've been divorced, I know what that's like. It's not like you can't, you know, I'm, I'm not the type of person that's gonna say, oh no, you have to leave this person. That's the only, it's your only way out. You know, if that's what you have to do, that's what you have to do.

But with this marriage, I was like, this is what I need. This is what he needs. If I give up on him, I am no better than everybody else that has been in his life, that has given up, that has watched him do this and has not been there to actually help him. Because I knew he was still in there. The, the physical changes were drastic.

It did take the 10 years and, you know, you don't notice it at the time. It's when you go back and you look at those pictures, you're like, you said, you know, you don't see them for a couple of years and you're like, oh my God, who is this person? That is what this disease does to them. And it, it makes them legitimately believe that this is their only option in life and it's their only friend and it's the only thing that cares about them.

And that's where he was in that those last two years, was that nobody cared. Everybody hated him. The alcohol was his only friend. That's the only thing that was gonna make him feel better. So it was. It was, it's very difficult to go back and look at those pictures to see the change in him. 'cause it, it still hurts.

It still hurts both of us. I, I had to go through and delete a bunch of 'em 'cause he didn't want me to, to have them on my, my Facebook page anymore. But there are some that I've kept, 'cause I'm like, this is, if you ever have these feelings again, these are what I'm gonna start showing you. Right. This is what you looked like at this point.

Right. Yeah, it's, it's definitely rough to watch anybody and I, I have, when you have kids and when you have, you know, your parents or whatever, your brother, sister, your blood family, in a way, you're kind of almost like. I don't wanna say forced to love them, but you know, they're your blood. That's just, you automatically love your children.

You automatically love your parents and you know, even though your, your parent might be an addict or whatever the case may be, you still love them. You might not like them, but you still love them and you still want the best for them. When it's your partner every day, you have to choose that. I don't have.

To be here. I don't have to be with him. I didn't have to deal with it. Right. I chose so to, to choose to love somebody that's doing that to themselves is extremely difficult because I had to wake up every day and look at him and be like, I still love you. I'm not sure why today, but I still do. So I can't imagine either it being like a family, you know, blood family.

Yeah. You know, with, I resonate with what you said about the only person left because my mom, my sisters, everyone gave up on my dad except for me. And you know, a lot of people said, well, why don't you just leave him too? And part of, like you said, and I've discussed before on shows like a lot of alcoholics and, and drug users, they don't have any hope in themself or belief in themself.

Mm-hmm. They have a lot of, what's the point mentality. And so I, I said, you know, if I give up on my dad, you know, he, he's gonna have to really look for that reason to live by himself and for himself. Mm-hmm. And I mean, he definitely needs to find that either way. But, you know, you talked about loving family regardless.

And for a long time in my life that was played out wrong. As in, I love my father even though he was a dad, therefore. You know, I let him get away with a lot of stuff. And later in life I learned to set boundaries and still love and care about him, but not given to his addiction or the destructive habits of it.

Mm-hmm. Which has been very difficult, like this past recent Thanksgiving. You know, I actually had to leave him because he was just too far gone and intoxicated. Mm-hmm. And it hurt. It hurt to feel like I was abandoning my father. He ran down. Very drunken, uh, down the street after my car. You know, like, that was like a horrible sight to see.

Mm. But it was also a wake up call for him. That's great. And he sobered up and I gotta spend Christmas with him, you know? So there, there is a love to be had and it's, there's a, there's a tough love and there's a love with boundaries. Mm-hmm. And respect. But there's also, you know, too much love where you're enabling their habits or letting them, you know, walk all over you.

And so I've had a lot of trouble finding the balance of that. And so I, I really speak to all the individuals of, of addicted loved ones, you know, to find that balance. And you know what, I know we talked, I talked on a Addiction Recovery podcast about, you know, that acknowledgement, especially when they recover, because I know some people never will accept you back into their lives even after you recover.

Mm-hmm. Because you did so much damage. But I think. Even as one of those hurt people acknowledging their sobriety and saying, Hey, I'm not letting you back into my life because of all that's happened. But I do respect and, and I am proud of you for getting sober and for making this decision, and I hope it goes well for you.

Just that acknowledgement can mean a lot because it's not easy getting sober. And I know, like I was sharing with you before we started recording, my neighbor is 80 years old and he's been sober for 45 years and he lives alone. And, and, and none of his family talks to him. And they never like, really, uh, I feel like appreciated.

I know he did some damage to them for sure, but I think it's like in, in his life, he could easily say, what was the point of getting sober just to mm-hmm. Be alone, to have no one. Mm-hmm. So I think it's important to be there for those who recover and are in recovery because they often don't have anyone, like you said.

Mm-hmm. I've had my father say, son, I love VA more than you. And I think sometimes he thinks that VA loves him more than me. But I've learned to be able to express and show my love while still taking care of him and myself. So how did you find that balance, if at all, uh, with your relationship with your husband?

Like you said, for you it was even more difficult because you, other than marriage and divorce and the kids and everything, at the end of the day, like you said, you could leave, you know, it's, it's, I don't wanna say it's not your problem, but at the end of the day. You know, you could say to, to hell with all of it and cut your tie.

So what kept you going besides the, you know, he, he needs me. Like, what? Because 10 years is a long time to go through all that. Yeah. Yeah. I, um, I have to like, I, I, I honestly don't know. I, I was, I spent many years lying to our family. Um, lying to my dad. My dad and I are very close. Um, I lied to my mom. Um, my mom and I were not very close, but I, you know, lied to her, lied to our friends.

I lied to my in-laws and I would tell everybody, oh, no, Damian's fine. Because I didn't want anybody to look at him differently. Right. And in a way, I was embarrassed. I was embarrassed because deep down. Deep down, I knew that I didn't deserve to be married to an alcoholic. Nobody deserves any of that.

Nobody deserves to become an addict. But I felt at the same time, I felt like I was being punished. For some reason, I felt like, well, I'm, you know, such a horrible person. This is my fault that he's doing this. So I owe him. Um. You know, I, I felt like, you know, it was my, my, basically my karma because that's kind of how I, I lived my whole life always being told that everything was my fault.

Hmm. And it wasn't up until like the last four years that I have finally gotten to the point where I'm like, ah, right. It's not my fault. None of this is my fault. Nothing that the person 30 years ago that I knew, or it wasn't my fault that my mom was this way, or it wasn't my fault that my friends were this way.

And it wasn't my fault that he was the addict, but for 10 years I blamed myself. And I still, even now, after five and a half years, I still will catch myself thinking about that. It's, if he drinks tomorrow, that's gonna be my fault. Hmm. If he drinks five years from now, it's gonna be my fault. I don't think I ever, and I don't think I will ever get to that point where, you know.

I am mentally free and clear from all of it. Yeah, because, because it, it was, you know, it was 10 years worth, but I felt like, I felt like, because I thought that it was my fault, it, and I was embarrassed that, you know, this is what our life was. Um, and I felt like in a way that I owed it to him. Because when we first started dating, you know, everything's all hunky dory when you first meet somebody and you know, you go through that honeymoon phase and all that stuff.

Um, but he saved my life. He mentally saved my life. I, you know, I, I was, I was going through the motions of my life at the time, and, you know, I was separated and I, I wasn't mentally doing well myself. And then he came along and was this person that had never been there for me before. So I felt like because he saved my life, I felt like I owed him that as well.

And that has also taken me years to realize that I did not owe him anything that, you know, I, I stayed and I did it because. The man that I married was still in there somewhere. I knew he was. And you know, there's sober Damien who is amazing and then there's drunk Damien who nobody wanted to be around.

Um, and I'm. Very, very grateful that I, I did stick, stick around that it, you know, I didn't stay because of the kids. I, you know, so many marriages. They last, you know, 30, 40 years and they're like, stayed because of the kids. And that's no way to live your life either. Not at all. And you know, we've, we've always, even before when he was drinking, we always did try to put our marriage first.

Not each other. I, Damien is not my number one. My kids are not, my kids are my number one. But our marriage comes before all of that. Because at the end of the day when the kids are all grown and outta the house, I don't wanna look across the kitchen table and be like, who the hell is this guy? I don't know who you are.

So specifically, since we both got sober, we. Put the marriage first. If there are issues, we, we now can talk about them. Um, yeah. So that's, it's kind of, you know, it's still building on the 10 years that we lost. Right. And I, I definitely agree. I know a lot of people who stay together, quote for the kids, they end up like traumatizing their kids.

They end up having mm-hmm. A toxic relationship, a bad marriage, and it's a bad parenting. It's just all around bad for everyone. Mm-hmm. Including, you know, the, the marriage partners as well. So I definitely agree with that sentiment, and I'll say while focus in first speaking of the kids, I mean, did you have to tell them like, Hey, dad's an alcoholic did, or they kind of knew like what I mean.

Not sure what their ages were and how that kind of played into all of this, because you talked about 10 year periods, so like how do you have that conversation with your children? So the older two understood. Um, they were, oh my God, how old were they? Maybe 14 and 10, 14, 11, somewhere around there. Early teens, pre-teens.

The youngest, I think she was only maybe. Four, or I think she was like five at the time when he went to rehab. Um, so the older two understood. Um, they, they had their own ways of, of dealing with it. Um, but the youngest didn't understand anything. She's still, to this day, she's 13. She still doesn't really get it.

You know, she just thinks, oh, daddy used to be fun. Daddy's not fun anymore because daddy's not drinking anymore. I'm like, well, you know, he, he's an alcoholic. Like this is what it is. And now that she's at the age where she's like understanding, you know, going through the drugs and the alcohol at the school and everything like that.

Yeah. You know, she, she kind of gets it. But back then she daddy's just at a hotel for a month. That's where he was. Mm-hmm. Um, the older two. Uh, they dealt with it fine because they, I think they realized he's finally getting help. Um, it wasn't, it's, I think I held so much back from the kids as well, that I don't think that they realized just how bad he was because I was always there to protect them.

Okay. I was always there to take care of them. Right. So like they knew. But I, except for now, you know, we'll talk about it now and you know, they'll start remembering certain things. But I held so much from them as well. I protected them as much as I could. That sometimes I think that actually caused more damage.

Hmm. Than, than not, because you know, they. They don't, it's not like I want them to see their dad in a different light. It's that, you know, I want them to understand that this is what addiction does to you, and addiction clearly runs in our family. So, you know, this is what you would have to, to, you know, not worry about.

Like, I don't want anybody to worry about it, but this is what you have to, you know, have in the back of your mind. Right. And so, yeah, so I, I think I did, I think I protected them a little too much, especially the little one. 'cause like I said, she's 13 and she really, to this day, she just doesn't understand.

She knows what it is, but she doesn't understand. Yeah. So for, I know for my family, me and my younger sisters, or at least my, my, one of my sisters, we were in high school and post high school and my father's alcoholism really took off. So we had, um, times where we were just with him. It's all his behavior.

And like, like going back to the very beginning of the episode, you talked about knowing. When he was drinking or so with my father. Mm-hmm. I could tell by the way he was texting. Uh, there was a certain style of texting that was only when he was drinking. Um, on top of certain ways he would talk, certain words he would use.

There. It, it is so funny 'cause my father would not realize this and he would be so dumbfounded on how we knew he was drinking. 'cause he is like done everything he can to hide the physical evidence. But then he's texting me in what I call hieroglyphics. Um, I can tell when. There's random capital casing and words are felt wrong.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And there's just a certain, mm-hmm. The more he drinks, the less coherent his text would get. Mm-hmm. So there would be a certain way also just like the style of how many he would send. Right. So that was one clear way for us. But yeah, I, I'll say my mom definitely tried to protect us to some degree, but I think we were older and exposed a lot more to it.

Yeah. But we were also more old enough to. You know, understand it as not like a oh, you know, drinking. Because, because when you look at, I can understand your youngest child, when you look at advertisements, it's like, oh, the party doesn't start till people are drinking. Mm-hmm. When people drink, now it's a party.

People are having fun, they're laughing and joking. So when you say dad drinks too much, you just hear, oh, he's ha, he's having a great time. He's having a great time. No, you know, some people. Turn into, into villains when they drink, you know, especially mm-hmm. When you get into addiction and the effects are a little different compared to when you're just drinking socially.

And so one thing I wanna talk about is, is focusing on modern day, has enough time passed where you feel like sobriety is secure? Or do you feel like you're still walking on eggshells sometimes? Like this could come back at any minute. Like do you live in constant fear and anxiety, and if so, how are you like kind of coping and combating that?

I mean, I live in constant fear and anxiety about everything. So, you know, let's just add one more thing to the list on days. That's fine. Um, but with this, I, I don't walk on eggshells as much anymore. There are, over the last five years, we've talked a lot about, you know, he has his triggers. I, and I hate using that word.

It's one of my biggest pet peeves, but it's. True. He has his triggers and I have mine and there are certain things, movements that he might even make or, you know, my, my biggest one, I've talked to a lot of people that are in my position and one of my very best friends, her mom was an alcoholic and she died from a alcoholism, um, like a year or so ago that one of our biggest things would be a Coke can opening.

When you hear the sound of the the can opening that. Is a huge, for some re it's still to this day, will get me to like my hurts. You go like this. And I'm like, what is he doing? Um, I have had to learn to trust. I have had to learn to accept. Um, I have had to, I have also had to learn literally everything all over again.

Just as much as he would have to or any person in his. Position, you have to learn how to live all over again. And I've had to learn how to do that as well. So while there are certain things that will still get me scared, get me fearful or triggered, or whatever the word you wanna use it. If now I can go to him and I can say, Hmm, I don't like that.

This reminds me of when this happened. Can we not do that anymore? And six years ago, he would've gotten extremely upset about it. But now I can actually say that and he'd say, oh, I am so sorry. I didn't realize that that was, you know, an issue. You know, I'll try to remind myself not to do that again, and I have to do the same thing.

There might be times I might say or do something that might, you know, get him to a certain point it, you know, mentally or whatever that he has to say. I don't, I can't do this when you, I can't, I can't handle this. When you are saying things like this. As long as there is that open communication, then any of those triggers or those eggshells or any of that will slowly go away.

Mm-hmm. Again, I live in constant fear of everything. Right. Um, so, you know, I will always have that. I will always think, oh my God, is this gonna be the day that he's gonna drink? Um. You know, he don't really go anywhere. 'cause you know, we, I work mostly, I work all the time. But you know, if he does go to like his brother's or something for poker night, I will instantly start thinking, oh, this is it, this is, this is gonna be it.

Right? But then I remember that he has. He has learned the tools that help him through his day. Mm-hmm. And if we do go anywhere together, uh, you know, if, if there's drinking or anything, we have, you know, the code words and we have the looks, you know, if, if either one of us are uncomfortable, then you know, we'll leave.

But I don't think I honestly, because it's just the way that I am, I don't think it'll ever completely go away. But as long as I know that I can talk to him about it now, then it's not as, uh, what is the word I'm looking for? It's not as, uh, um, in depth, that's not the word I'm looking for, but you know what I mean?

It's not as, as deep. Right. And when you spoke of triggers, you made me think of also something that you learned to be. Aware of, you know, at least I have, in my case, I'm sure you have as well, which also requires communication, but you may have also just picked up on it through being married to your husband and, and going through this whole journey, which is what triggers him to drink.

Just as like my father, I've learned certain places he can't go to without drinking first. Mm-hmm. Certain events will make him drink certain, uh, social situations. Mm-hmm. Um, even certain, um, just like. Daily things, you know? And it's, it's been hard to accept that because unfortunately it's the waterpark, the movie theater, the mall, it's almost everywhere now.

It becomes almost everywhere. Eventually. Yeah. But in the beginning, um, I know as my father, when he is sober, trying to avoid certain places or be more checking in on him at certain places, uh, because like we said, it kind of becomes everywhere at some point. But when you regress back. And become sober again.

And then you're kind of, I feel like some of it goes away where it's not everywhere, but you still have big key situations to be aware of. Mm-hmm. So, mm-hmm. I think as much as the, um, what kind of reminds you of those drinking days? Also, what will, uh, entice you into drinking again is so important to be aware of.

Mm-hmm. And then as we wrap up here, what would be your main message to the loved ones of individuals? Um, not just in recovery, but who are currently, you know, addicted. What, what is some advice you could give them that really helped you through everything we understand kind of why you stayed. Um mm-hmm.

This is more of the, how did you stay to the effective, like what helped you through this? Um, not just with your relationship with your husband and his addiction, but also just you as well, because obviously this was very damaging to you. You and your mental health and your wellbeing. Mm-hmm. There were probably a lot of days you spent, you know, maybe feeling, and for some people it pushes them into addiction as well.

So how did you combat all of this? Yeah, so I, I too, I drank a lot as well. Um, I think when we first, and we've discussed this on numerous occasions when we first started dating, we kind of fed off of each other. Mm-hmm. Um, you know, I think I. And I think it was the first relationship that we both had where our, like the first year, the drinking wasn't an issue because we just did it together.

I, the biggest difference between the two of us is that I did not have to drink to live if or when I stopped or if I stopped, I was going to be fine. I was not going to die from not drinking. Whereas he got to the point where when he, if he stopped, he would have just died if he just stopped. Um, I did that for many, I guess maybe myself, 10 to 15 years or so every single night.

You know, that's how I coped. I, I too drank until I passed out. Um, but it was only at night. And it was only after the kids went to bed and he was usually already knocked out. So, you know, I would sneak in and try to find his, his bottles that he tried to hide that. You know, he wasn't a very smart alcoholic.

I'm not gonna lie to you. He put them all in the same places all the time. Mm-hmm. So like I would drink his stuff. That was how I coped because I didn't know what else to do because I was hiding from everyone else. Right. Just how bad he really was. But at the same time, I was also getting to that point. I, I could not go a single day mentally without it.

It wasn't a physical thing, it was a mental thing. I guess the last year or two, I slowly started to, like, I slowed down a little bit. I wasn't doing it every night. I would do it every couple of weeks or every couple of months. Um, and then it got to the point where I was the one that was the nasty. Drunk.

Mm-hmm. I was the one that would, and I'm not a nasty person. I don't like to argue. I've had people say, you know, I went, how come you didn't just yell at him and scream at at him? 'cause that's just not me. That's not who I am. Right. But apparently drunk Alicia liked to do that. And I don't remember the last two years of like, I obviously remember them as I was sober, but there were many occasions that I don't remember that.

I have to go off of what my alcoholic of a husband tells me that I was like, and you know, how do you believe that? Because you were also drinking. So that is honestly how I coped that and a lot of prayer. You know, I prayed harder than I think I had ever prayed in my entire life because again, I didn't think that I des, I thought I deserved it, but I knew deep down that I didn't deserve this.

Um, so when he went to rehab. They have, uh, a family weekend so the families can go. But it was during COVID. It was right before COVID. So I was the only one that could go. And I made the promise to him that weekend that I too was gonna stop, that I was not gonna drink anymore. I was gonna do this sober thing with him.

You know, total difference between him and I. He's in recovery. He had to go through all of those things. I. Look at myself, I've had people say, no, you're in recovery too, because you're going through it with him. But I am sober because I choose to be sober because I knew that if I kept going the way that I was going, because that was my only way of coping with dealing with his addiction, is that I was gonna end up right there next to him.

I was gonna end up in rehab as well or worse. So I made that promise to him that, you know, I was gonna do it with him. So. I too have been sober for a little over five years and I, you mentioned something too earlier about, you know, going places that might trigger your dad or whatever. I still, to this day, I'm the one that has a bigger issue going to some of these places and, you know, I, I'm, you know, in the, the business that I'm in, I go to events all the time and, you know, there's drinking all the time.

And most of the time I don't have an issue. But I have an issue with ones that are at nighttime because a lot of them are at bars or at clubs. And you know, I wanna revert right back to how I was when I was 25 and I can't, but I can come home and I can have that discussion with him. So I think it's helped us mostly because I have chosen to do this with him, that when I am struggling or he is struggling.

With any place that we're at, we, when it comes to that, we both legitimately understand what the other person is going through. But I ask, I I can say, going back, I apologize. See, I told you I ramble a lot. Um, going back, I would tell people prayer is the biggest thing. It doesn't matter to me, in all honesty, what you believe in.

There it, you know, having that some sense of, there's some type of higher power up there that may or may not be able to help me through this. That was sober Alicia's way of getting through everything. If I didn't have that, I don't know, I can, I can't answer where we would've ended up. It was the one thing that was holding me together.

During the day at least, that was the easiest thing that I could do because I, you know, you can pray at any point. It doesn't matter where you're at. I think it ties into what you said. One of the main issues was, which you talked about, and I, I understand this 'cause my, my mom too, when, uh, people had said, oh, your husband's an alcoholic, or Don't matter, sky is an alcoholic.

She said, no, you know, she defended him. And for a long time she hid it because she was embarrassed. Mm-hmm. Especially because they had said it upfront to admit that they were correct was even more embarrassing mm-hmm. Than just having a husband who became an alcoholic. So it was, it was both layers of that.

And so that kind of isolated her as, as it sounds like, it isolated you where it did. Yeah, you didn't have anyone to talk to you about this, and if you did talk to them about it, it was kind of like a, I told you so was the first part. Mm. And was followed up with not a lot of people who support you in wanting to stay.

It's a lot of get out of there. There's this Yeah. You're not thinking, right. Yeah. And so a lot of people need, um, some kind of neutral third party to, to talk to, but not everyone wants to do therapy. Not everyone has friends or coworkers who want to indulge you in their body. So I think that's where the prayer comes in.

Even if it's uh mm-hmm. Seems one way at times, you know, at least you're kind of expressing and getting some of it out and mm-hmm. Maybe for some people it's journaling or, you know, journal. I was gonna say. Yeah. All work. I was gonna say some kind of form of where you feel like you're getting some of those emotions out.

That's so important. Mm-hmm. But if you can. Even why? I think like support groups for the loved ones of addicted individuals are important to have. You know, and maybe it's a church community, maybe it's um, a nonprofit, maybe it's just like a online community, but having something where you meet up and get a talk about this.

Especially with people who understand, you know, because there's a lot of people who they don't understand. I've tried talking to people and they just don't. Understand. They hear alcoholic or addict and they have this preconceived notion of what that entails. Mm-hmm. And my father does a lot of things that normal addicts don't do, or not every addict is the same.

And I, I, yeah, really get frustrated when people who have dealt with an addicted family member try to compare or put that that addicted individual on the same level as my dad. You know, everyone's different. Just because your addicted loved one did X, Y, Z doesn't mean mine's gonna do X, Y, Z. They might do A, B, C.

Mm-hmm. So I think finding people who are open-minded and, and will communicate and most importantly listen, is so important. And, um, that's why I really appreciate you breaking the silence of reference to your husband's book on the Yeah. That's, you know, that's exactly why started, started having this conversation that we're having.

Yeah, that's exactly why we started it. You, you know, you look, if you would've met him 10 years ago, you, nobody would've ever known that he was an alcoholic and he was drinking 12 to 15 hours a day, depending on the day. Um, nobody would've ever guessed, he never lost his job. He had a car. We always had a roof over our heads.

Albeit most of that was because of me, but he didn't lose any of it. He didn't lose his family. You know, we were still here. People have a preconceived notion that addicts whatever they're addicted to, they are losers or they're homeless. Right. They're on the streets or whatever. They got a brown paper bag in their hand.

Exactly. And that's, that's not not always the case. Most of us hide behind that. Most of us will put on the face for everyone else to think that everything's okay and. A lot of it is all with what, you know, with what's inside. And that's what I think. I personally, I've seen all of it. I've seen both sides.

I've seen the attics that, you know, are, are out there and you know, they're, you can clearly tell that they are, I have friends that are in recovery that have been cleaned for 10 years from, you know, heroin or something like that. And I've heard their stories. Those, you know, you can, you can kind of tell that they are, I think the ones that are hiding behind it.

I think to me, those are the ones that are hurting more, right? Because we don't want people to see us any differently. So the family members, like, you know, your family and myself hiding behind, you know, the happy face telling everybody, oh no, he's fine. There's nothing wrong that's. All, to me that's almost just as mentally disabling as if I were to be going out there and being like, yes, my husband's an alcoholic.

Yes, look at him. You know, it's right. It's, I think that's why we created Breaking the Signs because it's not just about the addict, it's about the family members. And so many of us hide whether we're in the addiction or we're not, and we want to break that habit. We don't want people to hide anymore. I. So we created breaking the silence with that mindset of this is for addicts, this is for people you know that love an addict, whether they're in active recovery or not.

This is for people with, you know, mental health disorders. You know, I myself, I am OCD and a DD, and you know, anxiety, depression, I've got all of that stuff. So that's why we created groups, a group. This group is to make everybody realize that you are not alone. And you don't have to hide anymore, no matter what the issue is.

That's why we're here. Right. And again, I thank you for coming on the show today to do exactly that. Yeah, absolutely. Having this conversation with me. Absolutely. And I encourage anyone listening who. It feels like they're the, uh, loved one of an addict who just hasn't known where to go or to speak to. You know, there are a lot of platforms out there for you to voice your story and your journey and to connect and help others, so definitely encourage you.

All to check that out, as well as to check out the previous episode with Damien Bloss, you know, to check out his side of the story here about, you know, those 20 years from his end as well as look into his book, breaking into Silence. Like we said, it's so important to have and host these conversations, um, you know, and to be vulnerable and honest and, you know, to not hide behind shame and these, these feelings of wanting to look a certain way.

I think it's so important to. Be vulnerable and honest. So thank you for coming on the show today and sharing your time to do just that. Absolutely, absolutely. I, I truly do appreciate it. Like I said, it, not many people ever wanna hear our side of it, so I really do appreciate you giving me this chance. I.