[anonymous231e1]

Anonymous for obvious reasons...

This happened to me on Wednesday about 5:00am. My wife and I had gotten into a terrible fight. She suffers from terrible alcoholism. This week of Christmas has been absolutely horrible as demons resurface. She awoke me from my sleep about 4am, drunk and outraged because I asked if she was wearing a robe in bed. Things spiraled very quickly out of control, my wife was out of control, and so was I. We both said terrible things and made unwanted body contact. The fight made its way to the driveway and a neighbor called in the disturbance.

About 30 minutes later I was awoken by the doorbell. I knew who it was. I threw on my PJ pants and a hoodie. Fifteen minutes later I was in handcuffs heading to the county jail.

I could have easily been in a very very bad situation if I hadn't followed orders to the letter.

My wife and I are in therapy and she will be entering detox this next week. I hope this event turns into the wake up call that helps her beat this disease with my help all along the way.

Peace.

[nyolfen]

nothing personal man but i don't think the reason you posted this was to share an anecdote about obeying the police

[anonoholic]

So sorry to hear your story. As an alcoholic though (currently 1.5 bottles of wine down, and wishing I had another to hand), I find it hard to reconcile your situation. Your wife was drunk, you were not, but both lost control? Not judging, just asking.

The reason I ask is that only situation in which my alcohol abuse has triggered any kind of verbal exchange is where (unaware of my situation) my partner has been snappy about something, and due to lack of sleep (staying up late, secretly drinking), I've responded less diplomatically than I would have liked. Never abusive, never physical by either party, and only a small number of times.

Under no circumstance has either of us become physical. That's a totally different problem, and I'd encourage you to seek help for your wife (If I'm understanding correctly that she was the one that became aggressive, or both of you otherwise) It's probably also the time to consider what's best for you both in the long term.

Unrelated to that, but apropos your comment and the OP, I had a cop pull a gun on me when I was 19. I naively, but quite literally laughed it off, as I was doing my job and had no idea the risk I was in from his overreaction.

I was in college, but working a night security job. I had to check the premises set the internal alarm, then check the outside doors. Unfortunately a (really stupid) design flaw in the alarm system resulted in the occasional false silent alarm.

On this occasion, as I was checking the outside doors, a cruiser rolled up, the cop saying they'd received an alarm call.

I identified myself, invited him in (first mistake), then said I'd switch off the alarm (second mistake - why I don't know - it was a silent alarm!)

Switching off the alarm with a key switch required reaching around a door in to a closet where the alarm system was.

I turned around to discover the now less-than-friendly looking cop pointing his gun at me.

I laughed instinctively, as to my innocent mind it seemed absurd. Thankfully, that seemed to drop his guard. He was 6 feet away, and my hands were now clearly empty.

I wasn't asked to follow Simon-says "crawl towards me with your left foot over your right, and your hands straight in the in the air, or we will shoot you type instructions, and shortly after, the dispatcher ID'd me as being a registered person for the property.

Now that I think about it, I had several negative experiences with the cops in a 2 year period. (Broke into my residence in the middle of the night for no reason - I was more embarrassed that it was untidy!; gatecrashed a party because they "didn't like the music" (no neighbours, no disturbance), probably looking for underage alcohol; stopped for speeding on a bicycle!!!

[wjossey]

I read your comment, kept going with my morning, but then felt compelled to come back. You might not see this given it’s a throw away, but I hope you do.

As someone who has lost family members to alcohol (both figuratively while they were living, and now literally as they have passed away), I’m always prone to respond to opening sentences like yours with “today is a great day to get sober.”

There is a meeting near where you live today. https://www.aa.org/pages/en_US/find-local-aa

If you’re looking for some inspiration from another addict, I always recommend Bob Forest. You can hear him on the This Life podcast with Drew Pinsky http://drdrew.com/thislife/.

Best of luck to you.

[anonoholic]

Thanks for taking the time to come back and respond. I'm going to try to get it under control for the new year. I'll check out that Dr Drew link.

[wjossey]

My email is also in my profile. Here if you want to talk. Please don’t hesitate to reach out.