The struggle

PERA:
Finding out Lynn was doing those sneaky things like drinking. It really made me angry cause she said that she was not helping me by doing these things.

And she’s not helping herself. Here’s me trying to help her. Then then she goes and does stupid things like that. Hiding beer away from me, and then me waking up and seeing her outside having a few drinks.
But I'm really happy it doesn't happen anymore. You know, we get on a lot better now because that alcohol problem has gone. It has really made our family a whole lot better.

LYNN:
It's been a real struggle concerning my husband's health. Having to travel back and forth back and forth to Auckland by shuttle bus. Spending seven and half weeks out of society. It was hard.

Many times I just felt like going up the road, getting me a box. I never wanted to do that. I just used to think that, when I was in the room with him.

But one day I did. I went up the road and got me a six pack and sat at a bus stop. Watching the police come past. Then I would go back to my husband and be drunk or at least tipsy. He would ask me where I had been. And he would know and say “you just can’t do it, can you. I would say “no, I can't do it cause all I want to do is go home and I’m sick of looking after you”.

You know, I was so frustrated every time he would question me about it. And just throw answers at him. He would say to me “you’re not helping me much. You are hardly looking after yourself”. I was like, “wow”.

The last time I had a drink was November last year now.

But I saw the change in him when he came back from counselling. It was like he was alive. And I had lost that. Seeing him like that, I thought to myself, “wow. He's doing OK. He's not whining at me. He's not complaining. He's really good”.

That's what made me slow down on my alcohol. I just slowly went off it. And it has helped with me stopping. Because that was the problem in our marriage: life with alcohol. Ongoing drinking. Parties. No food.

It would get to the stage where we had children and we had to have food in the cupboards. We had to do the shopping but would have a couple of boxes on top of the groceries. That is the way we lived: doing the same old thing.

But with the help of the counselor, it’s good to go back over my notes and read it all over again and study it. And studied with drugs and alcohol and that's how I eased off on the alcohol. From those notes I started to notice my patterns, triggers and the impact I was having on my husband.