You're listening to the Love Over Addiction Podcast.

Thank you so much for agreeing to share your story with us. I am incredibly grateful.

So let's start at the beginning. How did you meet your partner and when did you know there was problems?

Well, I just want to start by saying thank you for having me. You're welcome to this podcast.

I met my 27 years ago, I'm sorry, we were married for 18 years, 27 years ago in high school. I was a junior and he was a senior and we had English class together.

I remember it well looking across the room, we just connected right away.

It wasn't many days into that class, into that junior year that I said, I'm going to marry him.

And his charm, his charisma, his good looks, his off personality, funny as heck. He could just make me laugh.

He just made me feel so special. And so, yeah, that's where I met him and that's where relationships started.

Now, could you tell right away that he was having a drinking problem or when, because your husband suffers from alcoholism correct, is there any other diction that he's struggling with?

Well, the alcoholism was just the one in the front. He would occasionally dabble in cocaine over the years. He would have, I'm sure, had a porn addiction as well that wasn't an addiction that, it wasn't an addiction per say that it completely monopolized him, but he got most of his pleasure, all of his pleasure to himself.

Does that make sense to how I'm saying that?

Yeah, I was really afterthought a lot.

So, you had said, did I notice any red flags in the beginning, not in the beginning, so he was 18 and I was 17, and not in the beginning, I didn't notice anything.

When did you start to wonder or worry? Do you remember when you started having those thoughts? Yes, I do.

So, we dated on and off until he was 21 and then he broke up with me and he had broken up with me several times in between there.

Now, I wouldn't have ever said I noticed a drinking problem because I didn't know what that looked like. My family was just, you know, straight and narrow, real nice family, worked hard, good morals.

I didn't know what that looked like. Now that I look back, going through my 18 years of marriage in the 27 years of knowing him, yes, I could spot, I'd spot it in a heartbeat.

Yeah, lots of different things, but growing up with him and partying with him and just enjoying that lifestyle because it was fun and he was exciting.

Oh, wow, you know, just knew how to have a good time and he was very gentleman like in the beginning.

So, I would say my very, very, so, okay, so I had said we had broken up when he turned 21, he wanted to go party and I was like, you know what, I am moving away from here.

I just need to get away from him. He has such a hold over me. That's the first thing I started feeling like, what is this hold that he has over me?

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