Ok, well probably not really.

I mean I actually don’t have any ponies to give away.

Or the means to get ponies to people that might win them.

But if you happened to buy my book that’s available on Amazon  (The Alcoholic Husband Primer: Survival Tips For The Alcoholic”) and would be so kind as to write a review, I’d be the kind of grateful that makes you want to give away a pony.

And please feel at liberty to be honest with our review.

Writers always want feed back on their work and the more honest, though it maybe painful, the more helpful.

Now go win yourself a pony!

My husband’s cousin and his family are in town.

It was a work trip for him.

A tag-along trip for his wife and two sons.

His wife and I arranged that part.

They got into the city last night and tonight I drove in and picked up their two boys.

You might think my husband would have gone.

Or at least we would have gone together.

But there was “no way” my husband was driving back into the city after he had driven home for the night.

Don’t worry.

His cousin doesn’t find it “weird” or some kind of social faux paus.

He’s from the same family.

And frankly an alcoholic himself.

But he’s a different kind of alcoholic.

He – and his wife – still like to do things together.

Even alone together, as representative of this week end.

I can’t figure it out.

He’s actually a “worse” alcoholic than my husband in terms of the degree to which he drinks, his sense of fiscal responsibility and the way he speaks to his children.

Yet, she still wants to be with him.

Be alone with him.

?????

That’s ok.

All the kids are excited to be with each other for a long week-end and I love having a houseful of family.

When I returned home, my husband had been, shocker, drinking.

But he was in nice-drunk mode.

His “I want to be loving and present” drunk.

So he talked to me while I made dinner and we acted like it was a real marriage and he pretended he wasn’t swaying and I pretended I didn’t notice.

I got the food on the table, the kids seated but by this time he had gone to the basement.

I called down, was he eating?

“No.”

No, that was all he said.

But what he should have said – what that no really meant was:

No, I am already two sheets to the wind. I couldn’t possibly eat anything at this point and anyway, I can just sit down here in the quiet and drink some more.

See, with the alcoholic husband even on a good night…

It’s still not that good.

My family is broken.

Broken, broken, broken.

My kids do not get along with one another.

And please, no one say “that’s siblings.”

This is deeper.

More tragic.

The direct result of living in an alcoholic war zone.

They take out on each other what they can’t hold their parents accountable for.

Anger.

Yelling.

Hostility.

Stress.

Resentment.

Trepidation.

And this is living with a “functional” alcoholic.  (One reason I reject that theory or idea!) What is it for the children with falling down drunk, losing jobs, no money for food, abusive alcoholic father?

And the truth is, I am just as broken.

I am just as angry.

I yell too much.

I am hostile, stressed, live with resentment and cause trepidation in my children when they need to come to me with an issue.

We are a family of fractured, broken pieces.

And the only one who can possibly fix any of it is…

Me.

The alcoholic’s wife.

I am not playing the martyr.

I am not being melodramatic.

It’s really simply the truth.

The only one who can possible save, help or fix the household with an alcoholic father/husband is the (non-alcoholic) wife/mother.

And I have no idea how to do it.

Before you admit to yourself, you really have nothing? (In your marriage/relationship).

Saturday night my husband and I went to an event for his work.

I don’t want to give you the impression that we go out often together.

We don’t.

But on the rare occasions that we do, I am always a little saddened by the experience.

And it starts before we even arrive at the event.

It starts at home.

Often in the bathroom.

As in I am in the bathroom alone putting on my make up or he is in the bathroom alone shaving.

Or I am struggling to hook a necklace behind my neck.

Or he is ironing his pants.

Can a woman put on her own necklace?

Can a man iron his own pants?

Of course.

This isn’t about what we can do.

This is about what “historically” husbands and wives do for one another.

But we don’t.

Nor do we “trip” over one another in the bathroom or darting down the hallway.

We don’t shuffle and sidestep one another playfully.

I can’t tell you the last time my husband said (notice?) “you look great.”

We just get ready.

Separately together.

Like our marriage.

I went to a friend’s house yesterday.

A house that doesn’t have crap laying all over the backyard and half finished projects and clothes everywhere.

Oh, of course she could have “cleaned up” knowing she was having me over but it’s more than just no clothes everywhere.

It’s a nice house.

A really nice house that is comfortable and roomy and clean and reasonably organized.

Everything my house is not.

I had a dream one time and it was SO TELLLING in its symbolism.

My friend came into my house and I took her upstairs and through this door she knew nothing about.  When she walked through it, there, before her was this entire other part of the house with nice furniture and books lining the walls and a lovely kitchen.

She said, “Wow, I never knew this was here.”

When I woke up, I knew the dream was telling me there is so much more to me, so much more potential then people see.

Then I am allowing.

I don’t know how to fix Me.  I really don’t.

I am so angry and frustrated.

It nearly defies words, trying to explain what it does to the human soul, living with an alcoholic.