Expert: Clyde - 8/3/2010

Question
My wife is currently in a rehab facility.  She told me this weekend, that after we had come home from a dinner date with a few glasses of wine a few months ago, that after I fell asleep that night she snuck out of our bed, got dressed and went out to a bar.  She continued to drink, met a man and followed him home and had unprotected sex.  She said she had a "blackout" and would never have done that sober.  She said she only remembers a few things about the night.  My question is that she had enough sense about her to know that she had to get home before I woke up the next morning.  So did she know that what she was doing was wrong when she did it?  Is this "blackout" just an excuse?  I thought alcoholics only worried about their next drink.  At some point isn't the moral aspect of this a personality trait that can't be blamed on alcohol?

Answer
Scott,
   Thank you for your questions and for giving me some detail about the situation.  Do not try and ascertain too much from this answer - there are way too many things that will need to be sorted out later for both your wife in her newly found sobriety and you as a husband of this "new" person.  It is going to be a different road for both of you.

    Let me first say that her admission to you about the infidelity is honest, at least, but not very well placed in her new sobriety.  I hope you will be able to hear this and not wince, but you should not tell her what I am about to tell you.  Her admission is an attempt at an amend but this comes way down in the 9th step of the recovery process.  She is not any where near that stage of her program.  Step 9 says, "We made direct amends wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others."  You have been injured by her admission and it hurts and you are trying to process that hurt.  She can not help you with it.  Had she kept this to herself and discovered a little more about herself, then she could have shared some insight into the event with you.  Give her time and perhaps she will discover these things.  It takes time.  If you will, do not share this tidbit with her and let her come to the realization she has misplaced the amends too soon.

   Only she can tell you what she was thinking as the active alcoholic in that blackout and only she knows if she was using it as an excuse to do the behaviors she did.  If she will remain sober, then she has a chance at this self discovery.

   I hope this may have helped and write again if I may be of any further help.

Grace and Peace,

Clyde