This has gotten difficult.

No, I'm not thinking about drinking. Well, I guess that's a lie. I am not thinking about having a drink. That's more accurate.

So what has gotten difficult? Let me explain (warning, I have written a bit of a book here, but by necessity have left out much detail.)

My wife, Lynn, and I have been "functionally separated" since entering rehab nearly 2 1/2 years ago. By functionally separated, I mean we spent a couple of years living as roommates who shared the same bed. No intimacy. No communication. No affection. Nothing. I tried so many things and spent so much money searching for a hobby, and activity, ANYTHING that we could share in common, and it amounted to a waste of my time and money.

We are no longer "functionally separated." We are separated. She now lives in California with her ex-husband.

Lynn and I always had a difficult relationship, but the one thing we had in common was alcohol. It was the one thing we could always agree on, no matter what. It was always at the center of our relationship. It was how we met and it's what we always did together, virtually every day, from the day we met until we entered rehab nearly 10 years later.

I was living in California, had a "home away from home" (the bar that was walking distance from my home,) and a close circle of friends. Life was good. I lived alone, but it was okay because I could always go for a walk, duck into the bar, and have a few drinks with my friends, shoot pool, have a bite to eat, and so forth. I didn't feel alone. It was at that bar that I met Lynn.

We developed a relationship, but it was casual. I pushed back in the beginning on having any sort of serious relationship. She just didn't seem to be "my type," but she did soon become my best drinking buddy. We both had other partners, but always ended up back with each other. We had a lot of fun, but alcohol was always at the center of it.

Ultimately, I caved and decided to get serious. What led me to cave? Simply put, the fear of being alone. Not the alcohol. I didn't need to delve into a serious relationship with her over alcohol. We had that. But when my job in California evaporated and I could find no work there, and a job was offered to me in Indiana, I had to take it. I knew no-one in Indiana and did not want to go alone. Talking about it with her one day, I half-jokingly asked her if she wanted to move to Indiana. She said "yes."

Once in Indiana for a few years, it seemed that there was no sense in avoiding marriage. We were living as a married couple and really had made a commitment to each other moving 2/3 of the way across the country together as a couple. We both hated Indiana, and that caused significant stress on the relationship, but we figured out how to get through it.

Alcohol!!

In fact, we were drunk when we tied the knot. Go figure!! :-/

But eventually, the job in Indiana evaporated. Since we hated Indiana, we decided to move back to my original stomping ground of Central Wisconsin where there was a job available. A few months after moving to WI is when we entered rehab together. We had to. We were killing ourselves.

Rehab was successful for both of us, and I just assumed that being sober would allow us to actually, finally, build a relationship based upon something other than Jack Daniel's. But there was a dynamic that was unleashed that I did not know about until recently. It came up in a conversation with my wife regarding our pending divorce. She finally told me the truth about why she left her ex-husband and told me why she had stopped putting any effort into our relationship.

It made everything that happened make sense. I understand now why our relationship did not improve, but actually got worse, after we got sober. She had left her previous husband of 23 years to "go party." She left behind her two children, both nearing adulthood. I knew none of this, but always wondered about the situation that led to her divorce. I always wondered why she was always so evasive when I asked her about it, and assumed that something really nasty happened that she didn't want to talk about. But that wasn't it. She just decided to walk out. Her drinking intensified over the years, in part, as a way to squelch the guilt she had begun to feel for leaving. Sobering up brought remorse that she could not resolve while staying with me.

So ... I do understand now why our relationship fell apart after we got sober. I do understand the remorse she feels and why she has decided to reconcile with her ex-husband. I understand all of that. I most certainly do not want her here given that she doesn't want to be here. Ironic, though, because once I decided to take the dive and get serious I put more effort into the relationship than I have in any relationship previous to ours.

So where am I going with this? I am alone. I understand why I am alone, and I am okay with the fact that she is gone. But that doesn't change the fact that I HATE being alone. There is no bar within walking distance here, and if there was I wouldn't go there regularly. I live in Central Wisconsin now, where non-drinkers are a bit of a novelty -- almost treated with suspicion.

The isolation that developed in Indiana and the first months in Wisconsin resulting from the insane amount of alcohol we were consuming has, ironically, been replaced with isolation resulting from the fact that I do not and will not drink. I am an atheist, of course, but even if I wasn't I would have to avoid church picnics because THEY HAVE BEER THERE!!

I don't want to be alone, but I know most anywhere I might decide to go to mingle with people there will be drinking. I can deal with that on an occasional basis, but I don't want to be around it all the time.

I simply don't know how to be alone and not drink.

No, that doesn't mean I'm going to drink to avoid being alone. I am no more interested in that than I was interested in drinking to try to save my marriage. I'm just at a bit of a loss as to where to find someone nearby to talk to.

Non-drinkers are a minority here. Atheists are a minority here.

I am a sober atheist, which makes me a bit of an oddball around here on both counts.

</rant>