Hi Brook,
I’ll try to make this short. Yesterday my drinking plan was not to drink at all. During the day at work it was very busy. A lot of multi-tasking and patience with students was required. I was so proud that I managed my thoughts very well and basically had a wonderful day. On the way home I had to stop at the grocery store to get a few items for dinner. I decided since I had a busy day I was going to treat myself to 2 glasses of wine (and no more). I didn’t feel like I was doing it to avoid any pain. I just felt like it. While making dinner (warming up tortilla’s in a pan) my husband surprisingly came home a little early. As we were all gathered in the kitchen with kids talking, my husband started monitoring the tortilla. He’s a fantastic cook and pretty much makes most of the dinners. I don’t mind this except when I’m making a special dinner following a recipe. So as I turned around while talking to my daughter I noticed he left and the tortilla was burning. I said “Jim the tortilla is burning”. And He said “You’re making it”. This followed into a bit of a minor unpleasant exchange and as I threw out the burnt tortilla I told him that he could finish. I then opened the fridge and grabbed a beer. He knows I started scholars to stop overdrinking and I normally tell him my drink plan. He didn’t know it tonight and didn’t know I already had two glasses of wine. I grabbed a beer to basically let him know in my weird way of thinking “no don’t blame this on my drinking”.

Later on before he left for the gym, I asked him if he could have just told me “Trish I can finish making the dinner, then there wouldn’t be a problem.” He said that I gave him a snide look and that if he offered to take over cooking he was afraid I would get mad and he didn’t like my tone. My thought was “those are your thoughts not mine” and I told him that because I wouldn’t get mad if he took over making dinner. I felt our discussion became more about me and the whole misunderstanding was my fault. I didn’t want to turn this into the “victim” as I’ve become aware of while studying myself and doing self coaching. Our marriage has been a bit rocky lately. I know you’re going to say it’s a thought. But both of us I’m sure have the same thought. We are very distant with each other both emotionally and physically. I’m wondering if I subconsciously drink to avoid the pain of knowing that we both need to either work harder on our marriage or the dreaded other choice. When I’m not drinking, I never bring up the problems with our marriage. It would be too awkward and I believe he would prefer not to talk period.
The good thing about all this is that he has started listening to your podcasts so I feel we are going in the right direction, I’m just right now feeling ashamed (about hiding my drinking).