Horseface Steve: Relationship Savant

It's interesting talking to people in recovery about relationships. There is kind of an unofficial tradition that we don't tumble into a serious relationship too early in sobriety. As a group, we do a good job of immediately getting deadly serious with whatever hostage we are currently trying to take. We burn with a white hot heat then try to get out after an impossibly short time. "What was I thinking," we say. "I don't even like this person." We jump into relationships for all the wrong reasons: sex, loneliness, selfishly using someone else to plug a void in our lives that we should be figuring out how to plug ourselves. It's easier avoiding our own problems when we can focus all of our energy on someone else. All that excitement distracts us from some of the hard parts of living. It's a lot easier fixing the problems of another person than working on our own.

SuperK and I met at her second meeting, when I had a robust four months of sobriety. Let me assure you that this didn't go over too well with the old-timers in Chicago and they weren't bashful about speaking up. How well did the conventional wisdom work? We've been together, in a wonderful relationship, for over 20 years. Not that it has been easy all of the time -- that's delusional, fantastical alcoholic thinking, the perfect relationship -- but it has been incredibly satisfying and a lot of fun.

The caution is that we need to be careful that a jolt to our emotions doesn't upset us so much that we drink. And we're not just thinking about ourselves, either. Even if we believe that we have the intestinal fortitude to handle a big shock, we have to think about the other person. And the snake in the grass is that most of us change a great deal in our first couple of years of sobriety, when we are arduously working The Steps. It isn't unusual to look into the eyes of your soul mate after a few years and ask:"Who the hell are you?" Happened to SuperK. She had to suck it up and play hurt for a long time before she became accustomed to my unique, deeply hidden, and rare charms (by "charms" I mean "significant psychological pathologies.")

When I talk to friends and sponsees about their relationships, I'm careful to keep my mouth shut. What do I know about whether or not things will work out? I'm a big expert on relationships? I was the 30 year old guy sucking down bong hits and watching "Gilligan's Island" at 10 in the morning. I'm going to make suggestions about interpersonal relationships? I don't think so. My experience is limited to making suggestions to The Professor, who although he can't hear me, might want to consider taking time off from making a telephone system using coconuts and swamp water and FIXING THE HOLE IN THE FUCKING BOAT!