What happens when the person you fell in love with over drinks becomes the person you can’t get sober with? When your favorite drinking buddy is also your spouse?

This is one of the most painful and complex situations in recovery. If you’re in it right now, you know the unique hell of being trapped between your love for a person and your need to save your own life. I know this place. I’ve lived it—not once, but twice.

The Beautiful Beginning

It starts so beautifully, doesn’t it? You connect over a shared joy. The concerts, the dance clubs, the lazy Sunday brunches with mimosas. The alcohol feels like the glue. It’s the social lubricant, the celebration, the romance. You’re on the same team—the team that knows how to have a good time.

You see the little signs—the missed Monday mornings, the emotional swings, the career stagnation—but you brush them aside. You’re in love. And this is just part of your story together.

The Slow Unraveling

But slowly, the glue becomes a splinter. And the more you try to pull it out, the deeper it digs in. The thing you had in common becomes the source of every argument. The fun has faded, but the need to drink hasn’t.

You might try to suggest, “Hey, let’s take a weekend off.” Or one of you might genuinely try to cut back. But without a real recovery plan, the beast always comes back. And now, it’s not just your personal struggle; it’s a war on the home front. The very foundation of your relationship—that shared habit—is now cracking under the weight of addiction.

The Sobering Crisis

And then comes the real crisis. One of you decides to get serious about sobriety.

This is where the real disconnect happens. The partner in recovery is going to meetings, learning a new language of honesty and vulnerability. The partner who’s still drinking doesn’t want to hear it. They feel judged, abandoned, and defensive. The friction is constant.

You now have different goals. One wants to go to a meeting; the other wants to go to the bar. One is trying to build a new life; the other is clinging to the old one. The Bible tells us our bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, and we are to honor God with them (1 Corinthians 6:19-20). Choosing sobriety is an act of honoring that temple. But when your spouse is still defiling their own, it creates a spiritual chasm that can feel impossible to cross.

The Impossible Choice

I’ll never forget being in rehab, about five weeks in. My therapist had been gently suggesting for weeks that my marriage, built on that toxic foundation, might not survive my sobriety. I fought it. I denied it.

And then, one day, the clarity hit me like a ton of bricks. I realized that no matter how ugly it got, I had to choose my life. It was the hardest decision I’ve ever made.

I don’t condone divorce. It’s a horrific, painful process I wouldn’t wish on anyone. But I have to be brutally honest with you: if your marriage is built on a foundation of shared addiction, and only one of you wants to leave that addiction behind, the likelihood of that marriage surviving is slim.

Choosing to Save Yourself

This isn’t a message of hopelessness. It’s a message of painful truth. In recovery, we ask, “What are you willing to do to stay sober? What lengths will you go to?”

Sometimes, the most devastatingly difficult length is walking away from a relationship that is actively threatening your sobriety and your life. It’s choosing yourself, your health, and your relationship with God, even when it feels like it’s costing you everything.

You are not alone in this impossible choice. If this is where you are, your first step isn’t to fix your marriage. It’s to secure your own sobriety. Get to a meeting. Find a therapist. Build a support system.

Save yourself first. Because you cannot save a drowning person if you’re drowning right beside them.

If you are walking this path, know that you are seen, and your struggle is valid. May God give you the strength and clarity you need for the next right step.

If you need to talk, you are not alone. Reach out. Share your story in the comments below or find a local meeting today.

Chris Mosser

Author of Grateful Truce & The AGI Dilemma