With active alcoholism in our home my wife and I withdrew more and more into isolation. Her drinking made it increasingly difficult for us to socialize or spend time with friends and family. My worries about her drinking carried me further and further away from outside friendships and relationships. Even with my own Al-Anon 12-step recovery program I was often most comfortable avoiding people who were unfamiliar with the troubles of the family disease.

Isolation almost felt comfortable at times, in kind of a lazy way. It meant I didn't have to expend energy developing close friendships with the people around me. It gave me a layer of privacy and separation that allowed me to avoid the hard work of intimacy. And I was distanced from the embarrassment and shame I felt with many who were outside of Al-Anon; people with old ideas about alcoholism that were quick to judge and slow to forgive.

Then, suddenly, my wife died. Nothing was private. My home, my life, and my world were all hanging out in the open as I stood there emotionally naked and in pain. People poured into my house to comfort me and help with all that had to be done. Under the circumstances there was no time, and indeed no desire, to clean things up and put on the mask of denial. What was private a day earlier was scattered everywhere in death.

On the morning of her death the fire department, sheriff, and coroner all rummaged through my home. For a while it was treated as a crime scene. Probing questions and unknowing suppositions slammed my way without reservation. In my emotional bankruptcy my answers were honest, without any window-dressing or underwear.

When we mourn so deeply, and so publicly, bystanders and onlookers see a reality in us that is otherwise unseen. My close family, children, and grandchildren, all stood on display in the funeral and reception. Whereas before I didn't cry well in private, I am now crying completely in public. My entire world is undone.

In this period I am most vulnerable. It is here that I am most readily healed and ministered to. This season sifts through my collection of acquaintances to let the friends of great value shine through. Some are able to approach me as I grieve uncovered and I don't wince in recoil at their touch. I stand before them naked but not embarrassed. They've seen it all but they still genuinely care about me. I am not fodder for their gossip but I am potentially a very close friend. Nothing is due, nothing is owed. We cry together.

In the past months of mourning many genuine friends have shone through. It is noteworthy that most of them are themselves members of Al-Anon. The others seem to have experienced themselves the injustice and terrible pain of losing someone they loved deeply. With each of them I have an intimate familiarity now that will continue as I put on the clothes of time. We will never again be the same.

I am tired of crying. I am worn out at the center of attention. I am ready to quietly fade into the background, but not into the isolation or denial I once knew with active alcoholism in my home. Instead I want to remain with my very close friends in a room not on display. And I want to create some new, quiet, private corners that are my own.

Thank you God for showing me many dear and intimate friends.

In recovery I hear about living in a "Fourth Dimension." The idea is that my roots have tapped down into new soil and for the first time I was restored to a new way of living. Turning point, hitting bottom, long term sobriety, and detachment with love, are all events that tell us the Fourth Dimension is not far off.

The Al-Anon program speaks of serenity and miracles. The 12 steps list specific actions I can follow to turn around my unmanageable life and restore me to sanity. Indeed, as my obsession with the alcoholic(s) in my life decreases, I get on with my own awakening.

The foundation of recovery is the belief in, and surrender to, a Power greater than myself. It is from this Power that my transformation comes. Step 12 says "Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps we tried to carry this message to others, and to practice these principles in all our affairs."

And there it is: the entrance to the Fourth Dimension. This is the spiritual awakening as the result of these steps. It is an awakening from within that is as solid and certain as the ground I walk on. For some it comes almost instantly in a life changing moment of clarity that marks a radical change in direction. For others, like me, it can take weeks or months of working the steps before the fire appears.

The awakening is nothing short of a miracle itself, because it changes me where everything else has failed. It gives me direction in the midnight fog of despair, and it forever changes me into a person of purpose and serenity. I move out of obsession about the alcoholic and my life gone bad, and I move into service to others and a quiet peace that defies understanding.

Once I tap into the Higher Power and feel the rush surge through my world a life-changing experience follows. I am never the same again. I may return to my old ways and loose the serenity I have experienced, but I will always know that help is available and healing can take place when I am ready to heal. More likely I will return again and again to the source of all power and healing and surrender to Him the details of my daily wanderings.

It would be easy to trivialize or minimize this Fourth Dimension experience to avoid being labeled by my friends as some fanatic who has "found God." It would be easy for me to explain away the miracle or think of it as a mountaintop high that will soon fade. But these easy ways of thinking would miss the entire point: I have had a spiritual awakening. The very thing I have longed for has transpired. I have had a firsthand experience with my Higher Power.

The entrance to this Fourth Dimension was in my working the 12 steps. Action preceded belief. Each day - even each hour - I practiced the steps in my life. Then at some point the awakening happened. Maybe slowly, perhaps suddenly, but it was unmistakable. My roots tapped into a new soil that provided measurable growth and a fantastic vitality.

One of the truths I discovered in my own awakening is that it came from within. It didn't come from another person. It didn't come in something someone handed me. It wasn't in the church. It wasn't in a religion. And it wasn't of myself, but it was from within. All of the ingredients I needed to awaken were pre-packaged within me, including my Higher Power. I only had to light the match of surrender and fan the flames of my program. My Higher Power took it from there.

Today when I stay in the moment and work the steps I have serenity and purpose. I can stand up, dust myself off, and walk on. I'm going to make it. And I am finding everyday that this new paradigm of the world can be a fun place to live in. I will continue to work the steps and practice my program so I will continue to feel the Flame of the Fourth Dimension.

The marriage vows I took said "until death do us part..." I made those vows 37 years ago, a week before I turned 18. My wife and I started our journey together on this bond. The vows proved crucial at providing the glue to hold things together when times got rough. Traditional marriage vows don't foresee any circumstance where ending the marriage is ok, except the death of one of the parties.

When I think of a marriage I most generally think of two parties who have made the ultimate commitment to one another with vows, or promises to remain faithful. In truth, however, it is three parties, not two. Almost without exception marriages in our western society involve God. A familiar passage in Christian weddings says "What God has joined together let no man put asunder", from the Bible (Matthew 19:6). God is the third partner in marriage.

So it has been helpful for me to remember, when I have come to my wits end with my spouse, that before I can tinker with the vows I've got to go sit down and consult with the third party in our relationship. This helped me more times than I can count when I was absolutely flabbergasted and worn out wrangling with my wife over the disease of alcoholism and its impact in our home. And I couldn't break my vows with the second party unless I was willing to break them with the third party. And for me that never happened.

On the other hand lately I've been a little confused by the "death do us part" clause in the deal. It has been 10 weeks since my wife died as I write this. In some ways the time has helped, but for the most part I am still very much in pain and mourning over the loss of my life's partner. And in most ways I feel just as married today as I did before she died. My marriage didn't just switch off with her death.

And that third party to the vows, God, is still very much in the picture; perhaps even more than He was before she died. And as I sit beside her grave each day I know intellectually that she is not there, but my heart still hasn't accepted the terrible truth. So the three of us sit there and my marriage, in some strange way, travels on.

I know this because when I am speaking to someone where I must identify myself to get the paperwork in order or the accounts changed over I still refer to myself as her husband. My words still describe her as my wife. I have not yet become accustomed to using the words "late wife" or referring to myself as a "widower". What's probably more significant is that relationally I still interact with those around me as though I was married. In every way I am still faithful to my marriage.

So I'm not sure death is the instant termination, or the on/off switch, to a marriage. I believe it may be awhile before my heart accepts what my head is telling it. And my wife may always live on inside me. Certainly she lives on with the Third party to our vows.

Many less traditional marriage vows don't contain the "until death do us part" line. Instead they have conclusions that speak about “our home being forever filled with peace, happiness, and love.” Or the one I like even better: “I pledge myself to you this day. Our love will be as unchanging and dependable as the tide; as these waters nourish the earth and sustain life, may my constant devotion nourish and sustain you until the end of time.”

Today it is very noteworthy to me that our love withstood everything alcoholism threw at it. Granted we came close to failure more than once, but we endured nonetheless. Death cleansed my wife of her disease, pain, and torment. Today she is new, alive, and free. Today she is home with the Third partner of our marriage.

Each day before I leave my wife's gravesite I tell her, "Honey, I really miss you. I still love you. I look forward to being with you again."

Sleep has become a precious thing to me since my wife died. I have had trouble off and on with insomnia all of my life. But when my wife lost her battle with alcoholism and I went through the turmoil of planning the funeral and making the arrangements, my mind started to run amuck. Then came the terrible sorrow as I realized the finality of it all. And there were worries about bills, paperwork, estate details, and legal matters.

My physician prescribed some medicine to help me sleep a few weeks after my wife died when he realized it had been a week or so since I had any significant sleep. But although I have surrendered to the medicine on a few occasions, as you might guess I have a problem with chemical solutions to life's problems. For the most part I figure it is a self-correcting problem; once I get tired enough I'll sleep. But of course there is more to it than that.

When I lay down to rest or come to some other relatively quiet time in my day there is this chorus of thoughts racing through my head. I call it my "committee". It is a committee because there seem to be distinct personalities and agendas among the many voices that banter on in my head. Sometimes it is though I just tell them to "shut up, some of us are trying to sleep in here." But at other times my curiosity gets the better of me and I try to decipher what the committee is doing.

Among the committee members there seem to be both wise and foolish speakers. I think I can see a few different versions of myself in there - perhaps a younger me full of energy and a clear view of the world; and an older me pondering questions and seeing a lot more grey where before there was black and white. I also seem to find my mom and dad's voice in there - isn't that interesting? Oh, and heaven help us if the politicians or philosophers get unleashed. That can start a storm that lasts for hours!

Sometimes in my life I think the committee has worked pretty good. They all seem to get along and know where we were going, and would quiet down rather quickly at bedtime. But there are other times, often stimulated by stress from change - either good or bad change - when the various committee members start to go at it. And then I become quite distracted by all the noise.

Lately I've been noticing a quiet, soft spoken voice in the back of the room that often goes unheard because of the ruckus the other characters are yelling back and forth. I think I've heard the Voice mostly when the other committee members become so exhausted with their grief and mourning that they fall down in silence. Interestingly, I think the various members really pay attention when they hear this quiet member. It is as if He goes around the conference room ministering to each character one by one restoring them to peace and serenity. And at that point all the commotion stops and the committee is one; that One still, calm, quiet voice.

I'm not too sure what happens after that in the committee, because we all get a good night's sleep. But lately I'm getting the noisy committee members to quiet down more quickly so we can all hear what the Voice that matters has to say.

I think this is all about my Higher Power whom I choose to call God. I think a couple of weeks ago when I finally hoisted the white flag of surrender, admitting that my life was completely unmanageable and that I was powerless to fix it - I think that is when the calm quiet Voice started to be heard more. And the results are so fantastic that I am trying to figure out how to promote the quiet committee member to the Head of the Board! Actually I’d like to replace (fire) the other committee members and take a giant leap into serenity.

As I write this it has been almost 2 months since my wife died. Things have settled down a little from the frantic rush of people and paperwork, planning and activity that all began with her death.

Today I notice two thoughts that have my attention. One is how very different it is to no longer live in a home with an active alcoholic. It has been so long since I lived without the disease wreaking havoc in my home daily that I had forgotten what it was like. It is truly difficult to live with active alcoholism. Suddenly that part of my journey is done. My home doesn't hit me with drama, trauma and adrenaline on a regular basis anymore. Peace and serenity are much more commonplace.

But the second thought that keeps floating to the surface is one of guilt. I feel really guilty when I enjoy the solitude of not living with active alcoholism. I feel guilty as my body and mind heal and I go home in the evening without the anxiety of wondering what terrible thing will happen tonight, or this weekend. I feel guilty when I sit quietly without worrying about my qualifier anymore.

So I hold this all up to the light of day to see what I see. Honestly, I think the guilt is about some twisted logic that sees me finding pleasure in my wife's death. But the truth is I have found only pain in my wife's death. I would like nothing more than to have her in my life again. The worst pain I have ever experienced is in the loss of my wife. So how does this twisted logic play out where I end up feeling guilty?

A friend helped me last night figure out the puzzle. The pleasure I am finding isn't about losing my wife - it is about losing the daily interaction with the active disease of alcoholism. This makes sense. I hate alcoholism so much for what it took from me how could I not be happy to see it move out of my house! But that is a separate issue altogether from losing my wife and the terrible hurt that has brought on.

The turmoil I have inside which seems to be triggering this guilt (in kind of a false alarm sort of way) stems from the fundamental difficulty I have separating the alcoholic from the disease. I started my recovery journey in Al-Anon ready to throw out the baby with the bath water. I was mad at the alcoholic in my misunderstanding that her addiction was her choice.

The AA Big Book makes it completely clear that the notion of one’s free will or choice is erroneous with the disease of alcoholism. Little by little I began to aim my contempt at the disease and rekindle my love for the addict. But the mistaken ideas I have held so long don't just go away overnight. So even today there are times when I get mad at my qualifier for letting her life end this way, going back to the idea that this is what she chose. And that triggers my guilt.

Of course beginning to understand what is triggering my guilt doesn't stop the cycle. I am still really mixed up inside, guilty about enjoying peace. So I have to repeatedly haul the guilt out and hold it up to the truth that I am really enjoying active alcoholism’s departure from my house. Good riddance. But I must also remember that this new found pleasure is not about my wife's death. It is about trampling on the disease that killed her. And for that I have no shame; no guilt.

So today when I sat at my wife’s gravesite I talked to her a bit: "Honey I miss you. My heart is broken in loneliness without you. I am so glad that you are no longer in the clutches of the disease of alcoholism. You are finally free of the disease that took so much from us. And I am finding great peace in sweeping the disease of alcoholism from our home back into the sewer where it belongs. Say Hi to God for me. I love you."