It’s been a full year since I relapsed last October. Four years clean, gone. Hurricane Milton was rolling toward Tampa, and I was out gathering footage as it shifted course. Eva, a Floridian, fearless, and foolishly confident only when drinking, was blasting warnings on X, telling people to get out, to stay safe.
Then she texted me, “I’ll grab you an Airbnb in Tampa.” My gut twisted. I knew.
When I got home, she denied it, but the liquor told on her long before she opened her mouth. I asked calmly if she was drinking. She said no. I knew otherwise.
What a fuckin insult. I’m an alcoholic raised by alcoholics; I can smell it before it hits the glass. I can smell it permeating from your deceitful pores.
Her husband Drew stormed in, his simp cape half on, half off, defending her too quickly. Like he’d been waiting for the cue all along. Suddenly, I was the problem.
Is this guy even a fuckin doctor? Or just another simp pretending recovery is a game show prize?
They accused me of lying, of drinking. Money got thrown in my face, my lack of it, to be exact. That’s how addicts cut when they’re cornered: they aim for your dignity. The real wound wasn’t the insult, though, it was realizing my safety never mattered in that room.
Eventually, she admitted the truth. But by then, it was too late. The storm was outside and inside, both tearing everything apart.
Standing there, with the children circling me like witnesses to my own unraveling, I gave in. I drank. There was no sober driver that night, no safety net. Eva smirked, her misery finally mirrored. Four years of sobriety reduced to a sideshow.
It won’t be the first time a partner has found their own way to weaponize my addiction. Cassie did it too, posting martinis on social media immediately after I walked out on her, the very drink I used to love, taunting me from the place we met.
I’d walked away from chaos before, hotel receipts and Google Maps could testify, but even quiet departures have limits. How many times can you leave after you’re accused of “whoring around” for simply surviving and maintaining my sobriety?
During my relapse while sitting there drunk with all my resentments, I spilled the tea on social media and Drew’s fiancée saw it, their wedding collapsed after I exposed what he’d been hiding.
He called Eva days later, voice cracked and broken as he cried. The same man who called me unstable was now seeking advice from his still current wife, on how to get his ex fiancée to take him back.
Addiction spares no one, not even those within close proximity to an addict who stand behind the finger they’re pointing.
Fast forward to today, and now he’s the one chasing custody, citing an “uninhabitable environment” in his court filings while ignoring the same uninhabitable house that reeked of Eddys lemonade and dog piss over a year ago.
I call it unmanageable. That’s alcohol’s calling card.
He still can’t see straight, love blinds, and a manipulate addict will always cloud the light, and Eva banked on that alongside her family. That’s how she got him to hand over $3,000 for a camera lens, $30,000 cash for a minivan crawling with cockroaches, all while her sister’s rent stayed paid every month by Doctor Simp himself.
And they call me a mooch.
That’s not generosity. That’s control. That’s currency traded for obedience.
I have no skin left to lose in this game. My children are safe, and the only way I’ll ever lose them is by drinking again and staying there. Today is day 36. Each chip is a reminder that I have fallen a thousand times and stood up a thousand and one.
Eva’s mother can post all the crash out clips she wants and get sued while doing it. My kids have already seen worse. I’ve made my amends, and my head is still high.
Because exposing someone who’s already exposed isn’t power, it’s desperation dressed as revenge. And when the lights go out, the carnival game stops. No prizes, no cheers, just mirrors.
And in those mirrors, I finally see it; I don’t owe chaos another minute of my time. The storms outside can rage, the hurricanes can shift course again, but for now, I’m the one steering.
