Suppose you’re planning a dinner with friends. You’d like to serve wine, and your partner has asked you to keep alcohol out of the house. To you, a bottle of wine is part of hosting. To him, having it in the kitchen may make it harder to stay sober. You both care about the relationship, and you still have to decide what to do on Saturday.
In more than three decades as a psychotherapist and relationship coach specializing in gay men, I’ve helped partners navigate differences in age, income, culture, nationality, religion, and even where they live. Recovery can bring a difference into everyday life in a particularly immediate way. Can your relationship work when your partner is in Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) and you drink socially? It can, provided you can take his recovery seriously and talk honestly about what each of you needs from the relationship.
For some gay men, alcohol or other substances are part of the settings where they see friends, go out, or meet sexual partners. Some people in recovery use “normie” informally for someone who can drink socially and hasn’t experienced a substance use disorder. In my practice, I’ve used my training in harm reduction to help gay men think through ways to reduce risks associated with substance use. I’ve written before about gay men’s relationships with alcohol. In a relationship, the conversation also has to make room for a partner whose recovery depends on abstinence.
When these differences start to strain the relationship, couples therapy for gay men can give you both room to talk about them. Sometimes one partner wants space to sort through his own feelings first. Individual therapy or coaching for gay men worldwide can help you think through what you want to bring to that conversation.
When AA Becomes Part of Your Partner’s Life
AA can feel like a culture in its own right. Like a spiritual community, it has a shared vocabulary and regular practices. Meetings, sponsorship, fellowship, and the Twelve Steps can give someone in recovery structure and a sense of belonging. I’ve also seen people find support in programs such as SMART Recovery, which uses a four-point program.
From the outside, that world can feel hard to enter. Your partner might attend several meetings a week and count some of the people he’s met there among his closest friends. You might wonder whether those friends are comfortable around you when you order a drink. Or he might tell you, “My sponsor thinks I should skip that party,” and you’re left wondering how much say someone else has in your plans as a couple.
A sponsor can offer perspective on what a situation may mean for your partner’s sobriety. The two of you still have a conversation to have about your shared plans. If he decides to skip a party, you can ask what would make it hard for him to attend, decide whether to go yourself, and talk about how you’ll spend time together that weekend. A sponsor, recovery peers, and therapists can each support him in different ways. In individual, couples, or group therapy, you may also have room to talk about how recovery is affecting the relationship.
Where Sobriety and Social Drinking Can Create Friction
The differences often show up in ordinary decisions. One partner wants a bottle of wine in the house for guests. The other wants an alcohol-free home. A dinner out, a trip with friends, or a holiday with family may involve drinking, and you may need to decide what to ask of your hosts. A gay bar might be where one of you has seen the same friends for years and where the other expects to feel pressure to drink. Even when you agree about alcohol, regular meetings, sponsor calls, or an intensive outpatient program can leave you with less time together than either of you expected.
Sex can bring up its own concerns. Cannabis or other recreational drugs may be present in a setting one partner associates with sex and substance use, including chemsex. If that’s part of his history, ask what situations concern him and what support he wants from you. A man who has been sober for years may feel at ease while his partner has wine with dinner. Someone in early recovery may find that same dinner difficult. The person in front of you can tell you more about what he needs than the fact that he attends AA. I go into more detail about how partners can talk through their expectations in my article on alcohol and drug use in gay men’s relationships.
When Accommodation Turns Into Resentment
Maybe you readily agreed to keep alcohol out of the house and arrange your evenings around meetings. Months later, you find yourself feeling like the only one who has given something up. Your partner, meanwhile, may hear a request for more flexibility and wonder whether you appreciate what sobriety takes. Both of you can feel dismissed in the same conversation. For more on how a partner’s history with alcohol can shape those reactions, see my article on gay men who grew up with a parent who drank heavily.
A power imbalance can develop when one partner’s requests are always treated as essential and the other’s are routinely dismissed as selfish. A credible concern about returning to substance use may deserve more weight than a preference for serving cocktails. Both partners still deserve a say in how an agreement affects them. If you’re giving up a night out together, for example, you can talk about when you’ll have time as a couple and how you’ll keep seeing the friends who matter to you.
Your partner is responsible for managing his recovery with whatever help he draws on from his treatment providers, sponsor, or recovery community. You can ask what support would help and decide what you can realistically offer. If you find yourself monitoring him or feeling responsible for keeping him sober, talk about how you came to take on that role. Both of you need room for friendships, interests, and time of your own.
After years of having some version of this argument, you may hear “Can we have wine at dinner?” as “Do my wishes count around here?” If that feels familiar, couples therapy offers a confidential place to talk through the resentment. Individual therapy or relationship coaching can give you space to work out what you want to say and what you can reasonably agree to.
The Three C’s and Two R’s
I often come back to five principles in my work with gay male couples. I call them the Three C’s and Two R’s. The same principles can help with problems I’ve seen many times in practice, though the agreement always depends on the people making it.
- Commitment. Remember what you’re each trying to protect. One of you is committed to staying sober and being attentive to his partner. The other wants to support that effort and keep a satisfying life of his own. You’re both trying to make the relationship work.
- Communication. Tell your partner what happens for you in a specific situation. “I miss having evenings together. Can we set aside one night this week?” gives him something he can respond to. So does “When there’s alcohol in the kitchen, I worry about staying sober.”
- Compromise. Find an arrangement you can both live with. You might keep the house alcohol-free and have a drink when you see friends on your own. You might go to some events together and make separate plans for others.
- Respect. Take your partner’s experience seriously. Sobriety may take daily effort. A partner who drinks socially can also make thoughtful choices about his own life.
- Regard. Consider how your choices land with your partner. If you order a cocktail, you can ask how he feels about it. If you need several evenings for meetings, you can ask whether he’s been missing time with you.
How to Make an Agreement You Can Both Keep
I’ve taught couples therapy to graduate students at USC and worked with gay men in individual therapy, couples therapy, and occasionally with polycules. A method I use in practice is to take one recurring situation and make an agreement specific enough to try. It’s the same kind of conversation I have with partners about how they divide chores, spend money, use shared space, visit their families of origin, or make agreements about consensual nonmonogamy.
- Name one decision. Start with “Will we serve alcohol when we have friends over?” That gives you a specific problem to solve.
- Ask what it means to each of you. Wine might represent hospitality to one partner and a risk to sobriety for the other. If you understand what each person is worried about losing, you have a better chance of finding a workable plan.
- Talk through needs and preferences. Ask what each of you needs to feel safe and respected and where you have flexibility. If the partner in recovery is unsure how a situation might affect him, he can discuss it with his treatment provider or recovery supports.
- Agree on what you’ll actually do. Decide whether guests can bring alcohol, which gatherings you’ll attend together, or which evenings you’ll set aside as a couple. Make the terms clear enough that each of you can describe the agreement the same way.
- Revisit the agreement. Ask what happened when you tried it. Maybe one of you felt pressured to agree, or a situation felt different in practice. Use what you learned to revise the plan together.
Pay attention when the same disagreement keeps coming back. One partner may fear he’s losing his independence. The other may wonder whether his partner will still want to spend time with him as his social life changes. Sometimes the concern really is that one of you has underestimated the seriousness of recovery. Naming what’s at stake gives you a better chance of making an agreement you can keep.
If Your Partner Returns to Substance Use
A return to use can bring up fear, anger, and shame, particularly if there was secrecy or an agreement was broken. You can take the harm seriously and still leave room for your partner to get help. Depending on what happened, he may need to reconnect with his treatment provider, revisit his recovery supports, or discuss changes to his care. You may also need to reconsider what feels safe in your shared life.
In my work, I help the partner in recovery think through what led up to the return to use and what he could do when similar pressures arise again. His partner can support those efforts and be clear about what he needs to feel safe. That might include an agreement about what happens if substances are brought into the home. Each person should understand what he’s agreed to do, especially when trust has already been strained.
Can Your Relationship Work When One of You Is in AA?
Self-empowerment, a theme in my work and the title of my 2013 book, begins with examining the assumptions you’ve been living by. Perhaps you assume that being a good partner means giving up every social occasion where alcohol is served. Your partner may assume that if you love him, you’ll understand his recovery without his having to explain what feels difficult. Both of you have more choices once you can say those expectations aloud and decide which ones make sense for your relationship.
Sometimes one partner’s substance use poses a serious threat to the other’s recovery or safety, and that can lead to a difficult decision about staying together. My resources on gay relationships and dating cover other questions that can come up as you weigh that decision. Other couples find that a few specific agreements give them enough room to share a life. Your partner can keep the meetings and friendships that support his sobriety. You can keep friendships and interests of your own. What matters is whether the life you build together gives each of you enough safety, connection, and freedom to want to keep choosing it.
If disagreements about sobriety or social drinking keep resurfacing, I offer individual therapy in California, couples therapy in California, and relationship coaching worldwide. In a free 15-minute consultation, we can talk about what’s happening and which service might fit. Email Ken@GayTherapyLA.com for therapy or Ken@GayCoachingLA.com for coaching, or call or text 310-339-5778.
About the author
Ken Howard, LCSW, is a California-licensed psychotherapist and relationship coach with more than three decades of experience specializing in gay men and their relationships. A former adjunct associate professor at the USC Suzanne Dworak-Peck School of Social Work, he taught couples therapy and other clinical subjects. He hosts The Gay Therapy LA Podcast and works with clients via telehealth.
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