My husband is in recovery  - almost 8 months sober, but his situation was more complex.  He was a hardcore binge drinker from age 15 - 24.  He quit drinking cold turkey.  He decided he'd like to drink again socially after almost 20 years, and started back up December of 2014, and he did great.  He never drank more than one or two, and only maybe once or twice a month, but he was diagnosed with addictive personality disorder after a nervous breakdown, and since alcohol was his first addiction, he was told to give up drinking again, and then to go to AA to find the root of his issues.  He's had his ups and downs, but has done well for the most part.

He has a sponsor, attends meetings several times a week, and has started Step 4 (although he's been hesitant to do his inventory, and gets testy when I mention it - this is a bad habit of his when it comes to anything that will make him uncomfortable - he procrastinates).  But back right before attending AA, when he started therapy (he's been through therapy many times before), he let go of some very deeply buried things.  Most of them involved his highly abusive childhood, and while they upset me, I'm somewhat used to the stories of beatings and violence, but he told me something that threw me for a loop.  It didn't involve his mother, or brother, or any family. It involved a friend.  The one who introduced him to hardcore drinking, and because they lived far apart, that started his binging - the fact that they only saw each other every other month or so.  The one who taught him how to get in to locked liquor cabinets.  How to mix drinks to avoid the smell of alcohol.  How and what to fill bottles with to avoid detection.  Before meeting this friend, my husband would steal beer every now and then, but this kicked it up to a new level.  This friend lived in a good home with good parents.  No abuse, but this person had some hidden issues, and drinking helped them to deal, and this was attractive to my husband  -something to numb the pain and escape the anxiety.

When he graduated high school, my husband left home and never went back, even after his mother tried her hardest (including getting him kicked out of school).  When we got married, he invited this friend to be in our wedding party.  His family caused a lot of problems for us and tried to ruin our wedding, and my husband spend the night before getting blitzed with friends (the friend in question included).  We've kept in touch over the years, and when social media became a thing (my husband doesn't use it - family members ruined it for him), this friend of his and I connected, and we talk regularly.  So when my husband told me something he and this person had done while being drunk out of their minds, I was knocked over.  I won't get in to it on here.  I've not told another person.  I couldn't handle it the first few days after he told me and I finally sat down with him one night and asked some questions so I could put a few things to rest in my mind.  I could see how upsetting it was to him.  He said he beat himself up a lot over it because he'd been kind-of lying about it for many years (I say kind-of, because it wasn't something he was asked about and lied about in response), and that right afterward, he immediately regretted it, and never did it again.  I wasn't upset.  I understood.  It was before he and I met, so I didn't consider it a betrayal of my trust or anything.  After assuring him several times, and having him tell me what he can remember (he doesn't remember most of it), he seemed to be OK, and I decided not to bring it up again, even though I really had more questions.

Does anyone have any suggestions as to how to continue to deal with this friend, who I do really like - always have?  I have pretended like I don't know anything.  And I don't see what good talking about it to this person would do - I don't know if they'd even remember.  But I get this overwhelming awkward feeling now when they talk to me.  This is akin to my husband meeting a high school friend of mine for the first time, and that person letting it slip that I did something stupid that we hadn't told anyone else about (it involved some petty vandalism, and I too felt horrible about it immediately after).  It was before we met, and in the grand scheme of things wasn't the end of the world, but afterward he told me that he wouldn't have thought I'd have done something like that.  Hope that makes sense.

I do attend Al-Anon once a week.  I do service work in the group.  I have all intentions of sticking with it.  But I don't feel comfortable bringing this up to the group.  I'm still trying to find a sponsor - qualified people are in short supply in our area.  Thanks for reading.