Sky York Journal
Bell still had her reservations, however, since he had a lot of stories about his more reckless days—and he loved to tell them.
“First of all, he’s infinitely charming and he kept me laughing,” Bell said. “I had a lot of fears when we first started dating because he had a very wild past—and the difference between an addict and someone who just enjoys drugs and alcohol is that the moment any one of those things enters their system, they no longer have the ability to make decisions correctly.
“If he has one sip of beer, there is a different person behind the wheel of his brain,” she continued. “So I didn’t necessarily understand that but also he talked about [all sorts of things involving drugs and alcohol], and he told them like he’s telling a fun story about a cool dinner with his parents, and it scared the s–t out of me because there was no ‘that’s crazy, I’d never do that again.'”
Therapy—”you know we love therapy”—helped them realize that Bell needed an addendum after each story, an acknowledgement that all that “fun” was firmly in the past. Which Shepard was then able to provide.
And on Sept. 4, Bell shared a rare carousel of family photos to mark her husband’s 21 years of sobriety.
