Addiction

The Cruelty of Addiction

Addiction, Self-Esteem By Matt Salis, MPS 10 Comments

The Cruelty of Addiction

Audio version now available.

 

When the gifts are purchased and wrapped, the dinner is planned, the tree is trimmed, and the cookies are baked, I might grind the gears a little as I down shift out of my hussle-culture existence, but I can get slowed down into holiday mode. Now, in the week between, I’ve got to check my own pulse to make sure I’m alive.

 

As a drinker, and in early sobriety, I sought an elusive perfection in the holiday season, and always started the new year disappointed. Now I seek peace and contentment, friendship and family. I’ve surrounded myself with people I love this past week. I want to carry this warm feeling with me as I shift back up through the gears into business as usual. Business as usual, but with a lingering feeling of love, and a foundational knowledge that I’m blessed and everything will be OK.

I Wish She Would Die

Addiction, Emotional Safety, Family By Matt Salis, MPS 2 Comments

I Wish She Would Die

Audio version now available.

 

“I wish my partner would die.”

 

The gruesome, shameful desire uttered faintly through hopeless lips, the unexpected authenticity of an exhausted heart. She looked up slowly, terrified to see the reactions of the people to whom she had gifted her trust, afraid that her new admission had crossed the line of relatability to something unthinkable.

 

She saw nodding heads. Lots of nodding heads.

Bizarre at the Boathouse, Part 1

Addiction, Family By Matt Salis, MPS 2 Comments

Bizarre at the Boathouse, Part 1

Audio version now available.

 

The boathouse in Wash Park has a long and storied history. I mean, it must, right? I’ve never looked into it, but it looks old, and it’s definitely the anchor of the park, the neighborhood, maybe the whole southeast side of Denver. It is the hub of the Independence Day bicycle parade, couples get married there, and it is an easy meeting spot for people walking together in the park.

 

But it doesn’t house any boats. Maybe they store the floating plastic paddle swans under it in the winter, but for all of its iconic grandeur, they ought to have an old Mississippi riverboat cemented into the lakeshore next to it.

 

A riverboat would make a nice backdrop for homecoming dance pictures for the high school adjacent to the south side of the park. We are in the midst of a universally acknowledged, social-media-exacerbated, mental-health epidemic, so the homecoming dance sounds like a great way to encourage our young people to spend face-to-face time together. And it is. I am pro hoco. But as I leaned on the boathouse Saturday night, trying to stay out of the way and not brush against any of the girls who seemed to have shopped for dance gowns in the lingerie department, it occurred to me that the predance picture ritual might not be helping.

Progress

Addiction, Family, Recovery By Matt Salis, MPS 2 Comments

Progress

Audio version now available.

 

Waymo cars driven by humans are techno-mapping the streets of Denver. Local TV ads are recruiting D.P.D. officers to fulfill their destinies and become ICE agents (read that sentence in your best James Earl Jones voice). There are over eight billion people on the planet, but a handful of lunatics possess nuclear codes that could wipe us all out. People get their news from platforms that also allow us to sell our old air fryer or garden hose to our neighbors. I miss plays at the high school football game because I get distracted by the drones filming the action. And I just want to go deep in the mountains and build a lean-to out of sticks and mud.

Rubber Stamping a Toxic Culture

Addiction, Self-Esteem By Matt Salis, MPS 2 Comments

Rubber Stamping a Toxic Culture

Audio version now available.

 

I bought a rubber stamp from a door-to-door rubber stamp salesman once. It was early in our whole grain bread bakery career–maybe 2005. He was wearing a suit and tie long after Friday business casual had seeped into the other four days of the week. He carried a brief case that he opened on our bakery counter. It didn’t actually have briefs in it at all. He had dozens of rubber stamps in little molded foam compartments. He had big stamps that said, “PAST DUE,” in all caps, and small round stamps that said, “Have a nice Day!” in letters arched around a smiley face. He had stamps with rotating numbers so you could adjust the date, and stamps with custom corporate logos. Of course, he had bottles of various colors of ink, and ink pads with lids to keep the ink from drying out.

Courtesy Flush

Addiction, Alcoholism By Matt Salis, MPS 6 Comments

Courtesy Flush

Audio version now available.

 

There are only two bathrooms in our house, which means sharing sometimes. Occasionally, the sharing is delightful, like when I am brushing my teeth as my wife steps out of the shower. More often, sharing involves one person sitting down as another person tries not to gag while attempting to identify a new pimplish bump just far enough back on the shoulder as to make the mirror a frustrating accomplice in a fruitless attempt at diagnosis.

 

My wife instinctively demands, “Courtesy flush, please,” even when she walks into a miraculously unoccupied bathroom.

Cabbage Overdose

Addiction, Recovery By Matt Salis, MPS 6 Comments

Cabbage Overdose

Audio version now available.

 

I cringe at the term, “addictive personality.” My personality is one of the only things not driving my addictions. My neurology and biology are certainly out to destroy me, but I prefer to think of my personality as warm and engaging, although perhaps a little overwhelming. I have been told by those closest to me on more than a few occasions that I am a lot. My personality is something to which no one has ever become addicted.

 

I prefer to think of myself as having a penchant for compulsivity. When I find things I like, I tend to embrace them with the tenacity of a locked-jaw pitbull. The fact that I spent a decade trying to moderate my consumption of alcohol is laughable. I can’t moderate anything I like. In fact, believe it or not, I recently overdosed on cabbage.

Addiction is a (Bad) Coping Mechanism

Addiction, Recovery By Matt Salis, MPS 4 Comments

Addiction is a (Bad) Coping Mechanism

 

Addiction is a coping mechanism.

 

It is not weakness or a moral failing. Addiction is not a choice, although with rare mental and behavioral health education, we can avoid making lifestyle decisions that set us up for disaster. Addiction has very little to do with genetics, and much more to do with generational trauma and familial patterns that can result in a family tree dripping with alcoholics.

 

That first paragraph is thick with stuff it took me over a decade to learn. You don’t have to understand it all. But if you can’t reject the fallacy that addiction is about willpower, genes and morality, then you’re stuck, and none of the rest of this is going to make any sense.