Alcoholism

Rose, part two

Alcoholism, Emotional Safety By Matt Salis, MPS No Comments

Rose, part two

Audio version now available.

(Click here to read part one.)

Confused about the sources of her anxiety, and incapable of confronting Chris for the alcohol or relationship dysfunction, Rose did what she’d been trained to do her whole life. She signed up for 5k runs and thumbed through grad school degree catalogs. Deflection and gaslighting are traits so often assigned to people experiencing addiction first hand. But second-hand alcoholics can get pretty good at them, too. Rose could have taught a grad school class in denying reality and looking for a solution in external gratification.

 

Rose ignored the anxiety and her partner’s drinking, and instead focused on the next degree, the next job, or at least the next PR in the next Saturday morning race. It is a good thing she didn’t get the euphoric feeling from booze that many of us alcoholics experience. She had the denial and deflection down so well that it’s kind of amazing that she didn’t develop a debilitating addiction of her own.

 

She was stuck.

Jen, part two

Alcoholism, Marriage By Matt Salis, MPS 2 Comments

Jen, part two

Audio version now available.

(Click here to read part one.)

Old academic papers on the impact of alcoholism on kids are plentiful. The studies from the end of last century usually suggest that the family stay together. That’s one of the things I despise about behavioral health research. Humans are complex and coercible, and an experienced academic can usually design a study to get the results that validate his assertions. People haven’t changed much since the start of this new millennium, but the advice sure has. It is widely believed among family psychologists that what children need is one stable parent, to provide emotional support, physical safety, and healthy adult modeling. Staying in a toxic marriage for the sake of the kids is finally being openly criticised for being as ludicrous as it sounds.

It Won’t Matter

Alcoholism, Recovery By Matt Salis, MPS 2 Comments

It Won't Matter

Audio version now available.

 

I wish I could deliver a message to my younger self. Many messages, really, to many earlier versions of me. Like that the penis my college friends drew on my forehead with permanent marker when I passed out would not, in fact, impact the rest of my life. Or that leaving my sales-manager job at a steel company that was for sale upgrading to a steel company that later declared bankruptcy was not, actually, the stupidest move ever. Or even more recently, that the knee injury I suffered playing soccer last summer was not the end, and that I was not yet relegated to the chair workouts Instagram feels are age appropriate.

 

Those tips would have been useful. But in mid-March 2026, I am thinking about the advice I would give a late 20-teens version of me about Saint Patrick’s Day.

The Family Scar

Alcoholism, Family By Matt Salis, MPS 10 Comments

The Family Scar

Audio version now available.

 

Before they served us our farewell dinner, our neighbors of twenty years, while enjoying the evening sun of newly saved daylight on their back deck, asked our youngest two boys what their fondest memories were of the house we are leaving behind.

 

I froze in a mini-panic. “The time Drunk Dad got so mad that he punched a framed picture spreading glass all over our bedroom.” “Listening to Mom and Dad whisper-fight well into the morning through the heating ducts.” Those were the traumatic memories that flooded my brain as I waited for our sons to speak.

Soft Pillows

Alcoholism, Emotional Safety, Recovery By Matt Salis, MPS No Comments

Soft Pillows

Audio version now available.

 

My wife, Sheri, and I just spent a long weekend with three couples. It was interesting to hear that we had all shared the same clear and decisive experience, without which, none of our marriages would have survived.

 

All four of us men were drinkers. All four of us men begged our wives to let us back in emotionally, and to comfort us as we tried to get sober. All four of our wives, after multiple attempts to be our soft pillows–to cushion the impact of early sobriety, finally stood by a hard boundary.

 

All four of our wives said enough was enough, and forced all four of us men to do it on our own.

Million-Dollar Endorsement

Alcoholism, Parenting By Matt Salis, MPS 2 Comments

Million-Dollar Endorsement

Audio version now available.

 

While watching football over the holidays, my youngest son asked me why all of the sideline reporters are hot women, and all of the play-by-play commentators are variably attractive men. “Sexism,” I responded without hesitation. “It’s bothered me for years. These broadcasts are just money-generating engines, and I’m sure the networks have done focus groups. I think dudes are just uncomfortable being informed about football from chicks, except the cute ones who fawn over the winning quarterback.”

 

“Exactly,” my daughter said from behind the couch to which my fanny was semi-permanently adhered during bowl season. I didn’t even know she was in the room. Had I known, I might have used a different word. Females in their early-to-mid twenties have strong opinions, and they are pretty unified about reserving the word, “chicks,” for babies with feathers. Other than that, my message would not have been different had I known she was listening. Either way, it is hard for me to describe how it felt to have her agree with me.

 

At first, it was like the jolt of joy you get when you put on your jeans for the first time in the fall and find a five-dollar bill in the back pocket. But the more I have thought about it, the more her one-word reaction means to me. It has been a long time since she felt comfortable endorsing my opinion.

Elephant Around the Christmas Tree

Alcoholism, Marriage By Matt Salis, MPS 2 Comments

Elephant Around the Christmas Tree

Audio version now available.

 

The Christmas Tree lights are off and the house is quiet. I’m slumped over on the loveseat, my neck sore from the unnatural angle created by the upholstered arm. This room was full of people, my people, when I nodded off. Christmas music and laughter and footed pajamas. A note was being penned reminding Santa that the carrot is for Rudolph. In the dark, I can make out the shadow of the Santa gifts next to the fireplace. The remnants of a glass of beer–about an inch left in the bottom–is on the coffee table next to the plate of cookie crumbs. Warm and flat, I drink it down before stumbling to my bedroom.

3 Things I Love about Friendsgiving

Alcoholism, Family By Matt Salis, MPS No Comments

3 Things I Love about Friendsgiving

Audio version now available.

 

You probably assume that one of my top three loves for a holiday meal shared with friends rather than family is the likelihood of avoiding tense conversations about politics–the conflicts prevalent around a traditional multi-generational family Thanksgiving table. The last Saturday Night Live episode in November almost always features at least one skit that starts with a smiling family watching the patriarch carve the turkey, and devolves into a blur of isms and phobias with a predictable buildup and and eventual crescendo of mashed potato spittle being scream-launched while someone chugs directly from the wine bottle out of desperation.

 

Avoiding such scenes is not one of the three reasons I love Friendsgivings.

Senseless Urgency

Alcoholism, Recovery By Matt Salis, MPS No Comments

Senseless Urgency

Audio version now available.

 

When Sheri was pregnant with our first child, we decided we needed a safer, more sensible family-oriented car. Nothing like pregnancy to open our eyes to the death-tempting lifestyle we’d been socially conditioned to accept. You might have thought we were lion tamers or sword swallowers, not an inside sales representative and his bank-teller wife.

 

It must be fun to sell cars when a young couple enters the dealership with bright eyes and bushy tails, and maybe a little drool forming at the corners of their mouths to offset the sparkle of innocent naivety in their eyes. I came prepared with my internet printouts from the KBB website determined to get the best of my adversary in his clip-on tie and rubber-soled wingtips. We found a car we liked, and as we started the negotiation process, our salesman pointed to another couple sitting with one of his coworkers at a similar showroom desk. He said the couple was interested in the same car, and that it was the only one with those features in inventory. As Mike Tyson famously said, “Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face.” I think I offered $500 over sticker. The ink wouldn’t come out of the pen fast enough as I hastily wrote the biggest check of my young-adult life. My bride was impressed. With the salesman. Through the years, I justified my impetuous overpayment by reminding myself that the car had clearly protected our baby from all the untamed lions in Minnesota.