Alcoholism

I Can’t Believe What I’ve Done

Alcoholism, Recovery By Matt Salis 2 Comments

I Can't Believe What I've Done

I’m a big horror movie fan. The beginning of October marks the start of the three-month holiday season for me. Up first…as many scary movies as my eyeballs can consume in 31 days. I like some of the slasher movies, most of the psychological thrillers, and the best of the classics. One thing I have no time for, however, is a movie centered around the old and tired plot of someone who turns into a despicable creature and does unspeakable things that he can’t later remember. Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, An American Werewolf in London, and any movie featuring the Incredible Hulk don’t do anything for me. The concept is boring because I’ve lived that plot. I’ve transformed into a monster who could do or say things I wouldn’t dream of in the light of the next day. Add a little toxic elixir, and the results were unpredictably terrifying. I don’t need to watch a movie to see the diabolical transformation. Been there, done that.

 

You see, I was an alcoholic.

Evolution Series: Owning My Story

Alcoholism, Evolution Series By Deb 4 Comments

Owning My Story

As the partner of someone suffering from addiction, alcoholism is part of my life, my fabric of experience, and continues to take me on a deep and bizarre journey. Through this experience, I am learning, growing, trying different approaches to things – essentially navigating a thick jungle with no guide, no map, and no trails. However, it is a part of my life’s journey and I continue to become better and better at guiding myself.

 

But I can’t tell my story without impacting my partner. So the question lingers:

 

Who owns my story?

Sex, Alcohol and Ignorance Breeds Alcoholism

Alcohol, Alcoholism, Intimacy, Marriage By Matt Salis 4 Comments

Sex, Alcohol & Ignorance Breeds Alcoholics

My mom likes to tell the story at family gatherings and other social occasions. “When I approached Matt and told him it was time for us to have, ‘the talk,’ he replied, ‘Sure mom. What do you want to know?’”

 

It is a chuckle-worthy story that illustrates two things – one accurately and one inaccurately. As a teenager, and into my 20s, my sexual confidence often bordered on arrogance. But it also might lead one of my mom’s guests to believe we had open and honest communication about sex and sexuality. She tried, and so did my dad. But they both viewed “the sex talk” as something to check off of a list. We did not engage in the kind of honest vulnerability that might have led to a healthy education about sex and intimacy for me as an adolescent. I don’t blame them, really. I have yet to meet anyone from their generation who could talk about sex as openly as is required to lead youths to a healthy adult outcome. My generation isn’t doing much better.

Relapse

Alcoholism, Relapse By Matt Salis 13 Comments

Relapse

Whiskey on the rocks. No mixer. No room-temperature shots. Just harsh brown liquid barely diluted by the slowly melting ice. But who am I kidding? The way I drink, the ice doesn’t have time to melt much.

 

Jack Daniels, probably. We have high-end, small-batch, local bourbons distilled here in Colorado now. They are too expensive for my purpose. They are meant to be sipped. I know better than to pretend. Gut-rot, bottom-shelf, sold-in-a-plastic-bottle whiskey would feel like failure. I am trying to reestablish an identity here. Jack will do nicely. No need to return the bottle to the cabinet. It can sit on the end table next to my glass until they’re both empty.

Evolution Series: American Dream

Alcoholism, Evolution Series, Marriage By Kim 2 Comments

American Dream

I think it was about 4 years ago when I wrote my first letter – my first letter where I addressed the issue at hand. It was the first of many letters to come where I stressed how much I needed my husband, how much my kids needed their dad.

 

I begged and pleaded for him to stop drinking.

 

As the years continued, I continued to write my letters to him. I cried, sobbed, begged, pleaded and threatened, but it was not enough.

 

I changed through the years, and so did my message. Where the letters once started with, “I need you! I can’t live without you,” the sentiment slowly turned into, “I can do this on my own. The kids and I can no longer continue on this merry-go-round with you.”

 

They say you know when you know. It is 100% true.

 

This is the letter I read to my husband at his intervention. I thought it was the end.

 

It was just the beginning.

Pressure: The Unrelenting Underlying Cause

Alcoholism, Recovery By Matt Salis No Comments

Pressure: The Unrelenting Underlying Cause

I attended a Billy Joel concert at Giants Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey about 30 years ago. When he played one of his biggest hits, “Pressure,” he had two grand pianos on stage. They were carefully positioned with a precise distance between the keyboards. At one point in the song, there is a brief lull between piano notes – just a few seconds. To illustrate the title of the song, he hit the last note before the lull on one of the pianos, sprinted to the other piano, and arrived just in time to pick up the piano part without missing a note.

 

Pressure.

 

Self-inflicted pressure.

 

That’s something alcoholics like me know a lot about.

Evolution Series: You are Less Alone than You Know

Alcoholism, Evolution Series, Marriage By Lauren Mitchell No Comments

You are Less Alone than You Know

If I knew then what I know now, would my path be any different? Would my choices change? Would I make different decisions? They say hindsight is 20/20. And yet, I look at my past, and I am still not sure what I could have, should have, or would have done differently. Maybe it’s not yet far enough behind me to say.

 

Maybe because I don’t know the final destination, I don’t know if I got lost somewhere along the way.

 

So what do I wish I knew before? What would have made this journey easier? A few things come to mind.

A Hunter’s Guide to Successful Gathering

Alcoholism, Marriage, Recovery By Matt Salis 2 Comments

A Hunter's Guide to Gathering

I’m a hunter. I’m married to a gatherer. And it’s really fucking hard.

 

Does this stupid analogy really explain why we find marriage to be so difficult? Do you also want to hear my regurgitated insight about the mixing of oil and water, the distance between Mars and Venus, and the oh-so-soothing conventional relationship wisdom about how opposites attract? Is it really so simple? I have been accused of oversimplifying before. Usually by my wife after I have hunted down a solution while she is still gathering information on the topic.