Family

Evolution Series: Is This Emotional Abuse?

Evolution Series, Family, Marriage, Parenting By Sara 2 Comments

Learning About My Trauma by Helping Others

I opened the door and saw Javier, the sixteen-year-old son of one of our tenants, standing on my doorstep. His was not a face I expected to see, but I was fond of his family, and he looked distressed. I asked him if he wanted to come in and talk. He was breathing hard as he perched on the sofa. Javi told me, his face reddening, that his dad had started hitting his little sisters. “I could put up with it when it was just me. But them? No. I can’t stand it.” He knew I was a lawyer (though unbeknownst to this desperate kid, I hadn’t practiced in years, and never in family law). He’d come to me to understand his options for getting his dad out of the house. He even brought evidence in the form of cellphone videos of his dad’s violence he had bravely recorded inside the apartment. What would happen if he called CPS, he wondered. 

 

A couple of hours later, I reluctantly sent Javi home, breathed a big sigh, and opened my laptop to do some research. This was my first (and hopefully last) time being the trusted adult a kid came to with a big problem, and I was determined not to let him, his mom and his sisters down.

Evolution Series: Distortion

Alcoholism, Evolution Series, Family, Marriage By Melanie 6 Comments

Distortion

After alcohol killed my husband, I looked through years of text messages from him, looking for clues. There was no mystery, and I’m not sure what I was trying to solve. Somehow, knowing the truth wasn’t enough. I compiled his messages to me – often repeated over and over again – in search of answers.

 

These are his words:

 

“I know that I am not what you want anymore. I know you are unhappy in our marriage. I know you are pulling away and preparing to leave me. I have never been enough for you. I know you are looking for someone new to replace me, if you have not already found him. You and the kids don’t want me around anyway. I’m best served to just stay quiet. It all seems so fragile sometimes. You guys were fine until me. Being quiet doesn’t work. Should I move further away?

 

“I will just work. That’s all I am good for.

Evolution Series: The Cottage

Evolution Series, Family By Kelly 4 Comments

The Cottage

All alcoholism has underlying issues. Drinking often starts as joyful and social, but eventually, when we cross that invisible line into addiction, we are medicating something. Often, the thing we are medicating is adverse childhood experiences.

 

But childhood experiences can serve another purpose. They can ground us and give us strength. Memories of safety and family in childhood can remind us of the power of pure and unadulterated love. They can help explain how we became the adults we are today.

 

And when embroiled in the chaos of alcoholism – whether our own drinking or the addiction of someone we love – those innocent memories help us focus on the safety and connection we all deserve.

 

I’m proud to introduce these beautiful childhood memories from Kelly – a talented writer and dear, sweet friend. This recollection is not about alcoholism. It is an anchor to the simplicity of life that we humans unwittingly complicate. Can you remember the safety of your cottage?

 

***

 

For as long as I can remember, the cottage has been a part of my life.

 

For two weeks every August, my grandmother and aunt took my three siblings and me up to the cottage located halfway down the Keweenaw Peninsula, the northernmost section of Michigan’s U.P. Excitement made sleep a struggle the nights before leaving for the cottage.

Cat Videos, Sugar Shame and Treadmill Trauma

Alcoholism, Family, Marriage, Recovery By Matt Salis 2 Comments

Cat Videos, Sugar Shame and Treadmill Trauma

Over the New Year’s weekend I heard David Brooks, New York Times opinion columnist and author of How to Know a Person, describe social media as performance art. I like that. It is not connection or interaction no matter how many people we can reach, how fast or how far across the globe. Social media is not about growing closer. It is about screaming our opinions into the wind and posting pictures of our best, fake selves.

 

I have never really interacted with social media on a personal level, and we ditched facebook, Instagram and X for promotion of our blog and podcast in mid 2023 as an experiment. Our platforms continued to grow at the same slow and steady pace. No social media had no impact.

 

I do watch Instagram reels in bed most nights looking for funny cat videos to send my wife. It makes her giggle, so in that way, social media does create connection in my life. A wife who giggles because I show interest in her passion is about as good as it gets.

 

This is the time in the annual cycle when we all vow to make profound changes in our lives. You know it is the start of a new year when some of the beer commercials during the football games are replaced with ads for exercise equipment and tax preparation websites. But change doesn’t come from gym memberships and diet plans. Change comes from pain, and a few pounds gained from eggnog and sugar cookies doesn’t hurt enough. That’s why in January, when we realize our winter sweaters are sufficient cover for our holiday indulgences, our resolutions are fleeting little traumas of unwelcomed self-restraint.

 

But what if you are in enough pain?

Evolution Series: I Am Worthy

Alcoholism, Evolution Series, Family, Self-Esteem By Ali 7 Comments

I Am Worthy

Writing about my value and worth is much more difficult than noting what I don’t deserve. It’s easy for me to be hard on myself.

 

But, I can list a number of tangible things that I’m proud of: my daughter, that I bought a house at age 27, my career, a published paper, helping my sister financially through vet school and her wedding. These tangibles are the outcomes of the intangibles.

 

The intangibles are what is important. The intangibles are the things I want to model for my daughter.

The Clear and Manageable Timetable for Relationship Recovery

Alcoholism, Family By Matt Salis 1 Comment

The Clear and Manageable Timetable for Relationship Recovery

If you put in the work and make the effort…if you are patient and compassionate…if you learn how to be a really good and empathetic listener – this is when you can expect to be finished with your post-alcoholism relationship recovery:

 

Never.

 

I bet that’s not the analysis you were expecting when you read the title of this article. Unexpected or not, it is accurate, and it delivers on the two promises in the title. Never is clear in that it is not ambiguous. There is no range of possible timing. And never is manageable in that if you know it will not end during your lifetime, you can be better prepared for that challenge you face, or you can opt out of your relationships if they’re not worth it to you.

 

If you want sunshine blown up your ass, turn to the recovery community on social media. If you can handle the truth, keep reading.

Penis Burning Chili

Alcoholism, Family, Humor By Matt Salis 4 Comments

Penis Burning Chili

Have you ever eaten chili so hot that it burned your penis? Well, I have. In fact, I not only ate it. I made it. And I tried to serve it to my family. But I’m getting ahead of myself. Let’s start this story at the beginning.

 

For several years, my wife received a subscription to Martha Stewart’s magazine for a Christmas present. I’m not really sure how much Sheri got from the monthly compilation of food, crafts and home-decor tips, but I loved it! Every month, the morning after it arrived, Martha accompanied me into my tile and porcelain office, and I examined all the seasonal recipes with great delight. I was more enamored with the savory than the sweet, but even a simple sugar cookie recipe from the queen homemaker, Martha, deserved a cursory glance.

 

One autumn, maybe a decade ago, I opened Martha’s mag to find it staring back at me in all of its simple and authentic glory: The “Cowboy Chili” recipe that would leave an indelible mark on my manhood.

A Good Bye

Alcoholism, Family, Marriage By Barbara No Comments

A Good Bye

In January, I finally get the text from John’s dad that I’ve been waiting on for more than a year.

 

Oh, and the waiting. It’s astounding the stories we build up in our heads when there’s no intervention from reality to prune them into a sensible shape. I ask myself on a loop, how does he think this happened? Why does he think I gave his son two pounds of my own liver, and a year and a half later handed the same man divorce papers? Doesn’t he want to know? If I have an overactive imagination, I wonder, are some others’ atrophied, seized up and dry? Or is it worse: do they just not care?

 

Waiting, I compose in my head a pointed, yet directionless reply to a piercingly unasked question. The meat of it wraps around a spinal litany of near-funerals for his son that he doesn’t even realize he’d missed: five by my count, the transplant (the one everyone pays attention to) not even the last one, not even the closest call.

Normalizing the Abnormal: An Alcoholic’s Solution to Chaos

Alcohol, Alcoholism, Family, Marriage By Matt Salis 2 Comments

Normalizing the Abnormal

“Come here and listen to this voicemail,” insisted my coworker, Loraine. She had a concerned look on her face, and she gestured in a way that assured me that my participation in her dilemma was not optional. She held her desk phone to my ear as I listened to the wife of another of our coworkers curse and spit venomous insults that would make Louis C.K. blush. “Jim’s wife dialed the wrong extension and left that on my phone instead of his,” Loraine surmised. “Have you ever heard anything so vile? I’m worried about them. If they talk to each other like that…that is not OK.”

 

More shocking for me than Jim’s wife’s language was Loraine’s reaction. I had heard vile, unhinged communication like that. In fact, I had heard a similar diatribe the previous weekend. And I gave it as good as I got it. For me, that voicemail was hardly noteworthy. For me, talking like that was normal.

 

I was an alcoholic. Vicious verbal combat had been normalized.