Requisite

Audio version now available.

That’s a picture of my bride from the summer we got married. Isn’t she cute? It’s a digital capture of a real photo taken with a camera that doesn’t make or receive phone calls. The picture is printed on glossy paper, and you can see the date stamp on Sheri’s tanned arm.

Now, I know you don’t know her as well as I do, but this picture is striking to me because of the genuine, authentic joy on Sheri’s face. Based on her eyebrows, cheeks, and nose, and even through her sunglasses, I can see the trust in her eyes. Not only is she enjoying a sunny day on Lake Winnipesaukee, but she’s enjoying the people she’s with, including me, with a fully relaxed nervous system.

Contrast that face with the one she’s making in the picture I used for the essay linked here from a couple of weeks ago. Again, it is a summer lake picture, somewhere in the middle of the two decades of my progressively impactful drinking that followed our wedding. Her alcoholism-induced facial expression says, “Whatever. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen anyone as full of shit as you are.” Her head cocked up and away from me, while I have my arm around her shoulder pulling her in, tells me she’s thinking, “I would outright yank away from you if we weren’t in front of other people who think I like you. I would also burn you with my eye lasers if I had them.”

We often say, “Sobriety doesn’t fix anything, but it is a prerequisite.” “A prerequisite for what?” readers and listeners might wonder. Sobriety makes room for a lot of things, like awareness and the ability to decipher nuance. Those are what make the differences in these two pictures so dramatic for me. The young woman in the picture above has childhood trauma. Like most women by the time they reach their mid 20s, she has been sexually assaulted. But in this picture from the summer of 1997, I am not the perpetrator of any of the bad stuff she has endured. I am her safe zone, just like a long-term, committed, romantic partner is supposed to be.

I didn’t see that face for a very, very long time.

***

I have a reputation in my family for having a quick-witted sense of humor. For many years, including all of my drinking years, and the first few years of sobriety, I was proud of my ability to pounce on the goofs and missteps of my family, and make a joke at the expense of the people I love. I don’t think it’s funny anymore, and I’ve worked really hard to silence that cruel instinct. It is all about my commitment to 100% emotional safety.

I used to cut on my mom, too. She’s got quirks and peculiarities just like all humans, and I used to monitor her words and actions looking for a weakness to surface, even just ever so slightly, so I could shine a spotlight on it and leave everyone laughing at her.

Laughing at my mom. The woman who birthed and nurtured me. She was a good sport and laughed at herself, too. I don’t know if I hurt her, but I know the potential for pain inherent in my humor at the expense of others.

The more I drank, the more ruthless I became. I can remember several mornings waking up to a well-deserved admonishment from Sheri. “You were mean last night, even to your mom.” “I was just having fun,” I would deflect, unable to really piece it all together and know exactly what it was that I said.

Alcohol is often described as a disinhibitor, like that’s a good thing. We spend our developmental years building tools for our protection–tools like inhibitions–then once we’re old enough, we discover a toxin that will override our protective instincts.

This disinhibiting quality of alcohol is like making a decision without all the information.

It’s like looking at our brain’s control panel, and searching for the switches that initiate our empathy, our courtesy, our predictions about the emotions of bystanders, and downstream consequences of our action, and just switching those all off. For people like me, alcohol tells us to make decisions based solely on the likelihood of getting a laugh.

I visited my parents last week as my mom was recovering from surgery. Her condition was predictably up and down, but on her best day, she and I sat down together to play Wordle.

My mom has dementia. She’s doing pretty well a couple of years after the diagnosis. She still remembers more details than I do about the people she loves. Her connections to family and friends are as strong as ever. But still, the dementia takes territory as it slowly marches onward.

“I’ve never attempted Wordle before, Mom, and I don’t know how to play,” I said. She replied, “I do the Wordle everyday, but I don’t know how to play, either.”

Undeterred, we did not let the dementia win that particular day’s battle. We fumbled along, trying to figure out why some letters turned yellow and some turned green. We took turns making guesses. It took quite a while, but we were successful. And that it took quite a while was actually the point. It was quite a little bit of time spent together.

I used to tease my mom about her ridiculously short attention span. She’d flitter around between partially accomplished tasks like a bee pollinating flowers. I always thought it was one of her quirks or peculiarities, easy pickings for a guy with my wit. Wordle at the pace of a newbie and a daily newbie takes attention. My mom didn’t flitter. Maybe she was tired as she recovered from surgery. Maybe she couldn’t think of a task to divert her attention as the disease steals her mind. But maybe, just maybe, she felt comfortable and safe with her son and his inhibitions.

***

I took the train home from the airport when I arrived back in Denver. I was surprised to find that my bride walked a few blocks toward the train station to meet me. Sheri used to cringe when I got home–her peace disrupted and her nervous system called sharply to attention. My unpredictability made our home anything but safe for my wife and kids. But now, she couldn’t wait for me to walk the six blocks home, and she met me halfway.

It was dark when I got off the train Friday night. Sheri waved from across the busy intersection as I approached. I could see her face from the glow of the street light. She looked a lot like my bride did in the summer of 1997, with a joyful smile and eyes full of trust. “What are you doing out here?” I asked. “I couldn’t wait to see you,” she said with a grin as I joined her on her side of the street and we walked home together.

We say it all the time. “Sobriety doesn’t fix anything, but it is a prerequisite.” “A prerequisite for what?” you might have wondered.

Now you know.

If you are ready to learn how alcohol, and a lack of emotional safety, have impacted you, as the drinker or the partner, both individually and in your close relationships, please take our brief survey to begin the exploration process. We hope you can learn from the lived-experience experts in Echoes of Recovery or SHOUT Sobriety.

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