Is my stomach clenched, my heart racing, my shoulders tight because I don’t know what to do?
Or because I know what to do, but can’t predict or manage the outcome?
Tag: alcoholism
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.
Audio version now available.
“You don’t need to come. I’m not dying.”
My mom had surgery last week, and that’s what she said when she heard I was flying across the country to help my dad, and to spend time with her, after her surgery.
I think her response is part consideration for my busy life–not wanting to be a burden to her not-close-to-retirement son with a bustling family, and part defiance that the surgery posed any kind of risk for her. I get it.
Audio version now available.
Serving as the facilitator for our Echoes of Recovery group has been the single greatest learning experience of my life. Below are the most important lessons, addressed to people like me. Below the list is how I gained this knowledge.
She loves her kids more than she loves you.
The lying is worse than the drinking.
Audio version now available.
I did the math in my head. If the sales revenue generated on the opening day of our fourth location remained even sort-of consistent, we would be good–finally over the hump to financial security. We started with one whole grain bread bakery in 2004, and four years later, we had added three locations, and I thought we had reached our goal. I remember where I was standing, on the stairs leading to our kitchen, when I was overcome by relief. A goal attained. At last. At long last.
But it didn’t last. I grew to resent those opening day looky-loos for getting my hopes up. Our fourth location settled into a revenue performance much like that of our other three bakeries. We would survive. But we were not going to thrive. So I looked for a new path to achieve our goal of financial security. I adjusted the product lines, trimmed down our workforce, promoted seasonal specials, changed our operating hours, partnered with other organizations, donated tons of bread in the community. I even ate nothing but whole grain bread for a whole month, and lost weight, to debunk the gluten-free frenzy. And I did it all in pursuit of a goal.
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.
Audio version now available.
He took a cube of cheese right out of Rose’s mouth. It was the move a parent makes when a baby shoves an unhalved grape past its toothless gums. “You should eat more protein,” is what Rose’s partner, Chris, said.
“You’re too fat,” is what she heard.
Audio version now available.
“You said we would only be there for a little while. A couple of beers, you said. The kids and I left you there at almost midnight. When you stumbled in at 2am, fell up the back stairs, and started calling my name, I was afraid you were going to wake the kids. I didn’t want them to see you like that. I didn’t want them to see me as angry as I was.” My wife brought up that memory more than once.
I used to ask her why she couldn’t get out of the past. “You are stuck, Sheri. That was years ago. I’ve been sober for a long time. Why can’t you be proud of the man I’ve become?”
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.