Tag: alcoholism

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.

Evolution Series: No One Cares

Alcohol, Evolution Series, Recovery By Mike K. 4 Comments

No One Cares

It was my first experience being among people at a gathering where drinking alcohol would be assumed, almost mandatory. This was also my first experience with people that had no idea I quit drinking, had no idea of my disease of alcoholism, and certainly had no idea of the roller coaster of a life I had lived in the past year. This was my first time being with co-workers at a social happy hour and work/dinner conferences since getting sober. My brain started to worry days ahead of time. My default way of thinking started my racing patterns long before I should have been worried about the event. My past habits, dysfunctional thinking, and excessive thoughts caused me to fixate on a tiny event in my future that should not have even been a thought in my mind.

 

As the first day of conferences wound down that afternoon, my coworkers and I all went back to our rooms to take off our work attire and get ready for the upcoming dinner. Shortly after getting to my room, a co-worker texted the group. “Meet at the bar in 15 minutes…I’m buying the first round.” Three others in our group replied. “Hell yeah!” “I’ve been craving a beer all afternoon.” “Let’s get our drink on!” I instantly started to worry. Should I reply? I wondered if I should go. Maybe I should just drink. No one in my personal life would have to know anything about it. I impatiently and anxiously paced around my hotel room. I finally texted the group after many crazy thoughts spun through my mind.

 

I don’t drink, but I’ll be there.

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.

I’m Awfully Proud of That

Alcoholism, Sobriety, Unashamed By Matt Salis 8 Comments

I'm Awfully Proud of That

“You’re awful proud of yourself,” he scoffed. “I’ll save a seat for you at a meeting for when you relapse.” I’d just met this AA lifer at a church service that catered to people suffering from addiction. He had asked me how I got sober. When I told him Alcoholics Anonymous wasn’t part of my solution, I guess he didn’t like my answer.

 

I couldn’t possibly count the number of times I’ve heard that pride leads to relapse. From the best I can surmise, the idea that “pride is dangerous” is a foundational tenet of twelve-step philosophy. There’s just one problem.

 

The concept is total bullshit.

Sobriety Season: Is it “if” or “when?”

Alcoholism, Sobriety By Matt Salis 4 Comments

Sobriety Season

For us imbibers, the calendar can be divided into three drinking seasons.

 

The holiday season starts about mid October for most. I am an overachiever, both as a lush and as a lover of scary movies, so my holiday season starts on October first, sharp. The holiday season runs through the fourth quarter of the college football national championship game when one SEC team that I don’t care about crushes the year’s eager victim. Between the bookends, the excuses to drink line up in an organized, dependable, evenly spaced out succession making sobriety unthinkable, and moderation a celebratory faux pas. Drinkers have plenty of reasons to drink during the holiday season.

This Is Where I Disappear

Alcoholism, Marriage By Barbara 4 Comments

This Is Where I Disappear

I do the yardwork. I have since we moved out of our apartment and into our first rented house. By then, John was already sick, but we were still long months away from his cirrhosis diagnosis. He tried to mow the lawn once, in the early days at the rental, and gave up after five minutes. 

 

At the age of forty-four, his liver sneakily failing, he simply wasn’t physically capable of it.