Tag: connection

Intimacy is the Solution

Alcoholism, Intimacy, Marriage By Matt Salis 5 Comments

Intimacy is the Solution

“If you would have more sex with me, I wouldn’t have to drink so much.” Ah, the twisted phrase uttered out of intoxicated desperation in marital bedrooms around the world. And every one of the millions (maybe billions) of women who have received that accusatory plea have the same two simultaneous thoughts:

 

How dare he try to put his drinking problem on me. It is my body and my choice, and frankly, sex is the last thing I want with this man who has grown increasingly unattractive to me over the years and decades of his abusive drinking.

 

And…

 

Maybe he’s right.

Consent is Not Enough

Addiction, Alcohol, Marriage, Recovery By Matt Salis 2 Comments

Consent is Not Enough

“We can.” That’s the response I received for years when I asked my wife, Sheri, if she wanted to have sex. As an active alcoholic, that consent was good enough for me. I didn’t know it, but I was looking to sex for the same dopamine hit I got from alcohol. A reluctant, “We can,” was enough.

 

When the question is, “Do you want to…?” and the response is, “We can,” that’s never really enough.

 

I’m not just talking about the psychological damage her consent did to Sheri. “We can,” really messed me up in profound and lasting ways.

Believing the Journey is the Destination

Alcoholism, God, Purpose, Recovery By Matt Salis 2 Comments

Believing the Journey is the Destination

I wouldn’t wish alcoholism on anyone. But…but…if I had it all to do over again, I don’t think I’d change a thing.

 

Do you remember the Kiefer Sutherland advertising campaign for Jose Cuervo? One of the taglines was, “Just don’t have any regrets.” That’s more than a little ambitious for a pusher of tequila, don’t you think? I have always assumed tequila was the Spanish word for regret. Has anyone ever started a night with, “lick it, slam it, suck its,” that didn’t end in regret? My life is chalked full of regrets, and more than a few of them can be directly attributed to Jose Cuervo.

Write Out Loud

Alcohol, Writing By Barbara No Comments

Write Out Loud

When I was ten, my kid sister caught me at it in the upstairs office.

 

“What’re you doin’?”

“Nothing! Go away!”

“What is that?”

“Nothing! Get out!”

“Oh, my god, are you reading… the dictionary?”

“Fuck off, and close the door!”

“I’m tellin’ Mom…”

 

I’m not sure if she reported me for that particular “fuck,” but oddly, she did mention the whole reading-the-dictionary thing at the table that night. Mom and Dad seemed benignly amused and a bit curious.

 

I was actually embarrassed. I assured them that the appeal wasn’t the plot.

 

And I tried to share the revelation: that words were so human; they had histories, families, secret lives, hidden meanings. And someone had thought to stick them all in one magic place, with their evolutions laid out like maps to travel? How bafflingly marvelous!

 

Ultimately, Mom and Dad seemed content that it wasn’t the worst thing for a kid to get up to.

Intimacy is Critical to Recovery

Alcoholism, Intimacy, Marriage, Recovery By Matt Salis 6 Comments

Intimacy is Critical to Recovery

There’s nothing more important to a successful marriage than intimacy.

 

There are things that are equally important, like trust (which is the cornerstone of intimacy) and loyalty and cohesive parenting and mutual protection, but there is nothing more important, if a long-term romantic relationship is to thrive, than intimacy.

 

These aren’t the ramblings of a horny teenager. I’m not just talking about sex. I’m talking about the emotional connection that takes place at the intersection of vulnerability and sexual contact. It is important. In fact, nothing is more important. And if we are going to solve the catastrophic intimacy problems that are enmeshed in alcoholic relationships, we’d better stop moving intimacy to the back burner and downplaying it as hopeless, and thus, unimportant.

The Truth Behind the Perfect Pictures of Sobriety

Alcohol, Alcoholism, Family, Sobriety By Matt Salis 4 Comments

Evergreen Rotting with the Turkey Carcasses and Wadded Up Wrapping Paper

I spent way too much time on social media during the week between the holidays. I usually post about my writing and podcast, then turn it off, so anything more than a few minutes a week makes me feel gross. I probably only scrolled fb and IG for a grand total of an hour, but I still needed to take a hot shower, scrub my eyes with bleach and submerge my phone in Windex.

 

In case I’ve been unclear, I don’t enjoy social media. I think my dislike stems from my borderline-perverted curiosity about your messy, dysfunctional lives. I don’t want to see your family’s strained smiles wearing itchy sweaters in front of a dead evergreen adorned with LEDs and third-grade craft projects. Great – someone held Preston down long enough to comb his hair, and Bill really did a nice job sucking in his gut for the ten seconds until the timer on the phone camera ran down to zero. Precious. Send it to grandma. I want the truth, damn you!

It’s Not Her Fault

Alcohol, Alcoholism, Marriage, Recovery By Matt Salis 3 Comments

It's Not Her Fault

The most temporarily effective thing my wife and I tried to help us get along during my alcoholism was simple: Be nice. I describe this plan as temporarily effective because while it created moments of peace in our house more successfully than anything else we tried for the ten years of my active addiction, it ultimately didn’t work. So it was the most effective ineffective path we went down to fix our marriage.

 

Here are the details. Before we said anything to each other, we were to run it through this filter: Is it nice? Yep, we banked our marriage on the childhood mantra, “If you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all.”

He’s Not to Blame

Alcohol, Alcoholism, Family, Sobriety By Matt Salis 10 Comments

He's Not to Blame

I’ve always known he did his best. That was never in question. For many years now, however, I wallowed in my belief that his best wasn’t good enough – that he should have done more and known better. But time, when combined with an open mind and considerable reflection and contemplation, is a powerful potion to heal old wounds.

 

I’ve long blamed my dad. Now I’m not so sure…

The Shameful Truth of an Alcoholic Fatherhood

Alcohol, Alcoholism, Parenting, Sobriety By Matt Salis No Comments

The Shameful Truth of an Alcoholic Fatherhood

I was shocked when he said it. Not only did he admit to letting his drinking get in the way of spending time with his children, but even when he was actively engaged with his kids, he didn’t enjoy it. He wanted to be somewhere else. The connection with his own flesh and blood was empty for him.

 

For a proud father, that was a bold and vulnerable admission. I know a thing or two about vulnerability. I have written and spoken publicly about some of my most despicable behavior. But I have never admitted to hating spending time with my children.

 

Until now.

Escape

Alcohol, Alcoholism, Marriage, Recovery By Barbara No Comments

Escape

I was seventeen, back in that long ago when you could stand with your whole family at the terminal gate as you waited to board your flight. So there the four of us were, shifting uncomfortably on our feet, staying together until the last available moment. A group of Canadians walked by, speaking their specialized version of French. Breakfast, eaten with an unfamiliar dread in the metallic airport café mere minutes before, lurched dangerously in my stomach.

 

I looked at Dad in despair. “I can’t understand a word they’re saying.”

 

He looked back at me, and a flash of acute empathy briefly fractured his stoic Downeast faҫade. “You’ll do fine,” he said, quickly collecting himself.