Tag: early sobriety

I Couldn’t Hear Until I Learned to Listen

Alcoholism, Family, Marriage By Matt Salis, MPS No Comments

I Couldn't Hear Until I Learned to Listen

My wife almost didn’t marry me because I couldn’t wrap a gift. Alcoholism – we survived that. Four kids, emergency room visits, emotional immaturity, running a business together – we made it past all of those major hurdles, but Sheri almost dumped me before any of it got started because I did such a crappy job of wrapping her present on our first Christmas together.

 

It’s true. My wife takes the act of giving seriously. At first, I thought her rejection of my feeble attempt at wrapping made her selfish. Then I realized I had it backwards. She puts so much thought and effort into the act of giving, and she didn’t want to be with someone who half-assed it. It’s not about materialism, and it doesn’t have to be elaborate, either. But if it’s not from the heart, she’s not interested.

 

Sheri used to make a really big deal about her birthday. She would celebrate for a week. Again, it was never about gifts or receiving. It was always about spending quality time with quality people – the kind of people who take their time with the wrapping if they do give her a gift. It was experiential, and Sheri wanted everyone to be as happy as she was that she was a year older. She didn’t need a big, fancy party. Her smile and laugh were celebration enough. She oozed carefree joy.

 

And I ruined it all for her.

The Nightmare of Trying to Escape the Monster

Alcoholism, Recovery, Shame of Sobriety By Matt Salis, MPS No Comments

The Nightmare of Trying to Escape the Monster

It is terrifying. I’m running as fast as I can, but something is bogging me down. It’s like my joints have been soaking in rubber cement and I’m wearing clown shoes. I’m trying to get away from whatever is chasing me. Is it a man with a knife, or is it a monster? I’m unsure, and really, it’s unimportant. What matters is that no matter how hard I try, I can’t run fast enough, and whatever it is, it is gaining me.

 

Have you ever had this kind of dream? I have this one semi-regularly. It isn’t just about being chased, it is about my own ability to run being hampered or limited. I don’t know what it means. I’ve never had any of my dreams analyzed. But I can tell you what it reminds me of. It reminds me of trying to get away from the high-functioning alcoholism that was slowly killing me. My progress was slow and clunky, and I felt like I could not put distance between me and my pursuer. My top speed, as mediocre as it might have been, was completely elusive as I trudged weakly forward, trying to gain traction while the earth oozed like quicksand below my feet.

Confirmation Bias: This Is Why Your Sobriety Won’t Stick

Alcoholism, Recovery, Unashamed By Matt Salis, MPS 4 Comments
Huge Beer Display
Anheuser-Busch Pontoon Boat at Walmart

It’s called confirmation bias, and it’s the reason we humans are so tribal. When we see others repeat an activity or opinion that we embrace, the “others” solidify our belief system.

 

I know what you’re thinking. Awesome, this guy is going to write about politics and how broken our society is because of tribal stubbornness and because we only listen to people who sound like us, right? Wrong! I’ve got news for us all. Confirmation bias impacts a lot of aspects of our lives beyond the polarizing issues of politics. In fact, your confirmation bias might just be the biggest hurdle keeping you from long-term sobriety.

Positive Proof of why Traditional Recovery Methods Fail

Alcoholism, Unashamed By Matt Salis, MPS 14 Comments

Positive Proof of why Traditional Recovery Methods Fail

A double negative is not nearly as effective as a positive. I’m an eternal optimist, so as someone who is perpetually fixated on the positives, I should know the difference. Less (negative) of a bad thing (negative) is not nearly as awesome as a good thing. And this, my friends, is why our traditional addiction recovery system doesn’t work. I should probably do some explaining.

The Stages of Alcoholism: From 3rd Butt Cheek to Manicured Eyebrows

Alcoholism, Unashamed By Matt Salis, MPS 6 Comments
The Stages of Alcoholism: From 3rd Butt Cheek to Manicured Eyebrows
Windy Much?

Where did that come from? In my life that features so many memories lost to blackout drinking, that’s a pondering I’ll never forget. That question dominated my brain on several occasions in my late teenage years when I was experimenting with alcohol.

 

It happened once the morning after a huge drunken fight I had with my high school girlfriend at a party on full display in front of probably a hundred friends. It happened another time after I took a swing at my best friend after drinking together for many hours. Thankfully, I was drunk enough to miss, but I’ve never been in a fist-fight in my life, so it was beyond surprising when I was putting the pieces of the puzzle back together the next day.

 

In fact, had I woken up after either of those instances having grown a third butt cheek I would have been less surprised than I was to learn of my aggressive and abhorrent drunken behavior.

Live Every Week like Shark Week

Alcoholism, Recovery By Matt Salis, MPS No Comments

Live Every Week Like Shark Week

My wife and I were watching 30 Rock reruns on Saturday night. I’m not the least bit embarrassed about our lack of fancy plans because Tina Fey is the bomb, and I have a deep and abiding love for her sense of humor. I’m not even going to blame quarantine or make any other excuse. I was in bed with my wife and laughed until I cried – all of my favorite things.

 

Tracy Morgan’s character ended a ranting tirade by declaring his intention to, “Treat every week like shark week!” I laughed so long and hard that one of our kids came into our room to make sure everything was OK, which is dangerous, because we want to discourage our kids from busting into our bedroom at night uninvited, for their sakes even more than ours. My cousin has a very traumatic story about looking for a band-aid in his parents’ room in the middle of the night that I’d like my kids to not recreate. We keep the bandages prominently accessible in the hall closet for this very reason. But I digress.

Sober People are Losers!

Alcoholism, Recovery, Shame of Sobriety By Matt Salis, MPS 12 Comments

Miller Lite's Vortex Bottles Give the Beer a Swirly

Sober people are losers! Look, I’d like to tell you that my opinion wasn’t this superficial, jaded, prejudiced, narrow, misinformed, misguided, misintellectualized, bigoted, arrogant, and just plain asinine, but it was. I thought people who didn’t drink alcohol, for any reason, were losers.

 

This included my own mother for quite a while. God, how shallow and despicable was I?

 

And I’d like to tell you that my opinion changed when I started exploring sobriety, or at least once I was sober myself. Nope! I continued to consider people who didn’t drink alcohol to be losers, I just tucked my tail between my legs and joined their pathetic ranks.

Shake Off the Asshole: 7 Vital Changes in Sobriety

Alcoholism, Marriage, Parenting By Matt Salis, MPS 2 Comments

Shake Off the Asshole

I remember when I first started learning that alcoholism was a disease. I learned about alcohol’s hijacking of the pleasure neurotransmitters. I learned how our subconscious minds develop an association between alcohol and survival. I learned about the progressive nature of the disease, and I learned about the link between addiction, and the depression and anxiety from which I suffered. I shared it all with my wife because I wanted her to learn about my affliction, too.

 

“Alcoholism is a disease, Sheri.” I explained while very early in sobriety. “All this neurological dysfunction and the changes in my behavior are the result of my addiction. We should stop blaming me for what happened to us, and start blaming the disease.” My wife replied, “If you want me to blame the disease, maybe you should stop acting like an asshole.”

You Can’t Get There from Here

Alcoholism, Recovery By Matt Salis, MPS No Comments

Grand Lake to Estes Park - The Long Winter Slog

As we were wrapping up our first ever Sober and Unashamed Couples Retreat in Grand Lake, Colorado, on Sunday, one of the the attendees told me that he and his wife wanted to go to Estes Park before their flight home Sunday night. He showed me the route that Google suggested to him, and we discussed his options.

 

The summer drive from Grand Lake to Estes Park takes you right through Rocky Mountain National Park on Trail Ridge Road, and is among the most beautiful 47 miles of scenic roadway in the world. You crest the majestic Rocky Mountains, are likely to see moose or elk, look across clear mountain lakes and experience views that are unmistakably Colorado. It is a winding road full of switchbacks and steep ascents that will take well over an hour to traverse, but the drive is the experience, and you won’t mind if it takes all day.

Merry without Misery: The Lessons of Christmases Past

Alcoholism, Recovery, Unashamed By Matt Salis, MPS 10 Comments

Christmas Tree Day for the Salis Six

Saturday was Christmas Tree Day for my family. The Salis Six, as my wife affectionately calls us, trudged out into the Colorado mountain forest with our tree cutting permit and killed the healthiest looking evergreen we could find. It’s now slowly rotting in the corner of our living room.

 

As strange as this tradition is when you really think about it, I love it just the same. It is my favorite day of the year. We listen to Bing and Eartha croon about the magic of the season, drink hot chocolate and eat a lunch of chili-cheese dogs at the volunteer fire station on the edge of the forest. It’s as much fun as my family can have together.

 

When we pulled into our driveway at home, I left the tree on the roof of our Jeep and went inside to retrieve the tape measure. As I entered the house, my wife’s heart sank. For just a moment, her memory of Christmases past dragged her back to the many times when arriving at home sent me immediately to the refrigerator for a beer. Old patterns die hard, and memories die even harder. Reality set it, and the terror passed for my wife as quickly as it came. She told me about it later, and I told her I understood. Because I did. Alcoholism is a very emotional disease. The pain and resentment is thick and not easy to wash off. Only time can heal some of the wounds. And sometimes, they reappear uninvited, unexpectedly.