Tag: shame of sobriety

Sobriety is Not My Thing Anymore

Alcoholism, Recovery, Self-Esteem By Matt Salis 13 Comments

Sobriety is Not My Thing Anymore

For a large part of my seven years of sobriety, I had conscious thoughts about alcohol. I was alert for potential triggers. I considered how alcohol would enhance, then ultimately unravel, various situations. I worked to combat the shame of addiction, then the shame of sobriety in a society that reveres alcohol.

 

I felt pity for people who tried to quit drinking to appease a frustrated spouse. I felt pity for people who tried to quit drinking without a plan for recovery – as though not drinking was some sort of solution. I felt pity for people who put rules around their drinking and tried to control it. I thought about all the people I pitied, and it helped me maintain my commitment to sobriety.

 

But I don’t have a commitment to sobriety anymore. Not really. I don’t think about drinking or not drinking. Sobriety isn’t my thing anymore. At least it isn’t my thing any more than not drinking Drano or gasoline is my thing. I have no intention of ever drinking battery acid, but I don’t spend a lot of time thinking about not drinking battery acid. It is hard to consider your thing to be something you never consider. How can I claim sobriety to be my thing?

Selfish

Alcoholism, Recovery, Sobriety By Matt Salis 2 Comments

Selfish

I’m a pretty selfish person. I’m not ashamed of that fact. I seem to have found a way to align my own personal interests with that which is in the best interest of some other humans, so me looking out for number one has some pleasant byproducts. That last part has not always been the case.

 

But I have always been selfish. The two differences between my selfishness then in active addiction and early sobriety, and my selfishness now in permanent, long-term sobriety, are awareness and impact. The impact my selfish drinking and my selfish focus on transitioning into sobriety had on others was quite negative. Gaslighting, denials, mood swings, rants, temper, inconsideration, emotional immaturity and down right meanness took a huge toll on me and the people inflicted with my presence. Anyone who has experienced addiction first or second hand can likely relate.

Who’s to Blame?: The Ownership Conundrum

Alcohol, Alcoholism, Unashamed By Matt Salis 4 Comments

The Ownership Conundrum

There is no better indication of strength, integrity and intelligence than a person who owns his mistakes and takes responsibility for corrective action. It’s why I prefer stand-up comedians to politicians. I’d take Stephen Colbert or Dennis Miller for president over any denying or deflecting boob who actually squirms his way into the job.

 

Honesty, humility and vulnerability are admirable traits. They are the reason we have thousands of listeners and readers (although this particular sentence isn’t very humble). Taking ownership is a sign of confidence.  A mistake can’t take me down! We admit, we fix, we learn and we do better the next time. It’s a sign of maturity.

 

All of these lofty philosophical ramblings about ownership make my position regarding the culprit responsible for my alcoholism kind of surprising.

Top Ten Rules to Control Our Alcohol Consumption

Alcoholism, Shame of Sobriety, Unashamed By Matt Salis No Comments

Top Ten Rules to Control Our Alcohol Consumption

Rules. Discipline. The ever-popular, yet mystically elusive mythology known as human willpower. I just needed to try harder. I just needed to establish a realistic drinking strategy and follow it. Drinking alcohol was far too important a component of my happy and successful life for me to give it up. I just needed to unlock the secret to controlling my drinking.

 

Here is my top-ten list of drinking rules I adopted at various times in the last decade of my drinking career. As you read through them, see how many you have tried. Are there rules on this list that the drinker you love has used to try to control his drinking? Keep track of the number of rules you recognize, and I’ll give you my take on what it means at the end.

All by Myself: My Theme Song of Disaster

Alcoholism, Recovery, Unashamed By Matt Salis No Comments

All by Myself

Do you know why geese fly in flocks? I think it’s because when a goose catches a glimpse of its own reflection, it doesn’t believe that a bowling ball with wings could possibly get off the ground. They all depend on each other to prove to themselves that they can actually fly.

 

How about monkeys? Have you ever seen a monkey picking the bugs off its own back? I don’t think so, and that’s why monkeys stay together in packs. If bees didn’t swarm, we wouldn’t have honey. If ants didn’t colonize, we wouldn’t have dirt piles jutting out from cracks in our sidewalks. And if moths weren’t looking for places to congregate annoyingly on warm summer nights, why would any of us have front-porch lights?

The Nightmare of Trying to Escape the Monster

Alcoholism, Recovery, Shame of Sobriety By Matt Salis 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 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.

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

Alcoholism, Unashamed By Matt Salis 4 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.

Sober People are Losers!

Alcoholism, Recovery, Shame of Sobriety By Matt Salis 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.

The Secret that’s Killing Us

Alcoholism, Recovery, Unashamed By Matt Salis 8 Comments

The Secret that's Killing Us

It was a typical icebreaker for such events: tell us your name, your genre and the topic of your current project. “I’m an alcoholic. I work and write in the addiction and recovery community. My name is Matt Salis, and my book is about recovering from alcoholism.” I was at a publishing seminar last weekend, and when it was my turn, that was how I introduced myself to the other seven writers in the session.

 

During a break, one of the writers probed a little further asking the name of our nonprofit. “It is called, Stigma,” I told her. I went on to explain that the stigma associated with alcoholism is the top reason the disease is so hard to cure. I told her that by owning the label, “alcoholic,” I take the power out of the stigmatized word. “I introduce myself as an alcoholic. When someone wants to take a shot at me, what are they going to do? Call me an alcoholic? I already said that.” The group giggled and nodded, and the subject of the intermission conversation turned a different direction.