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A ripple effect of being married to an alcoholic enjoying sobriety
I can see in retrospect, and with so much more knowledge about Mazz in particular and alcoholism in general, that I was making my own sets of excuses. I was desperate not to believe what this person was saying about Mazz. In re-reading these exchanges, which I haven't looked at it in nearly 10 years, my stomach is tight, my anxiety is ratcheting up and I am immediately back in the swirl of knowing something is desperately wrong but not being able to articulate it. I don't know this because I haven't spent enough time with spouses of addicts or those in recovery to prove this theory out, but I…
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Now I’m married to an American?
I hurt his feelings terribly one day when I said, "Become a citizen, but you'll never BE American anyway." What I meant was that he will never have our Manifest Destiny propaganda, I mean spirit; he'll never tromp through the world with our sense of clueless, boisterous entitlement. He'll always have a sense of empathy for the underdog because his dad had to sleep on a park bench when he first arrived in England because no one would rent a hotel room to an Irishman. He'll always be comfortable with multiculturalism because, for all their ongoing struggles with race, England does seem to better embrace it than America does. He'll…
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February 1st was our second chance at life and love
In many ways, I did become a widow that night. I did lose the husband I had had from May 31, 2008 to February 1, 2017. That man began a six-week journey of dying and being reborn simultaneously, Phoenix-like. And, actually, I did, too.
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Winning the game
But it's hard to play defense against a player you've never encountered. Turns out that the x I was trying so desperately to solve in the equation was something utterly out of my control: another person and his secrets. I grew up in a household where one person managed and controlled all the money, and that one person was not even the one making the money. Some stuff becomes hardwired in your brain, even if you know it's not absolutely correct. This was one of those things.
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Mirroring our reality
We didn't just talk about addiction, of course, because these men, and the other woman and I are more than the product of this disease, which steals from every person with whom it comes in contact. But it was so easy to ask questions, to recall a similar experience, to look at this couple, who in many ways are a mirror of us, and see where we had been, where we are and what damage still lingers. Because believe me, no matter how much better it is, no matter how fabulous it is, in fact, there is lingering damage. Scars heal over time, stop being red and raw, but never…
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Daily Dose of Dr Marry and DD week 2 recap
Welcome to week 2 of Daily Dose of Dr Marry and DD. If you're struggling with addiction or are partnered to an addict, you'll find useful nuggets in one or many of this week's episodes. If you're just a "run of the mill" person with no addiction in your life, first, count your lucky stars, and second, you'll find ideas to consider in your own life as well.
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Keep your keys close
But in the midst of all of those "problems" or "failures" is a simple story about Dr Marry and his keys. A story he told me sometime in early May that has stuck with me, like so much of what he has casually said in these three+ years since he got sober.
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Looks can be deceiving
But I was determined not to throw them out only to go and purchase two more chairs. And, truthfully, I really didn't care all that much. Like most of us, we don't use our living room all that often, so it was kind of an out of sight, out of mind thing. Also, I'm so not a "matching living room furniture set" kind of person.
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Committed to it all
So today I sit in my sunroom, overlooking the yard where we happily celebrated making this commitment to each other 12 years ago, and think, as I often have done in these past three years, what if I hadn't held on?
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Two Voices of Hope: Counting Our Blessings, an Epilogue (9c podcast)
In this, our final podcast and post of this journey, we wrap up this nine-week multi-media experience about Dr Marry’s fall into alcoholism and our shared path back to sobriety. But mostly, this podcast is about gratitude. Gratitude for the doctors, nurses and staff of Sanford; the insurance worker at Sanford who eased my mind and the woman on the phone from MN Blue Cross and Blue Shield. The Prairie St John’s staff and residents. Former students, friends and strangers who wrote to lift us up, to share their own journey, to say thank you. Grateful for the friends and colleagues who helped us conceive of this format. Grateful to…
