This post is one of my favorites because I feel like to perfectly sums up how different this experience was for Dr Marry and me, how different it likely is for any user/addict and any significant other. His spiral was tight and made perfect sense in his mind. My spiral was unwieldy and out of control because I didn’t understand the core of it; couldn’t define it. And, to my utter and never ending frustration, couldn’t control it. I continue to be amazed by Dr Marry’s bravery. People are writing to me to commend me for this, and I really appreciate that. But in actuality, he’s the real hero in…
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Two Voices of Hope: So, What Happened? (4a)
So, to back-track a wee bit. Yes, the set of questions I was asked repeatedly about concerned how much alcohol I drank, to which I repeatedly lied about. Whilst I was trying not to bleed all over the bathroom and clean it up, I was drinking whiskey because I was convinced it might help. What I didn’t seem to care about was that I was drinking a lot – everyday. However, one thing I did not do, ever, was drink at work. Even at this point I felt that work was a safe place away from the bottle. I will admit I thought about when I could go home to…
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Two Voices of Hope: Hitting the First Bottom (3c podcast)
It’s time for this week’s podcast. I didn’t particularly like this week. I have had such a swirling mess of emotions surrounding this post. Mostly I have a lingering sense of anger, but it’s not really anger about this particular situation. It’s more that I’m still angry about some parallel events that happened at the same time. But anger isn’t even the right word; mostly I am just so, so sad. This week has left me unable to articulate exactly how I am feeling, and that is not at all something I am accustomed to. And I don’t like it. In the end, I suppose it’s about my inability to…
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Two Voices of Hope: Hitting the First Bottom (3b video)
This was really hard to read out loud. It’s hard to watch. That’s good. It should be hard. These three years later, it should still be hard, and it is. I expect it always will be. The value in the writing, the reading, the speaking and the watching of this hard time, I believe, is that this is the universal element of our story. It’s not necessary for you, the reader/viewer, to have been married to an alcoholic to find the common thread in this. All that is necessary is for you to have lived, to have gone into or watched another person’s decline of any kind and to have…
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Two Voices of Hope: Hitting the First Bottom (3a)
Three years later, it’s easy to gloss over the excruciating unknowns that were my life for a number of weeks. In fact, I hardly ever think of the weeks that went by in the hospital and rehab because the outcome has been so incredible. But it’s important for people who only see the trips to Europe and the romantic, playful posts Dr Marry and I share back and forth on Facebook to understand the true gravity of what we went through to get to where we are today. The storm before the calm I won’t go into all of the gory details of Dr Marry’s fall into delirium tremors because…
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Two Voices of Hope: Our Beginning, From My Side (2c podcast)
This is a kind of funny podcast from Bath, England. We’re here to go to Midge Ure’s concert on Saturday to celebrate Dr Marry’s final night of his 49th year. It was his birthday present last year, so we’ve been looking forward to this for almost a full year. “Who’s Midge Ure,” you ask? Only the lead singer of Ultravox! “Who’s Ultravox,” you ask? Ladies and gentlemen, may I present Exhibit A: Also, Dr Marry ate haggis tonight, so he’s in 7th heaven. And I hoped I didn’t accidentally scoop from the wrong dish, as it absolutely looked just like my quinoa salad from my beloved Marks & Spencer’s. Thank…
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Two Voices of Hope: Our Beginning, From My Side (2b video)
Dr Marry (reluctantly) read his first blog post. Side note: Dr Marry was a more enthusiastic outloud reader until sometime in the winter of 2002 or 2003, he was tasked with reading Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets to Quinn and me. It was a Quidditch match chapter, and I asked him if he didn’t think he could put a little more enthusiasm into the reading–it was a SUPER exciting game, after all. That ended his exploits as a reader. I have since apologized (many times), but it hasn’t made one jot of difference, so I really appreciate that Patrick Kirby and I got him to do these posts…
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Two Voices of Hope: Our Beginning, From My Side (2a)
So, late January, 2017 I slipped on the ice in the loading bay at work. Banged up my head (ten stitches) and my hand (swelled up like a melon – which probably protected the rest of my face and my teeth). I was taken to the ER by a work colleague and Dayna came to meet me. That explains the picture in Dayna’s first blog post. A couple of days later, January 31, I got a nose bleed at work – which didn’t stop. I had to cancel my night class and come home. I bled through dinner, after dinner when DD went to bed, and bled some more. And…
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Two Voices of Hope: The Beginning of Now (1c podcast)
Dr Marry and I have been so overwhelmed by all the comments we have received this week—thank you for taking the time to not only read and watch but to write and lift us up or tell us a personal connection you have to this disease. We have felt your support, and we are both so grateful. In this podcast, we talk about some points that were raised from some of you, and we attempt to try to dig a little deeper into what our reaction to something like this would have been when we were in the thick of it. Hope you’ll tune in, and, again, thanks for taking…
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Two Voices of Hope: The Beginning of Now (1b video)
This first post, the breakdown that started the whole path into our metaphorical Phoenix rising from the ashes, launches the journey from dark to light. But at the end of this post, we are still very much in the dark. The vulnerability of recording this caught me by surprise. It doesn’t really matter that this was three years ago and that we are today, in so many ways, entirely past the trauma and uncertainty of then. To say these words out loud was to give them a very different place of prominence in my life, and I was taken aback by how very present they made our past feel. Dr…