All ya need is love...

Spouses of alcoholics have a very special love-hate relationship with any holiday that demands us to be “loving” or encourage us to buy greeting cards with professions of undying love and commitment. It’s bad enough that we have to
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A place called "denial"

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There is a place I want to visit. It’s Denial Bay, South Australia. It’s really just a fishing and tourist village on the western side of Murat Bay about 350 miles from Adelaide. This bay and village was named from the “deceptive hope [they] had formed penetrating by it some distance into the interior of the country.” In other words it was suspected that the bay would provide an entry into the interior regions of the country, but instead was simply a bay and not an entrance. Denial Bay is now a stop for tourists who wish to enjoy a change of scenery from the salt bushes. It doesn’t sound like such a bad place to visit. It doesn’t conjure up visions of doom that the phrase “floating up the river of Denial” seems to generate. Let’s take a look at the word “denial”. It can be a verb deriving from the word “deny” or it can be a noun indicating a place called “Denial.” In this case, the real place of Denial Bay and the fictional river of Denial. I think the word “denial” has gotten a bad ra...
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A bowl of cherries...

  Since Riley’s death, I’ve had a hard time focusing on a single goal. I call it “floundering.” There are lots of things than need my attention, but I can’t seem to do one thing to completion, but rather switch back and forth, back and forth. I wake up in the morning and say to myself… “Self, you will do something today that is positive and will set the course for more positive things. Today you will complete just ONE thing.” Self listens to me – for about half a nano-second. Then it’s a little of this and a little of that. Back and forth… back and forth. Back in the day, when Riley went to rehab, and there were lots of those times, I would sit in the empty, quiet house and think about all the things I needed to do. I made a mental list. Followed by a written list. Followed by organizing and categorizing the list thereby creating more lists. I would hold the list in my hand, smooth it out on the desktop, fold it into fourths, turn it over, unfold it, then tell myself I would start ...
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Are you playing the Hero? Part Three

Kelsey Brown of Nova Recovery Center contacted me about doing a post on the roles family members often play in an alcoholic family. While there are a few things in this write-up that do not match my point of view, I like what Kelsey has written. Since it's a long write up, this post will be shown in a series of three separate posts. I won't confuse the issue by writing in between the posts. However, when the last one is published, I will write a post giving my feelings / differences with Kelsey's post. PART THREE Guest Post by Kelsey Brown Nova Recovery Center   5 Steps to Break the Dysfunctional Family Roles If addiction is ravaging your family and you, your child, or your sibling is playing the hero, there are a few actionable steps you can take to break the dysfunctional family roles and regain a healthy, balanced household despite the addict’s behavior. Talk about what is going on. Ignoring the addiction and trying to pretend nothing is wrong is probably the w...
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