Untoxicated Podcast
Sheri and Matt Salis just wanted a regular life–regular marriage, regular careers, a regular house, and happy kids. Instead, they lived a life of lies and terror as they struggled with Matt’s alcoholism and emotional abuse. Unfortunately, their experience is quite regular. Sheri and Matt talk to other experts, to roundtable panels, and to each other. No subjects are off limits: The trauma of active addiction, the pain of recovery, the impact of emotional abuse, the “should I stay or should I go” question, breaking the cycles for the kids, and both emotional and physical intimacy. Matt Salis is a behavioral health writer and researcher with over a decade of experience studying addiction and emotional abuse, and a master’s degree in sexual health. He is a leading expert on the impact of addiction and emotional abuse on intimacy in committed partnerships. Sheri Salis is the hero of their story, and the star of the Untoxicated Podcast. You’ve got this, and we’ve got you.
Episodes
Sheri and Matt have covered the ways emotional safety improves relationship dynamic for the person on the receiving end: nervous system regulation, peace and relaxation, and comfort being authentic and vulnerable. In this episode, they consider the benefits for the person providing the emotional safety. Don’t do it just for her. Do it for yourself, too.
Please go to UntoxicatedSurvey.org to better understand the impact of alc...
This is the latest essay from our Untoxicated Blog. To read our hundreds of essays on drinking, emotional safety, and the underlying issues of addiction, please go to SoberAndUnashamed.com. We hope you get a lot out of: “Requisite”
That’s a picture of my bride from the summer we got married. Isn’t she cute? It’s a digital capture of a real photo taken with a camera that doesn’t make or receive phone calls. The picture is printed on...
Jane is an Echoes of Recovery OG who taught us to call our growth and healing work, “Discovery,” because there is no going back. After six years of podcast appearances, Jane enlightens Sheri and Matt, once again, revealing the connection between working to physically strengthen and heal the body, and working to ease the pain of trauma and loss. What she is doing in the physical health industry is truly revolutionary, bu...
This is the latest essay from our Untoxicated Blog. To read our hundreds of essays on drinking, emotional safety, and the underlying issues of addiction, please go to SoberAndUnashamed.com. We hope you get a lot out of: “Exorcising the ‘F’ Word”
“You don’t need to come. I’m not dying.”
My mom had surgery last week, and that’s what she said when she heard I was flying across the country to help my dad, and to spend time ...
When it comes to parenting, there is no shortage of generational trauma cycle breaking to be addressed. Sheri and Matt talk about the two-generation cycle breaking they are working on with their kids, to implement 100% emotional safety after years of alcoholism, emotional abuse, and Matt’s mindset that it was his job to make his kids tough and resilient. They also talk about cats and Hawaiian shirts and grad parties.
This is the latest essay from our Untoxicated Blog. To read our hundreds of essays on drinking, emotional safety, and the underlying issues of addiction, please go to SoberAndUnashamed.com. We hope you get a lot out of: “Humans. Am I Right?”
Humans.
We humans do some really strange things. Am I right?…
If you are ready to consider the impact of alcohol and a lack of emotional safety, on you and your family, as the drinker or ...
Lara Hammock is back for another quarterly segment full of probing questions and thoughtful, helpful, well illustrated advice! Lara is a mental health therapist and the host and producer of The Illustrating Therapist YouTube Channel. She shares her all-time best piece of marriage advice, dispels the myth of a bunch of gaslighting evil geniuses, brings comfort to the idea of overfunctioning, and provides a great visual for communica...
This is the latest essay from our Untoxicated Blog. To read our hundreds of essays on drinking, emotional safety, and the underlying issues of addiction, please go to SoberAndUnashamed.com. We hope you get a lot out of: “This Is Why She Doesn’t Trust You”
Serving as the facilitator for our Echoes of Recovery group has been the single greatest learning experience of my life. Below are the most important lessons, ad...
It is not the compliment you think it is when you tell the partner of a heavy drinker how strong she is. And when you tell her that you’ll help more if she makes you a list, you’ve just asked her to do something else for you. Sheri and Matt discuss this while arguing about flag and snowman stamps, and while analyzing the best way to clean a gorilla cage.
Please go to UntoxicatedSurvey.org to better understand the impact...
Our latest essay from our Untoxicated blog: “Never Quite Measuring Up”
I did the math in my head. If the sales revenue generated on the opening day of our fourth location remained even sort-of consistent, we would be good–finally over the hump to financial security. We started with one whole grain bread bakery in 2004, and four years later, we had added three locations, and I thought we had reached our goal. I remember where I was ...
On Untoxicated Podcast Ep206, Kim Augustus thought her family had made it out of alcoholism and into solid recovery. In this next chapter, Kim’s second appearance on the podcast, she explains how her husband’s relapse has led to divorce. Kim’s boundaries, detachment, and commitment to providing a safe environment for her kids are guiding her into a new life after addiction.
Please go to UntoxicatedSurvey.org to be...
Our latest essay from our Untoxicated blog: “Big Birthday Revolution”
My dad’s birthday was a couple of weeks ago. I didn’t send him a card. I called him on his birthday, but I got his voicemail, so I left a message. We didn’t talk until the next weekend. By then, it just felt like it had been too long to re-wish him a happy birthday, so I didn’t. He reads my blog, so Dad, happy birthday. There. A voicemail and an interweb shout-ou...
For Jason, alcohol provided clarity for his fuzzy thoughts and lack of clarity. His medicinal drinking helped him thrive at work. But his drinking caused stress, frustration, and trauma for Annette at home. She didn’t stop digging until they found answers, and now they are moving forward on a path of recovery from dual diagnosis: Alcohol use disorder and ADHD.
Please go to UntoxicatedSurvey.org to better understand the impac...
Our latest essay from our Untoxicated blog: “Rose, part two”
Confused about the sources of her anxiety, and incapable of confronting Chris for the alcohol or relationship dysfunction, Rose did what she’d been trained to do her whole life. She signed up for 5k runs and thumbed through grad school degree catalogs. Deflection and gaslighting are traits so often assigned to people experiencing addiction first hand. But second-hand alco...
Does the distribution of household workload cause stress in your relationship? Are your parenting roles unclear as women excel in the workforce and men struggle to pick up the emotional load? Does it feel like your partnership is a competition? Does recovery from alcohol, and a lack of emotional safety, make it all exponentially harder? If so, you will get a lot from Sheri’s and Matt’s conversation with Alex Trippier, h...
Our latest essay from our Untoxicated blog: “Rose, part one”
He took a cube of cheese right out of Rose’s mouth. It was the move a parent makes when a baby shoves an unhalved grape past its toothless gums. “You should eat more protein,” is what Rose’s partner, Chris, said.
“You’re too fat,” is what she heard.
The emotional abuse didn’t really ramp up until Chris was sober…
“You know my love language is physical touch, and yet you withhold sex, and that’s why I drink.” Relationship and Sex Therapist Monica Tanner joins Sheri and Matt to talk about ways The Five Love Languages are sometimes weaponized, and to dispell myths about our responsibility to make our partner’s feel loved. There are important lessons within the love languages about curiosity and communication, while at t...
Our latest essay from our Untoxicated blog: “She IS Stuck in the Past”
“You said we would only be there for a little while. A couple of beers, you said. The kids and I left you there at almost midnight. When you stumbled in at 2am, fell up the back stairs, and started calling my name, I was afraid you were going to wake the kids. I didn’t want them to see you like that. I didn’t want them to see me as angry as I was.” My wife broug...
Diana Romanov practices family law in California, and she believes in client education and harnessing the power of technology to partner with her clients to guide them through the emotionally difficult process of divorce. We ask Diana about custody, mediation, reconciliation, gender trends, AI/digital divorce, the cost of winning, and the weaponization of the wedding vows. This is not legal advice, but Diana’s Divorce Like a ...
Our latest essay from our Untoxicated blog: “Jen, part two”
(Click here to listen to part one.)
Old academic papers on the impact of alcoholism on kids are plentiful. The studies from the end of last century usually suggest that the family stay together. That’s one of the things I despise about behavioral health research. Humans are complex and coercible, and an experienced academic can usually design a study to get the results tha...
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