Addiction – Untoxicated Podcast

Doctor’s take an oath to do no harm. When the surgeons operated on Barbara, she was an exception. They knew they risked harming her. Barbara knew it, too, but she sacrificed herself to save the...

This is the question we hear most often from our listeners, so on this episode, Sheri and Matt discuss how she processed this painful decision in their alcoholic marriage. Matt asks Sheri about how the...

Family communication is fraught with pitfalls whether alcoholism is a factor or not. But with sobriety, we can make progress in our discovery. In this episode, Sheri and Matt discuss a family communication issue made...

Have you ever cheated death? Have you ever had too much to drink, and put yourself in a dangerous situation? Have you ever passed out unable to protect yourself should the need arise? Have you...

Low self esteem, insecurity and negative self talk – these issues plague so many of us, and they are particularly detrimental to people who love alcoholics and are trying to recover from trauma and codependency....

Karen’s life did not go as planned. She married the man she loved, and they had four kids together. So far, so good. But when the progression of her husband’s drinking spiraled out of control,...

Our book, soberevolution: Evolve into Sobriety and Recover Your Alcoholic Marriage, isn’t for everybody. It is for high-functioning alcoholics who are considering sobriety, are sober, or should be sober. It is also for the loved ones...

It’s a Wonderful Life or White Christmas – who has experienced a holiday season that lives up to those perfect pictures of love, family and humanity? Norman Rockwell sets the bar pretty high, yet we still...

The shame of alcoholism is not reserved only for the drinkers. The loved ones of drinkers feel an enormous amount of shame – for letting it get so bad and for being unable to fix...

The anger and resentment from her husband’s drinking was building inside our friend, Traci. If he kept drinking, she faced a selfless and dreadful decision. “I loved him too much to stay and punish him.”...

If you’ve ever looked for the root cause of your anger, you’ve probably read or heard that anger is the outward manifestation of fear. There’s wisdom there, but it goes deeper. In this episode, Sheri...

Alcoholism is so insidious because of how it creeps into relationships and destroys us from the inside. When did my husband turn from a sweet, loving man into such a repulsive tyrant? When did my...

Sheri and Matt are joined on this episode by a fellow survivor of an alcoholic marriage, their good friend and Denver neighbor, Kate. Just like Sheri, Kate endured years of gaslighting, denial and progressively deteriorating...

Being a part of the alcoholism recovery community is all about putting out fires that are already started. That’s important, but that’s not what this conversation is about. In this episode, Sheri and Matt talk...

If you’ve listened to the Untoxicated Podcast before, you know Sheri’s and Matt’s story is not unique, because you are probably in the middle of a similar trauma. Still, experiencing alcoholism, as the drinker or as...

Listeners and readers often share that they can’t imagine their alcoholic spouses reaching the level of clarity that Matt and Sheri share on this podcast. Matt is nothing special, and his mediocrity should inspire others...

As an active alcoholic, Matt thought all of his attempts to control his drinking, his pontifications about how it would be different this time, and his complaints about how bad he felt after a binge,...

After a decade of developing disdain for her alcoholic husband, the disease transformed Sheri into a bit of bitch. And now, looking back, no one is happier about the bitchiness than Matt. Sheri and Matt...

Socializing sober is not just a challenge for alcoholics in recovery. Everyone impacted by this disease has to find a groove in a society that depends on alcohol for all social occasions. In this episode,...

Sobriety doesn’t fix anything, but it is a prerequisite for recovery from an alcoholic marriage. Once we realize we have removed alcohol, and our relationship is getting worse, we’ve got a lot of work to...

We asked a group of loved ones of alcoholics to read a chapter of our book, soberevolution, that will be released on September 23rd. The chapter is titled “Healing Wounds,” and it is about working through...

We talk a lot of the trauma and pain of living with an alcoholic, but we rarely share the details. In this episode, Sheri and Matt talk about the emotional struggles of confronting alcoholism head...

Recovery is not a binary choice. You are not a success if you are sober, and a failure if you relapse. The same is true for the loved ones of alcoholics. Perfection should not be...

I thought I was so funny, cute, smart and charming when I was drinking. Little did I know, I was just a loud and boorish bloviator of intoxicated rambling. Now I’m sober. Now I see...

If you are the loved one of an alcoholic, it is easy to blame poor lifestyle choices and lack of willpower for the jam your abusive drinker has gotten the both of you into. But...