A few weeks ago, I was sure I was going to die. It would happen – I figured – at some point during a business trip to Montreal. The plan would go down, or my cab would get into an accident. Regardless, my life would be over and my kids would be on their own. [...]

My father had Alzheimer’s, so whenever I hear about anything to do with degenerative brain function, I tend to listen. This morning I spent an enjoyable half hour listening to an archived radio broadcast a friend had sent me the link to. The show was an edition of the CBC’s Quirks and Quarks, and featured [...]

The other day a very dear friend of mine sent me an email to tell me how reading my book was affecting her. She’s been reading it slowly, highlighting passages that resonate, underlining comments that she wants to refer back to and remember. She said it’s been helping her. Like me, she was in a [...]

It is a common desire to seek out the like-minded or similarly situated in society.  It gives us greater joy to share our passions with those who share them – consider a book club, or a professional association.  And in times of strife, we find comfort in those who understand our misery.      One of [...]

I’m lucky to have a truly wonderful man in my life right now, but my happiness can be hard to take for a friend of mine who is not in quite the same place.  When she admitted her slight feelings of jealousy and frustration to another friend, he suggested that when she was ready for [...]

Today marks the launch of my new book “Looking Up: Surviving Life with an Alcoholic”.  The book chronicles about four years of my life before, during and immediately after my ex-husband’s succumbing to alcoholism.  While there is no doubt in my mind that these years marked some of the toughest of my life to date, with [...]

My mother was a genius at getting me to do things around the house.  She’d simply say “but you’re so good at cleaning the kitchen; really, no one can clean it like you can!” and sure enough, she would be right.  I was also told that I never finished projects, and that I was so [...]

The road to recover is actually very similar for alcoholics and alcoholic supporters alike.   Both journeys are tough, and they each begin by admitting we have a problem, and that we are incapable of solving it on our own.  The next logical step is to determine who or what can help us.  If we could [...]

Everything happens for a reason, even the bad stuff.  Especially the bad stuff.  I used to believe that life was pretty random, and perhaps in those days, it was for me.  But now that I’ve decided to live my life awake and purposefully, I see that the people and events that come into my life [...]

Loving detachment is a great skill for the supporter of an alcoholic.   We tend to gravitate toward situations where we are needed, including in our relationships.  And for good reason: we get things done, we can multi-task like no one else, and we just intuitively seem to know what to do to make the world [...]