Sheri and Matt have had some awful alcoholic Halloween experiences. Last year, they recapped the trauma on Ep111. This year, the couple is talking about the joy and laughter they are experiencing on their sixth consecutive sober Halloween month (yes, Matt celebrates Halloween for a whole month). Do you think sobriety is boring? Well, after you listen to this, you might not change your mind. But you'll definitely think twice about taking advice from these two chuckling sobriety peddlers with their questionable movie choices and bad parenting decisions. Keep listening, at your own risk, for some tips on navigating the other looming holidays free from the terror of alcohol.

If you love or loved an alcoholic, and your recovery could benefit from connection with people who understand, please check out our Echoes of Recovery program.

We humans are hard on ourselves. In fact, it is widely believed that no one will ever be as hard on us as we are on ourselves. Sheri and Matt have experience with that point of view, and on this episode, they share why your perceived self-weakness might just be bravery leading to hope. Cut yourself some slack and listen to their perspective. Also, listen to Matt give Sheri makeup tips.

If you love or loved an alcoholic, and your recovery could benefit from connection with people who understand, please check out our Echoes of Recovery program.

Pain is thought of as an almost exclusively negative emotion and experience. But does pain serve a purpose? Is pain necessary for forward motion in certain scenarios? And is recovery from alcoholism one such scenario? Sheri and Matt sure think so. Their understanding of pain is not just about progress. On this episode, the couple shares their understanding of pain that can help release shame in the times when we get stuck. They also both have real-time epiphanies of about how pain influences our actions.

If you love or loved an alcoholic, and your recovery could benefit from connection with people who understand, please check out our Echoes of Recovery program.

What comes first, safety or connection? Can two married people be in two different relationships when it comes to trust and implied consent? Is there guilt inherent in detachment, and rejection inherent in sex without emotional intimacy? Sheri and Matt are joined by Julia and Liz to tackle these incredibly heavy topics. There is not a psychologist among them, but yet, as lived-experience experts, they uncover a lot of therapeutic truth. And Liz solves it all with an analogy to Chutes and Ladders.

If you love or loved an alcoholic, and your recovery could benefit from connection with people who understand, please check out our Echoes of Recovery program.

Can forgiveness be achieved without an apology ever being offered? Likewise, can we find comfort in feeling remorse without ever being forgiven? On this special roundtable episode, Sheri and Matt are joined by four lived-experience experts to discuss the power of forgiveness. We are confident you will learn something new, or reconsider what you thought to be true, after listening to this conversation between Dawn, Karen, Mike and Lori. These are some distinctly different personalities and perspectives who have done some serious forgiveness work.

If you love or loved an alcoholic, and your recovery could benefit from connection with people who understand, please check out our Echoes of Recovery program.

In order for a relationship to survive alcoholism, both partners, the former drinker, and the spouse, need to do an amazing amout of work in recovery. It is not about sobriety, although that is a prerequisite. It is about individual healing and growth. Those two strong people can then come back together to make their relationship thrive. On this episode, Sheri and Matt talk about the different ways one partner or the other can prevent relationship recovery - because they can't or won't find healing themselves.

If you love or loved an alcoholic, and your recovery could benefit from connection with people who understand, please check out our Echoes of Recovery program.

Sheri and Matt welcome The Addiction Nutritionist, Kelly Miller, back to the podcast to learn more from this amazing nutrition therapist and recovery coach, and to apply her nutrition lessons to the recovery of the loved ones of people battling addiction. Do you want to feel better, reduce anxiety and regulate your haywire nervous system? If so, this episode is for you. It is full of practical nutrition tips, busted myths, and lots of counterintuitive knowledge about recovery. Kelly lights up the microphone as she shares her passion for feeling better and living better.

If you love or loved an alcoholic, and your recovery could benefit from connection with people who understand, please check out our Echoes of Recovery program.

Alcoholism has lots of victims - including the drinker. High-functioning alcoholics in sobriety often have a really hard time accepting their victim status for a variety of reasons discussed by Sheri and Matt on this episode. But owning the victim label disarms the stigma and ends the shame cycle. It's an important, but largely rejected, philosophy. Acknowledging victimhood can get people stuck, or it can lead to freedom. Sheri and Matt tackle another complex recovery issue.

If you love or loved an alcoholic, and your recovery could benefit from connection with people who understand, please check out our Echoes of Recovery program.

Last week, we published this article titled, "Your Wife's Not a Bitch," to our Sober and Unashamed website and blog. We got a lot of reaction, most of it in the form of email from the spouses of alcoholics describing the different ways our assertions were rejected. In this episode of the podcast, Sheri and Matt discuss the reactions, and the importance of creating a safe place for honest communication to thrive - because the death of communication will be the ultimate death of any relationship.

If you love or loved an alcoholic, and your recovery could benefit from connection with people who understand, please check out our Echoes of Recovery program.

Sheri and Matt dive deep into Sheri's favorite topic: intimacy. But this discussion might not be what you are expecting. They separate emotional intimacy from sex, and describe emotional intimacy as the ultimate vulnerability (complete with figurative nudity). Emotional intimacy is both really difficult (made infinitely harder by alcohol abuse), and also a key to relationship recovery. Confused much? Give it a listen, and see if you agree with their expertless assertions. Stick around to hear Sheri talk about stepping on Matt's unit. OK...it is a little bit about sex.

If you love or loved an alcoholic, and your recovery could benefit from connection with people who understand, please check out our Echoes of Recovery program.