Carol Weis - Stumbling Home: Life Before and After That Last Drink

Advance Praise for Stumbling Home

Carol Weiss Stumbling Home is a story of recovery, a reckoning of the relationships that complicate it, and an examination of the years that brought her to that last flute of champagne. A welcome addition to the addiction canon, Weiss vivid narrative illuminates the experience of navigating alcoholism and recovery as a woman with clarity and piercing details.

Erin Khar, author of Strung Out

Frank, searing, and ultimately hopeful, Stumbling Home is a page-turning story of alcoholism, relationships, and hard-won healing. Any reader whose life has been impacted by addiction will see themselves in these pages. I certainly did.

Kristi Coulter, author of Nothing Good Can Come from This

Bravely confronting the fears and the feelings that go along with addiction, recovery, and just being human, Stumbling Home will resonate with so many of us. Carol Weis inspires while reminding us that we are never alone.

Lisa F. Smith, author of Girl Walks Out of a Bar

Raw and naked, Carol Weiss Stumbling Home makes clear the connection between childhood trauma and substance use, plus adult dysfunction.

Ann Dowsett Johnston, author of Drink: The Intimate Relationship Between Women and Alcohol

In frank, lyrical prose and a nonlinear structure, Weis draws seemingly paradoxic parallels between her own alcoholism and recovery, single motherhood, and childhood trauma. In so doing, she demonstrates the myriad ways in which the expectations put upon women and girls shape our shared experiences and cultural conceptions of femininity and what it means to exist in a womans body.

Amy Long, author of Codependence

From the riveting opening to the reconciliation of the end, Stumbling Home links the anxiety of abandonment to the anxiety of addiction with exceptional clarity and resonance. In exploring both her family and her own personal history with alcohol, Weis offers a memoir punctuated by reckoning, empathy for who we were against who we can become, and layers of grace and vulnerability.

Wendy J. Fox, author of If the Ice Had Held and What If We Were Somewhere Else

Copyright 2021 Carol Weis

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by an information storage or retrieval system now known or heretoafter inventedexcept by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review to be printed in a magazine or newspaperwithout permission in writing from the publisher: heliotropebooks@gmail.com

16 Steps for Discovery and Empowerment by Charlotte Davis Kasl, Ph.D., is excerpted on page231 from Many Roads, One Journey: Moving Beyond the 12 Steps Charlotte Kasl. Originally published by HarperCollins and reprinted with permission from Dr. Kasl and HarperCollins.

Cover by Carol Weis with Heliotrope Books

Designed and Typeset by Heliotrope Books

Three-year-old me

Also by Carol Weis:

When the Cows Got Loose

Divorce Papers

What happens to a child whos abandoned

intentionally or not

when she grows up?

A girl whose early years are rife

with anger and fear

who confuses trouble with fun

and whos terrified of being left again?

She ends up drinking and drugging

way more than she should

seeking to obliterate her past

sleeping with every Tim, Rich, and Henry

with her claws ever extended

eventually marrying a guy she snags

who consumes as much as she does

fathers her child

and fulfilling her fears

leaves her when she gets sober

unable to do so himself.

This woman-child stumbles and falls

over and over again

until finally

she picks herself up

and stumbles home.

For Maggie,

who came to me

to help me get sober.

I ve spent much of my life caught in a web of anxiety, trapped in a tangle of fears. Constantly worried that I wasnt smart enough, cool enough, or capable enough. I swore Id never find someone to love me, or worse, when I did, Id scare them away. I felt inadequate and unlovable. Bottom line: I just wasnt good enough.

Being an adult frightened the hell out of me.

So, as many young people do, I turned to alcohol.

We live in an age where fear and anxiety are heightened by things like the climate crisis, gun violence, and acts of terrorism, both foreign and domestic. These kinds of fears often make people drink more than they should. The 24/7 cable news cycle, along with the vast array of social media sites and news apps, all contribute to a condition called Headline Stress Disorder ). If you stay up later to watch the news and pour yourself an extra glass of wine, or order another bottle from one of the alcohol delivery services, or youre a member of a Facebook group like Moms Who Need Wine , you might see a bit of yourself in me.

One of my biggest fears came from a much deeper place than what s on the news. Things that happened in my childhood caused a relentless fear of abandonment, which colored all my relationships, especially with men. At first, drinking squelched the fear, and it was fun. Until it eventually lost its fun factor and became something I thought about constantly, something I had to do. After a while, I found I needed to increase my alcohol intake to get the same numbing effect. It took a long time for me to accept I had a problem.

Ive been sober for 31 years. I miraculously stayed sober through the trials of single parenting. Through 9/11, through Sandy Hook and other mass shootings, and through all the bedlam surrounding Trumps presidency and the coronavirus pandemic, breathing deeply to fend off the fear.

So if you or someone you love may be drinking more than usual to relieve the stress and fear the news cycle produces or to push down painful feelings and issues from the past, perhaps my story will help.

That is my hope.

With much love,

Carol

T he events in this book are based on my own memories and taken from various conversations with others. Some people may have different recollections from what Ive depicted, which often happens. Ive also changed the names of a few individuals.

One, two, three, one, two, three, drink.

Throw em back till I lose count.

from Chandelier by Sia

chapter one

___________

T he last drink I have is a flute of champagne.

Its New Years Eve.

My husband reserves a special room for us at a nearby hotel. He buys an imperial bottle of Mot, a misplaced purchase for this particular occasion. Were making a last-ditch effort at saving our marriage. A gala erupts in the ballroom below, where we journey to join the revelers.

Lights twinkle, streamers hang, and chandeliers glisten.

I hardly notice.

The band plays songs that were once my favorites.

I hardly hear.

Hoards of gleeful couples celebrate around us.

We dance with them, pretending to have a good time.

But I know the end is creeping near.

My husbands been having an affair with a woman half his age. He hasnt come clean yet, but my gut knows somethings going on. So I bleach my hair a sassier shade of blond, starve myself in hopes of losing the weight I know he hates, and turn myself inside out to get him to notice me again.