Restoring Intimacy After Addiction

Welcome back to the show, Matt and Sherry. I am so glad you're here, and I feel like you guys are so brave for talking about this topic. Intimacy, sex. Yes. We're gonna have the talk, and we're gonna relate it to Trust. Addiction, recovery. Goodness gracious. I'm glad you guys are the ones gonna talk about it, because I don't know what to say about it, but I'm getting a lot of questions lately about this. Some people might have seen you on the show before, but there's probably some people who haven't. So could you introduce yourselves, tell us who you are, maybe why you're the perfect people to be talking about this on. On this show?

Well, we're probably the perfect people because we've done it all wrong. So we've got all kinds of experience of how not to do lots of things in relationships. Certainly intimacy is a part of that.

Yeah.

Do you want to introduce yourself, Sherry?

Yeah. I'm Sherry Salis, partner of a recovered alcoholic. We, like Matt said, did everything wrong. And Matt had a podcast with another person, and then when they bailed, he invited me on, and it was my story, and it kind of seemed to launch like a whole new avenue.

At the risk of insulting Jason, my original podcast partner, it was a big upgrade.

Thanks.

Yeah, you are.

I didn't pay him.

You're the. You're the star of the podcast.

So we have just. I don't know, maybe because I don't listen to the podcast if it's just he and I. So I feel like I can be really vulnerable because we've actually even kind of worked out some situations on our podcast of deal with relationship repair and issues that stemmed from the alcoholic relationship that we had had for many years. And my part of being codependent. And so I think because I don't listen and go back, you know, I can just be really vulnerable. And I think that that is maybe why we're a good fit here to talk about that, because you guys.

You guys share not just. There's a lot of podcasts about addiction recovery, but there's not a lot of podcasts where you have both sides of the story, right? Where you have the person in recovery, the person who was with them on the journey, talking about each perspective and what that journey was like before, during, and after. And I think that's what makes what you guys do so special. By the way, the podcast is called.

It's the Intoxicated Podcast.

Not to be confused with Un Intoxicated, which I think is what I Always want to say, but it's Intoxicated podcast, and today you guys are going to be sharing with us specifically about sex. Sex and intimacy when it comes to addiction recovery.

Brave.

Thank you very much. Yeah, we. We've gotten over a hump. We've talked about it enough that I think we're able to do it with our heart rates under a hundred beats a minute.

You often are a little more brave than I am. I'm a little more pushing the envelope.

A little bit, you're saying.

Yeah, but. Because it is hard stuff. But we have so many people that are dealing with this in their relationships. I feel like. I feel like now is the time where I can't hold back, even though I've wanted to for years. You know, I kind of push back on really talking about this, and. And then I've kind of come to see how important it is in a romantic relationship.

Right, right. So. So give us the. Give us the backstory, if you don't mind, the. The before story.

So the active addiction story, the how it all began. Yeah, so we. We met, I think, like, actually a lot of people that we meet doing this work. We met in college.

We.

We worked together in a bar. We both, you know, partied and drank and had a good time. Really low on the responsibility scale at that point. We. We just had to, you know, kind of maneuver our way through school while just having fun and developing a love for each other and a bond for each other. So it was really, really light and casual and great. We moved on after college. We moved in together. We both got adult jobs, you know, like daytime jobs, not. Not bartending at night. And I think right away, we noticed a difference in our drinking patterns in that, you know, I grew up in a household where my father came home from work every night and he poured himself a couple of drinks. And that was a sign of manhood and adulthood and success. And so I mimicked that. And Sher, you thought it was a little bit weird that I drank every night?

Yeah, I was more of a social drinker. Like, if I was sitting home, you know, just watching a movie, even just watching movie with a couple of friends, I wouldn't drink. For me, drinking was all about social engagement and acting kind of crazy and dancing and those sort of things. So for me, just sitting in our apartment after our 5, 9 to 5 or 8 to 5 job, you know, if we weren't going out to a happy hour Friday, I had no interest in drinking. And so also, I grew up in a home where my Parents were divorced, and my father was an alcoholic. So even though I didn't live in the home, I still saw a lot of representation of what. How alcohol can be bad. But I still drank. But I feel like I just had more of a. It's not a daily thing. Matt, why are you making this a d thing?

So this is the first time when there you start to notice there's, like, a difference. And you both drank alcohol, but there was a difference in how you viewed the situation and. And who was.

Yeah, and the difference, you know, I was a budding little alcoholic. I didn't know it at the time, but that was certainly the path I was on. But the other difference, that is really noticeable, looking back, you know, when we were in college, we had a lot of sex. It was not particularly excellent sex, and. But it, you know, it was just kind of carefree, you know, low inhibition kind of sex. The more time we spent together, the more serious we got. Moving in, talking about engagement, talking about marriage. The weight of it, I think, became heavier for you, Sherry, at the same time as I was becoming less attractive. So I hadn't crossed the line into addiction. But I drank too much, and I was handsy, and I. My breath didn't smell particularly good. And you started to get unattracted to me in a sexual way at the same time, as, you know, I wanted our sexual prowess, our sexual consistency to continue.

And my idea of, like, dating in college, we didn't have a whole lot of deep conversations, right? And we were drinking and partying and sex and school, and we had our friends for that. So, you know, I felt like we were just. We needed to, like, mature. So for me, I wanted to be represented more than just a sexual partner and a drinking buddy. And I felt like I wasn't seeing that in the relationship. So I started withholding and trying to take it on as a more mature, you know, a mature person at age 24, but trying to say, let's talk, let's do these things. Let's, you know. You know, I wouldn't even say, like, I was trying to be more romantic, but just doing things that a more committed relationship where we aren't all about libido was. And you were still there with drinking like you were at a fraternity house and still wanting to have just casual anywhere in the apartment sort of sex.

Another thing that's really important at this point already, I was doing what typically happens for the alcoholic in that I was compartmentalizing also. I think there's a gender role here. This is a kind of a male ish trait, compartmentalization. Whereas Sherry would compile interactions so we could, you know, I could watch tv, watch sports for a couple hours, say something snippy to Sherry, you know, borderline argumentative, and then go to bed and still want to have sex and all of those things. I. I could put all those things in a little box. You know, I got to watch my sports and ignore my wife or future wife. Maybe I said something short, but I apologize. So it's fine. And I still wanted to get it on for Sherry. That was compiling. Especially the more time we spent together, the closer we got toward potentially marriage and kids. You started to evaluate me as a whole person and, hey, I don't know that I like the way I'm being treated. And so go to bed at the end of the night, and if I had said something snippy and ignored you all night, that wasn't very attractive to you.

So for you, Matt, it was like. It was like two different subjects. Regular life, sex life, and Sherry. For you, it was like, no, it's all connected in there.

Exactly. Exactly.

And this was before you were even married.

Yeah.

You know, we actually went on with it.

Yeah.

At the time, I couldn't see any of this. I would. I would not have understood this first five minutes of discussion back then. But now looking back, it's just, it's. It's crystal clear. It's the. The damage I was doing even before addiction to the relationship, because I just didn't understand what a mature, you know, growth mindset relationship looks like. That's something. That's a term you use a lot. But as you're looking toward adulthood, you're looking towards something different. We're going to raise kids potentially, and we're going to try to grow more connected. And I was perfectly happy with the way it's always been. You know, work, drink, sex, great. That's all I needed.

Yeah. And I just kept holding out hope that his maturity was going to catch up with him yet. Males typically mature slower than females. I am about 18 months older than him, so I have a little bit more lived experience. He had a little bit more of a sheltered life. So I kept, like, just kind of holding out that eventually he's going to catch up because we did get married and he did have, like, jobs in, you know, middle management, you know, And I kept thinking, when is the maturity going to happen here?

So career maturity happened, but emotional maturity, not as much. I heard one time, I don't know where I Heard this, but I heard somebody say on a podcast one time, it's like, men get married hoping that their wife will never change, and women get married hoping their man will change. Change.

I'm like, yeah, that sounds profound.

That sounds exactly like. Because I saw all these great things in Matt. I mean, he was in a pretty tough field of school and in kind of a competitive school. So I just kept thinking, well, there's a lot of potential there, you know, so of course the maturity will catch up. Not understanding that, like we've learned now, is that where you started drinking is kind of where your maturity ended in a little bit of ways.

You know, do you think this sex, intimacy issues would have happened even had the drinking not been an issue, or is it too tied in together?

I personally question.

Yeah, I personally think that it wouldn't have happened because I feel like there were times in the beginning where I would try to explain my feelings about it or share with him or. And he had a very fragile ego. So me trying to say, well, this would be really nice, or this would maybe be better for tonight. In, you know, he would act like I knew nothing about my own body, and that would often lead to arguments. So I like, if alcohol wasn't there and you weren't, at least, you know, a couple beers in or a couple drinks in, maybe he would have heard and received that better and we could have had those conversations. So I feel like there was that fragile, immature ego.

And I have a different perspective on that. I think it goes back to education. I think we are so poorly educated in the K2 through 12 public education system as it relates to sex. And I mean, intimacy isn't even something that's talked about in schools, but that current curriculum is designed toward preventing sexually transmitted infections and preventing unwanted pregnancy, teen pregnancy. And there's no talk about pleasure. There is no talk really to any great extent about the. The female anatomy. And so, you know, we get out of sex ed in school, and we enter our late teen years and early 20 years thinking that it's all about penetrative sex, and it's all about duration and size and all of these things that maybe matter for the man but has nothing to do with pleasure for the woman. So like Sherry said, when she would say, maybe we try this, I would say, no, no, no, that's not, you know, I know how to please my woman. And there was some ego there. Yeah. And so there was ego there, but there was just a complete lack of information and lack of education as well, playing in and I, I really think that my alcoholism too, in many regards, is the best thing that ever happened to us because it shines such a spotlight on so many issues. Communication for sure, but intimacy especially, that we couldn't ignore it anymore. And I think, yeah.

Oh, that. See that I can see.

I think, I think without going through hell, it makes me scared to think we would just have this kind of mediocre, ho hum, lackluster relationship in a lot of ways just kind of headed toward our grade, our grave as, you know, settling for. Yeah, settling for less than, than what we deserve.

And I know you mentioned Matt. It's not talked about in schools, but more importantly than that, it's not talked about in homes because that's where it should be talked about. You know, we, we want the schools to do everything right. Y' all teach them about that. But it's not talked about in most people's homes.

Oh, you're right. It's so funny because we can come on this podcast and talk openly about sex and intimacy and, and genitals and body parts and orgasm and all these topics, but it's still even hard for us to talk to our teenage kids about it. I mean, we do, we push through. We are giving than what we received when we were in their shoes. But it strikes me how interesting that is that I can pretty comfortably talk to adults about it now. But I struggle when it comes to talking to our kids. And that's, that's where the education is best delivered at that early, early stage.

Wow.

Yes. And our children are so thrilled with that as well. Not like we have been fully transparent and, and giving them a real education, but we have, you know, planted seeds for the older ones because we've got a twin almost, you know, we have a 21 year old and a 19 year old and kind of planting some seeds that it's more than just about not getting pregnant and not getting a disease.

One of the best things we ever did, if I can plug somebody else's book, we read together. It's a book called Come as you are. It's by Dr. Emily Nagoski and it is fantastic. It's, it goes into a lot of details about why an intimate, a sexual relationship might not be functioning well. And we learned a ton from it. But the beginning part is about anatomy. It's about female pleasure. And you know, you might think we're in our late 40s at the time when we read this, you might think, what do we need to know about, you know, we know it all, but we Stuck to it and read that section anyway. And we came away with a lot of aha moments and a lot of. A lot of learning. So you're right. It's not talked about in homes with kids. It's not talked about in homes among married couples either.

Right. It's just a hard subject for a lot of different ways or for a lot of different reasons. What would happen in you guys relationship? Was it just sort of like you guys would fight about it or you would just not talk about it? How did that dynamic play out for you guys?

It's another great question.

Lots of fighting. Lots of fighting, Lots of arguing.

Yeah. But so here is a place where in working with other couples, we have realized that there are two paths. And we took one of those two paths. I would argue we took the more destructive of those two paths as my drinking continued, as addiction eventually took hold. You know, we can point to what we would consider a full decade, a full 10 years of my active alcoholism. Now, as you know, there's no specific diagnosis. A doctor didn't say. I dubbed the alcoholic. We frame that around from the first time I tried to quit drinking until I finally made it over the hump. So from the first time I said, all right, gotta put the brakes on here. This isn't working until permanent sobriety. That was a 10 year period. And in that 10 year period, we continued to have sexual contact. That's again, one of the two directions this can go. So, you know, I began to need sex as kind of a medicinal replacement for alcohol or medicinal addition to alcohol. It became a dopamine oxytocin kind of a thing for me to have sex and like another. Exactly. I'm feeling terrible about myself. You know, I don't know that I could put it in those words, but I have depression, I have anxiety. I need something to feel better. And I knew that there were times where I was just using Sherry and using her body to get that. To get that hit and feel a little bit better about myself, just the same way I would turn to a bottle of vodka.

So because of the. The alcoholism makes you more depressed and more anxious. What you're saying is sort of then I knew this, this helped me some, so I started relying on even more. So it's almost like. It's almost like it's not. It wasn't really like a double addiction, but it was like. Then I started wanting more intimacy to make myself feel better.

Yeah, that's right. I think that's an important point you make because, I mean, I I am just finishing up a master's degree in sexual health. I've been in a full compulsive sexual behavior class. And a lot of us alcoholics think we do. We do. Or did. I never had what you would really call a sex addiction. It was an augmentation. It was an addition. It was just. It was helpful. But I didn't, you know, stop going to work so that I could masturbate or stop going to work seeking sex, you know, paid for sex. I never crossed the line in. And I'm not trying to excuse my behavior and say I wasn't as bad as somebody else, but a full blown sex addiction or compulsive sexual behavior, I mean, it's. It's interrupting your life. And it never got there. For us, it was more. Yeah, it was another way to find relief from the depression and anxiety. And we talked about the compartmentalization versus compiling. At the same time, as I was doing that, Sherry recognized that I was doing that. And for you, it became more and more unattractive, right?

Yeah. Yeah.

So I. I think.

Wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute. Hold on. Sherry, you had a. You looked at him and you're like, yeah, I feel like there's a little more behind that.

He does this to me all the time. We'll ask a question, and I am, like, not prepared. Not that I wasn't listening and paying attention, but I was just, like, going along with some of the his, you know, script or whatever. Then I'm like, oh, wait, now I have a question. So, yeah, I feel like, you know, I'm. I'm listening to him explain, like, the difference between the addiction and that. And all I'm like, laughing in my head is think it's like a little shot of Sherry. Because, you know, my name is an alcohol. So like, that little dopamine hit. Gotta get a little shot of Sherry. But I feel like we. When we were doing this, yeah, it made him very unattractive. It made him very. I kind of thought, God, like, what a pig. Like, you know, alcohol isn't enough. You're just. It's like you're just a glutton. Like, those were words that ran through my mind, like, just, you know, so it was. It was disgusting and unattractive at the same time. As I could, like, be disgusted and blaming him, it was also just tearing me down. You know, I could just feel like myself being used. And then when I would try to express that to him, you know, by this time, I mean, there's been so many arguments. We're so defensive with each other. The relationship is very rocky. I mean, we're still pretty stable for the kids. We're running a business together. You know, on the outside, everything looks great. But then nighttime happens, the doors close, the kids are all in bed. And then I would try to say, like, I just feel like I'm being used. He didn't want to hear that. So then I feel even more shut down and feel even more disrespected.

Let me pitch this question to you, because this morning, I was sort of looking around in our private membership group, and I was just, like, looking at some of the questions, and there were two questions right at the top just this morning, where a person. The first one was, a person was saying, okay, Amber, I've been trying all your positive reinforcement techniques, and your get out of the bag. I roll, and it's working. But the problem is, is when I do that, and I'm like, nice, and I do all the things, then he wants to be super affectionate with me, and I can't. I'm just not there. And I'm. I'm in a. You know, there's just a lot of hurt feelings, lack of trust, probably some disgust, a whole bunch of stuff. And. And she was saying, I don't know what to do about that. Any thoughts?

Yeah, well, I was right there. You know, I wasn't necessarily trying to get out of that bad roll guy because, like, we've said, we did everything wrong. But I just. I think because of the way I was, like, viewing myself or maybe the era in which I grew up. I grew up in the 80s, and there was, like, all those terrible B movies about, you know, girls just put out. But you can't put out too much because then you look like a sludge. Put out enough, you know? So I, like, felt like it was sort of transactional and a currency. And I had done that in earlier relationships before I met Matt. And so maybe that's why, early on, he didn't want to hear when I would say, hey, if we do it like this, maybe that was a reminder that I had had other sexual partners before him. So I feel like when that would happen, I would just kind of, like, suck it up and do it. And then the. The thing I would say was, fine, okay, fine. I could never say what I wanted. I was already to the point of being, like, not sharing what I wanted because I didn't want to have sex at all, you know? So I would just say, fine, and do it because in our relationship, we lived in a pretty small house. And he is an arguer. And I would argue back, so it would go all night. So I would appease him and do it and just try to put on a brave face, and I would go elsewhere. Like, I would kind of just not even be there in my mind.

You mentioned that it's a small house because we have four kids. And you. A lot of what you did was a sacrifice to avoid arguing because it could potentially wake the kids. I mean, I'm disgusted with myself to relive that memory, but that's the hard fact.

Yeah.

So is there any.

I just feel like I. Oh, God.

Is there anything that Sherry could have said? Looking back, and I know. I mean, shoulda, coulda, woulda. But looking back, is there anything she could have said or a way she could have said it that would have maybe got your attention or. It just wasn't gonna work at that.

You know, That's a great question. I don't think so, because I leaned heavily on the. We are married. This is, you know, part of being married sex is part of being married. Sex isn't disgusting. You know, the kind of. The dutiful wife sex, which, again, is something that really disgusts me. Now, looking back on it, I did. I had no idea the damage I was doing. You know, kind of. Kind of back to your. The question that you found within your group. I think it's important to understand that for many couples, for many relationships that are experiencing substance use disorder and trying to have an intimate relationship, for many guys specifically, we find connection through sex and intimacy. That was certainly the case for me. And for Sherry, sex and intimacy is a result of the connection. For me, it was the entry to the connection, and that's a problem. So there's a bit of a gender role there. There's a bit of a. I was the alcoholic, and that's kind of my side of it. But for everyone, intimacy requires trust. And so really important point to understand is no matter how bad my drinking got, I never lost trust for Sherry. I never had a question about how her moods were going to swing. I never wondered whether or not she'd be good to the kids. I never wondered about, you know, any financial concerns or infidelity or anything. Like, I had solid trust in Sherry because she never did anything to disrupt that. The flip side of that is she didn't trust me at all. I mean, you've said there are things. You didn't expect me to run our bank account to zero. And you knew I'd get up and go to work. Emotional trust, yeah, but no emotional trust. So intimacy, true intimacy, emotional intimacy requires trust. I had all the trust in the world for her. She had none for me, which made true emotional intimacy impossible. And so when we would have physical contact, when we would have sex and she would say, like you just said, I would say, you know, do you want to have sex? And she would say, fine. Like she would never answer the question. The question is, do you want to have sex? She never could answer that. That, you know, that was a big time hurt for me, that that is what I have come to call the rejection. That's inherent nonenthusiastic consent. So agreeing to, but not really wanting to, that really hurt me. But I was still, you know, there's still that part of me that wants that dopamine hit, that shot of Sherry, like she said. So we would go through with it, and it did immeasurable damage to our relationship. I said that there are kind of two sides to this, two ways this typically goes in an alcoholic relationship. The other side is that physical contact dries up altogether and it can be initiated by either side. It can be the person like me who. That pain from that rejection inherent in non enthusiastic consent, that's too much. I don't want any part of that. Or probably more often, it's the spouse, it's the, it's the loved one who is just so disgusted by the whole situation that she cuts it off and says no. I would argue that when you get into recovery and you're trying to work on rebuilding trust and work on intimacy repair, you're actually better off to have cut it off than to have done what we have. There's less to repair, there's less resentment to deal with. We had a ton of resentment to deal with, you know, on both sides. I'm not asking for any, any pity on my side of it. But, you know, I was wounded because she was never enthusiastic. And she was massively wounded because of all the times she did it when she didn't want to. Just to keep me quiet and appease me and get me to pass out so tons of damage.

Why do you think it would be better had you guys went the other way and you just stopped having sex?

Because I think that at least, I mean, you'd still have to build the trust, the foundation to get back to intimacy, but you wouldn't have all those disgusting memories of bad nights that you have to process and deal with and.

The, and the, and the like breaking down of Myself, Like, I just, you know, feeling. I don't remember how I stated it once, but it was something like, I just felt like I wasn't there. I was just, like, above my body, out of my body, whatever. Like, I didn't want to be there. And to me, sex became such a disgusting thing because it was just a reminder of kind of a power dynamic shift, too, that just made me feel like I had no power over my own body. And that was hard. And I was doing it so there wouldn't be an argument and wake the kids. But I kind of back to the question that your listener asked. Like, I feel like if. Because sex would open up connection and vulnerability for Matt, and it does for a lot of people. I don't think that would have been a time where we could have even. I could have even said, you know, I'm. You know, I hope you're feeling good about sex or whatever, but, you know, it's really making me feel bad because I feel like there never a good time to approach the subject, because in his mind, I think he knew what was going on. It was just never really discovered. You know, you were having your own bad feelings about being, you know, told, fine, we can have sex. But you also knew you weren't getting the connection you needed, but you didn't quite understand it. So again, we were so, so defensive of our. And protective of our own feelings and that sort of not open to any. To either side. Like, I didn't want to hear that he was being hurt. He was still getting sex. He was still getting into the orgasm. Why should he be hurt? You know? So I feel like we were just so raw that any sort of conversation about that would have just led to an argument.

What do you think would have happened, Matt? And obviously, you're just gonna guess, but if Sherry would have said something to you, like, you know, I think you're a lot more sexy when you're sober. If you had. If you would. If you would sort of try to come more sober, then maybe you get more lucky. Is that leveraging it too much? Would that have incentivized you? What would you have thought about that?

I think it depends on where I was in the cycle. When I was deep in the addiction, I don't think that would have mattered. I would have raised the arguments. Like, I said that, you know, we are married couple. This is what married couples do. And, you know, it's not fair. I would have said things like, when we met, we had plenty of sex, and we were both drinking. You're the one that's changed. I'm not the one that's changed. So deep in my addiction, I would have had all kinds of ways to turn this and make it her problem. And she's the one that, you know, that. That isn't. Isn't performing and isn't. I don't mean to. To use the word performing in. In that way, but. But isn't holding up her into the bargain. Now, when I was in early sobriety, that might have had a bit of an impact, but I think you were so wounded at that point. I don't think you could tell me anything was sexy because, you know, you. You just weren't there. But it would have been. Certainly it would have been leading me in the right direction when I was attempting sobriety and trying to recover.

Yeah. And I think there is sort of a story that's kind of like this Amber. And I can. Because, you know, again, I just. I just collect information years and years and years.

I have a compiler.

I have catalogs of stories. But there is a story about we. He had a business trip, and we had one child at the time, and I flew and we went. I think it was like, for around my 30th birthday. And he was with his. Like, he was the manager and she was the salesperson, but she was much older. They were very experienced. They were very classy people. And we went to wine country in California, and we stayed at a BNB across from their little house in one of the towns in wine country. So we had had this nice day, and it was. Was what in my mind was absolutely mature drinking. You know, we were going to wineries, we were being, you know, tasted, but nobody was getting drunk. And it was just perfect. And we went back to our. Our. Our B and B and then whatever rental. Like, yeah, you know, it just at the end of the night, and it was a great time. You know, we had great sex. It was very romantic. And I remember saying to him, this is what I envision, this kind of behavior. But then, like, we get on the plane to go home tomorrow, you don't need to drink, and you don't need to drink when we get home. Like, I just thought it was because he was so terrified about over drinking in front of this woman, even though. Because he was the boss. But it's also that she was just so, you know, so classy. He didn't want to embarrass himself. And I remember saying, like, this was such a great time. And I had brought it up in, like, Years of addiction, I would say, because he would throw back in my face, why can't we ever have good sex anymore? And I'd be like, remember that time? Like, you know, we were having sex a lot? But I could bring back this time where we both. Because he was sober enough to remember it, you know, And I was like, but because you weren't drunk, you know.

Aware at the time that the factor was the drunkness.

Yeah, okay. Yeah. Also, he didn't really be, like, he would. Sometimes he would get moody and broody and furrow his brow, and it just looks like this. He just looked different when he was drinking, too, to me. So already by then, like, you know, he would have, like, one drink, and then I would, like, imagine him throwing on his alcohol mask, and that's who he was. Just this beast sort of thing, you know?

So how did you guys bridge that gap? Like, how did you guys start to build trust? And when in the recovery process did that happen?

That's a great question. First of all, I think we said this earlier, but we did everything wrong. So one of the reasons that we're willing to talk about it and. And we want to encourage people to find a way out is because, you know, we're seven. We're over seven years sober now, and we're. We're still just kind of crossing thresholds of awesomeness when it comes to rebuilding intimacy. And it takes a long time, but it doesn't have to take seven years. And so we. We like to. To share some of our mistakes along with the things that have worked. And so what I'm about to say, like, what we figured out, it didn't come right away. It took. It took literally years. The last three years, I think, is when we've made the most progress. That's when we met Dr. Nagoski's book. That's when we read Dr. Nagoski's book and. And started to really do the work. But we. We've. We've come to two realizations when it comes to what the foundation needs to look like to rebuild intimacy. And. And make no mistake about it, you know, we meet a lot of people that are like, you know what? Intimacy? I couldn't care less. That is a back burner thing. I don't trust my spouse. And until there's trust, there won't be intimacy. And one of the things that we had to learn is trust and intimacy are intertwined.

They are.

They're kind of the same thing, really. True. True emotional intimacy. And so, you know, you know Intimacy should not necessarily be a back burner issue. It takes a long time to get there, and it deserves the effort and respecting each other. But just putting it to the back burner is a bad idea. So when we talk about the. What we figured out and the work that we've done and where we've gotten to, this is all about trust, which is the last bastion of relationship recovery. It's the hardest piece. So there are two kind of foundational pieces to starting the rebuild. And the first one is a safe environment. And I mean a safe environment all the time. Back to what I said earlier about how I can compartmentalize and Sherry compiles. It's not enough for me to be like, ah, you know, we're getting ready to go to bed here in a little bit, so I better be nice for the next 15 minutes and then see what happens when we get in bed. I have to be nice all the time. I have to be respectful. A big part of that for us was coming to the realization that I, for a long time, was the least safe thing in Sherry's life. I mean, we. We live a typical, cushy, middle class existence, right? I mean, we have work stress and we're raising kids, so there's stress from that. But we don't have, you know, fear of getting mugged in a dark alley. You know, we're not worried about death and dismemberment. You know, so creating the safe environment and doing it all the time. I. I reference Esther Perel a lot. Are you familiar with Esther Perel, Amber?

I am, yeah. I love her work. She does good work.

Yeah. So the two things that I reference a lot, that one is she says foreplay starts at the end of the last orgasm. And what she means by that is this consistency piece. I can't be ranting and raving about politics and. And getting the kids all riled up and making Sherry uncomfortable one moment and then, you know, bring that back down a notch and think that everything's fine the next. I need to be consistently even keel. I need to make the environment in the. In the family, in the house calm all the time. And so, you know, when we say or when she says foreplay starts at the end of the last orgasm, that's only a little bit about sex. It's really about just being a good partner and being someone that Sherry wants to be around and feel safe being around all the time. That's not important to me. She can rant and rave and then take off her clothes, and I'm like, all right, let's go. And so I have to understand that we view things differently. So that foundation is so important. The other piece that Esther says that I believe in so wholeheartedly is, you know, be in our own element. And. And what I think she means by that is, you know, I need to be a good parent. I can tell Sherry's attraction meter goes up when I do something important with the kids. You know, I. I have to, you know, go to work and perform there and not come home and just bitch for an hour. It's not to say I can't ever complain about something going on at work, but I need to not just unload all that on her. I need to participate in the community. I need to do my share chores around the house. These all go into creating this safe environment. You know, going to the gym or not losing my hair, which is unfortunately not the direction we're going. These aren't what she finds attractive at this point. That might have been important when we were in our 20s, but it's not anymore. Being consistent and safe is really, really important. And it has to be, you know, pretty much all the time. It's not to say I never make mistakes, but I recognize them in the moment now and say, okay, sorry, I didn't mean to do that. I recognize that I. That was. That was triggering for you, and I shouldn't have gone there.

And these are two things that don't happen in a short span of time.

Yeah.

Because his recovery timeline and my recovery timeline were completely different. Like, he had. I had to kind of wait him out because he had six months of sobriety twice, nine months of sobriety once, both. All three of those times without any sort of program or help. But I kind of had to wait it out because I was like, I don't feel like I'm gonna. You know, I kind of. Because we did it wrong. I kind of felt like I needed to wait out him a little bit because I didn't want to let my guard down because I hadn't been seeing a therapist. I hadn't done any work on this. So I didn't let my guard down until I saw that he had lasted a year. And then, like, he did something that's a little bit extreme. Like he kind of had a coming out letter to a bun email to a bunch of people. Well, to everybody. And so after that, I kind of felt like, oh, well, now he can't go back to drinking because everybody on his email contact list knows, right, that he's an Alcoholic. He's been sober for a year. So that's when I feel like I kind of opened the door to let some work happen. But again, I didn't do anything while he was drinking or in that early stages of sobriety because I didn't know I needed to.

So look, I was under the guy. Looking back, what do you wish you would have done? Like sought therapy? You wish you what. What do you wish you would have done?

Well, I wish I would have sought therapy much earlier. And I had tried that and it just never really worked out. Insurance, timing wise, I just felt like the cost was too much because I was still. I mean, even though we blame the alcohol, I was still. Oh, once he quits drinking, it's all going to be great because he's not going to be an asshole anymore, a drunk asshole. But I wish that I would have because then I could have been, you know, having help for some of the things that I brought into the relationship that were being detrimental to the relationship, you know, and could have healed my own past and made myself feel a little bit more confident about the mistakes I made make me the person I am. And what do I take to learn from those? Also maybe I would have detached emotionally a little bit more and then kind of been a gray rock a little more and not gotten myself so worked up.

When you say, when you say waited amount, does that mean you put them on like the no sex for a year? Like, you may not have said that, but what does that mean? What does that mean?

So I just, I waited. I did. We didn't stop. Like nothing changed in the relationship as far as as sex and stuff. And I guess I just didn't like emotionally re. Engage with him. I wasn't giving him a whole lot of myself. I see emotionally because the way that he kind of came around that I need sobriety, was I detached emotionally? It'd be like, here are all of our things we need to do to make the house operate. Oh, you want to know how I feel? I feel fine.

Fine.

I'm fine. You know, I was that person I met.

The energy coming off of you, it's like I can hear that.

I didn't want to hear about his recovery either because I. I had heard it all before, you know, like 10 years of this. Yeah, show me your song and dance. But you have to.

It's hard when you're in that position though, Matt, because there's nothing you can say, right? Because you've already said it twenty hundred times, right? It's like you Know you mean it, you know, you're really trying. But there's. It's just like, what do you do?

Well, I had to learn that I had to replace bad memories with good ones. And that takes time. And so for every incident where I drank or I blew up or, you know, had dry drunk behavior or whatever, every time I acted badly, I needed to replace that with a time where I stayed calm. You know, a great example, when we talk about this safe environment, I like to use this appliance example. Because every time an appliance breaks in our house, you know, YouTube's a great thing now, right? So I try to fix it on my own before we replace it or call someone, call a professional. So, you know, the dishwasher breaks and I've got all these parts taken off of it. And I'm laying there on my back in a confined space with a flashlight trying to figure this out. If I'm throwing wrenches and cursing in my mind, I'm not doing that at Sherry. I'm not doing that at our kids. I'm mad at this appliance. But for Sherry, her nervous system goes up, right? And she's in fight or flight. And the kids go in the room and shut their door, not because they don't want to hear curse words or they don't want to hear yelling, but because that's a reminder of bad behavior. And so even something like that where in my mind, I'm not taking this out on my family. I'm taking this out on this stupid dishwasher that doesn't work. Oh no. For everyone else in the household, I'm taking it out on them. So that's why I say it's taken us seven years to get where we're hoping other people can get much faster. Creating that consistency is all about bad memories being replaced by good memories. And that just takes constant, you know, consistency and. And doing the right thing.

I am going to throw one of our poorly orchestrated or poorly, it's poor attempt at trying to rebuild intimacy. Was he thought if we, if we just were like not having sex, that maybe I would then create the like somehow, you know, absence. Victor, go fonder. No, it didn't. I was very content at that point.

Yeah, she'd be like for the rest of your life if we could.

Right. You know, but it also was kind of a wake up. Like I really did need to. We did need to just kind of recreate or we needed to create a new relationship, not recreate what we had because it was sucked from the beginning.

Right.

So that was. That was about nine to 10 months of. Of working on those things. You know, kind of playing with the, you know, celibacy or abstinence. I don't know if it'd be celibacy when you're in a relationship, but kind of playing with those off and on for a little bit of time.

And, yeah, that was awful, because every night I'd be like, maybe now is the night that she's crossed over and she's longing for me again. And so I come to bed and be like, how's this working for you? And she'd be like, great, great. I'm over here. I'm gonna go to sleep.

Go ahead. And just move into separate bedrooms at this point. You know, that's what I was kind of signed up. And that was like, a couple years into his sobriety. And that was even when I was kind of working with a therapist that just started.

I'm glad you brought that up, because I think for women, once you sort of. And I think a lot of women don't know this, but, you know, I forget who. Which one of them is it? Matt, this is like that responsive arousal versus, like, automatic arousal. I think a lot of women don't really even understand that about themselves. And so I think a lot of women, if they're not careful, it's like, well, if you would help me around the house, if. If I could trust you more, they'll lean on that forever. And they maybe even think maybe that would make them more aroused or want to be with their husbands or whatever. But. But even when those things come in place, you might be more open to the idea, but it doesn't really get the engine going. And I think a lot of women will hold that for a long time.

Exactly. Because I had to also. I had to have that. And then there had to be that trust, which happens over time and consistency and safety. Then I had to be open to the idea that there was going to be physical contact, whether it was going to result. And I also. Part of it is. And I'm probably throwing off your order of notes, but you go, girl. Part of it was I had to. I really did have to kind of concentrate to say, okay, relax and enjoy this. This is, you know, calm. Like, things have been good between us. Things are going well. This is for the betterment of the relationship. But then if it started, if I started to feel uncomfortable or I didn't want to do it, or I. I could say no, and we could stop and he wouldn't be mad. And I. You know, but then there was that breakthrough because I also didn't, you know, realize that there is that response arousal that has to happen, especially when you get to a certain age. You've had four kids. Your body is like, you don't need to do this anymore.

Right?

You know, like, your brain is like, yeah, there is.

There is science behind that. There is science behind the fact that me as the male, my body doesn't know we've had kids. My body is trying to procreate until the day I die. Her body knows she's had kids. And so there are certain hormonal changes that take place that say what. What desire used to have, which is probably less than mine. Not always, but in. In many cases, the man has more desire. What desire used to have. That's gone now because we already had our. Our kids. And so that dynamic, I think, is important to remember, and that actually leads into the. The next thing we wanted to talk about. There are these two foundational components to starting to bring intimacy back. The one that we've talked a lot about is the safety. And that goes to what you just said, Amber. You know, hey, if you would do more chores or you would, you know, be more active around the house, maybe I'd. I'd be more interested in you. That's not entirely incorrect. It might not lead to sexual desire, but it will build that safety piece, which is absolutely necessary. The other piece that's necessary, beyond safety is recognizing that no one is sexually broken. I think Sherry and I can give a really tangible example here. If I was the king of our relationship and I got to make all the decisions, we would have sex on average, ten times a week. Now, let me break that down for you. That is. That is six nights a week, okay? There's probably one night a week when I want to stay up and watch the game. Or I'm actually tired. Like, actually too tired to have sex, which I gotta be really tired for that. So six out of seven nights a week, I probably want to have sex. There's probably three mornings a week where, you know, we're in the nice, cozy bed, and I roll over, and I'm like, oh, this would be great. So three out of seven mornings, I probably want to have sex. And then there's probably over the course of weeks, week. There's one, you know, random kind of kitchen table thing that pops into my head or something, and you're like, ooh, yeah. And I'd be ready to go. So plus three equals plus one equals ten. Sherry, how many times a week?

It means more than once a day is what my mind said. That's. That calculates to more than once a day. That's what. Immediately I was like, sherry, if you.

Were in charge, king of the world. And. And, you know, this relationship, our sexual dynamic was a thousand percent up to you. How many times a week would we have sex?

Like now? Yeah, one.

One. Great. Yeah, great. And that's up from when we. When I was a drinker. Yeah, it was a hard zero.

No, never.

Yeah, so. So.

But this is.

This is important. And, you know, you laughed and giggled a little, and we sure did when we first started talking about this.

This.

But desire discrepancy is universal. You're. You're not gonna find someone that wants to have sex as often as you do. And again, it's often the man wants it more than the woman, but sometimes the woman wants it more than the man. And that's totally healthy and natural.

Not always.

And so just recognizing that discrepancy isn't bad doesn't mean I'm broken. You know, we used to look at each other and Sherry, you would think, he's a pig. He's horny, he only wants me for my body, and he's selfish. And I would look at Sherry and think, she's selfish, she's prudish, she carries resentments and holds out as a result, and she's not doing what she committed to in the relationship. And so even unspoken, there's so much resentment and kind of pain involved in that. And so it's huge, I mean, huge for relationships, even if they don't jump right into bed as a result, but create that safe environment. And then secondly, recognize that discrepant sexual desire is universal, and it doesn't mean either of you is broken. You're both perfectly healthy and normal and fine.

Well, I think in the pain is also shame. If there is, you know, that lopsidedness, and then you add alcohol or any substance to it, there's, you know, so much shame in addiction, but there's so much shame that that also comes, like, from your upbringing with sex that plays into this. So I think kind of recognizing that and being respectful of one another, that took a lot, because I had mentioned earlier in the podcast, like, you know, I would feel like he was just a glutton, and you felt like I was just a prudent withholding in me, you know, and then anytime there was conversations about it, lots of the defenses went up, up, you know, and we would just launch grenades at one another all. All night long.

Right? Because it's like, no, something's wrong with you. No, something's wrong with you.

Exactly.

Okay, for. For our listeners who are still struggling with addiction, they're still other partners in active addiction. They're in active addiction. What's your advice about the sex thing? I mean, you guys have taught philosophy, but what's. What's. What's the answer?

What should happen still in active addiction, you said, I think from the side of the street, of the drinker or the substance user, you can work on certainly one of those foundational components, and it's that creating safety, because you'll never, you know, it turns out, yeah, I used shots of Sherry. I like that. I never heard you say it before. I used the dopamine hit hits as temporary medicinal things. But I really wanted the connection. I longed for intimacy, emotional intimacy. I just didn't have the words for it. I didn't understand how important that was to me. But that is, I think, a fairly universal human attribute. It's not a woman's side or a man side. And so that was really important to me. And understanding that that's never coming without safety, I think is really important again, because I never lost safety for Sherry. She never did anything to violate my safety. So I didn't get it. So creating that safe environment, consistency, not raising your voice, you know, just not triggering her nervous system. And I don't, honestly, Amber, know how you do that without sobriety. Sobriety doesn't fix anything. But in my humble opinion, it's a huge prerequisite because, I mean, what do you think? Would you have ever felt safe around me if I was still drinking, knowing that the potential, even if I had gotten it in control, mostly that the potential for disaster was there?

Well, I think because of our early experiences, I already knew that I wouldn't be as open, and I was already shutting down. Even though you hadn't crossed that invisible line of addiction. I'm also wondering how many of those alcoholics out there that are just disengaged, and maybe they're more of the quiet retreat and hide. So they can't have safety in that relationship because they aren't participating in the relationship.

Another sort of dynamic that I run across quite a bit that we haven't talked about is people who have quit having sex because of their drinking. So the drinking has sort of taken the libido away or even maybe sometimes the function away. And so they've stopped having sex with and And I've had. I've had several husbands that I've literally, they've been in counseling. I said, I'm not graduating you. Do you get at least a second base or something? Like, that's. And it'll be kind of like my funny way because it's like it's gone on for so long, they don't know how to address the issue anymore. And then it becomes really awkward because sometimes it's just gone on for years. And so any. Any thoughts about that particular kind of dynamic?

Well, I was just gonna say I feel like I have. We had to interject a little bit of humor, like, when we were trying to rebuild that because, you know, like I said, like, for, you know, there can be shame around sex from your upbringing, especially if you're, like, from a really religious background. There's shame there. So adding a little bit of levity and humor and when you are with a trusted partner with it, it makes it a lot easier. But yeah, like, I had to kind of, like I said, I had to, like, learn to relax and be like, this is going to be fun to get that responsiveness. But that's where I think the book came in really handy for us, pardon me, was because of just like, there is parts of the anatomy that you don't really ever learn unless you seek it out. So that helped us a lot because it also helped us create an environment in which it was. Was easy to kind of. It was easier to walk through those steps a little bit, like, understanding what felt good for each other, just to kind of get to. To first base, then the second base and kind of moving around.

I like the idea of the book, the content. Sometimes I say this even about the videos I make. It works a lot better when you're listening to a video or a book, because it doesn't feel personal. Right. I'm like, literally, if a client was sitting in my office and I literally told them the video, the very same thing I said on the video, they would be like, take offense. But it. It allows both sides in this case to sort of absorb information without feeling defensive about it all because no one's talking. Like, no one's accusing you specifically or talking specifically to you. It's just like, oh, that's interesting. You just. It allows you to take in information with the walls down, you know? Yeah.

In the book where I felt like we. We read something and had our own interpretation about it.

I'll put. I'll put the link in the description, everybody. I'll link it up so we could.

Discuss it, you know, a little bit. Like. Well, I thought it meant this and I thought it meant that, you know, so. Because you might have, like, you might have that. Because I'm sure I. Of course, at the beginning of this, I was thinking, oh, you're reading this book and you're interpreting it like. Like, I'm still broken. I'm prudish. So I kind of went in it with a little defensiveness. With a little like. I don't know, like.

Defensiveness?

Yeah, I guess that's the best word for it.

You know, you mentioned sexual functioning a second ago, and I just want to speak to that. I think it's really important that we understand that the professional interventions for most sexual functioning is psychological in nature. So. And, you know, when it comes to especially female sexual functioning issues, which is lack of desire, lack of arousal, lack of orgasm, there is no pill that is all about fixing your relationship, finding trust, feeling confident in your own body, feeling confident in your partner. Those are the ways that you get over those humps. It's almost. I've come to believe there's almost a disservice to men that there is a pill for erectile dysfunction because it allows you to kind of fake it without actually. Yeah, without actually doing the work that's necessary to create safety and create intimacy and have that communication that is so core to relationship recovery. So there's no pill for women on pretty much anything. There is a pill for guys with erectile dysfunction, and it's almost a negative that there is.

Wait a second. Wait a second. Hold on. That's making me have a question. I'm thinking about that as you're saying that. I'm tracking what you're saying, and I'm not a man. That's what I'm asking. So I'm tracking what you're saying about it being psychological for women. Right. Like, I. But even if men work on all that psychology, get the trust in check, does that really fix the bio. I mean, does that fix it like it would fix it for women or. No.

Yeah, there's a. There's a bunch of different causes of erectile dysfunction. Some of. Sometimes it's diet, sometimes it. It has to do with muscle contraction in and around the penis. So there are biological factors. But I'm here to tell you that the. The. The relationship dysfunction, the psychology, the stress, the anxiety, the depression, all these things that we know are evil that are hurting our relationship, and they're hurting in other ways. They also translate into biological problems. So it's you know, to say that fixing the relationship, creating trust, going to therapy, addressing psychological interventions will cure everyone's erectile dysfunction. That's not. That's not accurate. However, being healthy in those ways will prevent the vast majority of erectile dysfunction. And in many, many cases, I can't put a percentage on it, but someone with erectile dysfunction, a psychological intervention will cure it. Sometimes it won't. Sometimes there's others, blood flow, there's other stuff going on. But sometimes it is psychological in nature enough so that it's worth working on. You know, it's not. I'm not talking about 1%. I mean, it's. It's up there, so it's worth the dress.

So you're saying, you know, you need to figure out those underlying causes. It may be psychological, it may be even, like, biological, as in, like, some of the things you're saying. Diet, some of these other things that might. Could be addressed.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. The connection between, you know, neurology, psychology, and biology. I mean, I'm convinced. I don't need any more convincing. We've seen it in both of our lives, not necessarily with, with sexual functioning, but with pains and, like, nerve response and, you know, back pain and like. And then you fix whatever the problem was and that goes away and you're like, oh, my God, I can't believe that just happened.

Right. It's all tied together. Right. All right. So, Matt, you mentioned that you're in. You're finishing a master's degree in sexual health. Yep. What are you going to do with that?

Well, I'm glad you asked. To finish my master's degree. We are conducting a survey right now. My master's degree program is at the University of Minnesota, and we're actually just launching this spring a survey and then writing the findings and getting published is how I will finish my degree. And we would like to invite your viewers and listeners to participate in our survey. This is formal. This has gone through the institutional review board at the University of Minnesota. So it's very specific what I have to say about the survey. Would you mind if I read the script and invite your. Your people to participate?

Oh, yeah, yeah, sure. That'd be great.

Great. What is the impact of problematic alcohol use on relationship intimacy? Research has established a connection between drinking problems and relationship distress. Now an effort is underway to dig deeper into intimate aspects of the relationship problems. Researchers at the University of Minnesota are conducting a study to better understand the correlation between alcohol use problems and intimacy issues in committed partnerships. If you are currently in a relationship or have been in a relationship in the past five years with someone with a drinking problem, and you are at least 18 years of age. You are invited to take a brief confidential survey. Names and other identifying data will not be collected. The survey includes questions about emotional intimacy, physical intimacy, and sexual satisfaction and takes about 25 minutes to complete. In exchange for participation in this research, volunteers will receive access to an advance copy report about the results of the study. For more information and to access the survey, please go to alcoholic intimacysurvey.org all right, thank you.

And I will link that up, too, so people won't have to remember. We'll put it on the screen and we'll link it below so people can click if they're. If they're interested. But you guys would be helping research in general and you would be helping Matt finish up his master's degree, right?

Yeah. And. And don't forget that you get access. I think, I think one of the things that's attractive about this to people is for participation. And again, no identifying characteristics. We don't know your name. We can't find you. We can't track you. Like no one's ever going to find out. But once we tabulate all the information, we will share it with the survey participants so you can look at where you fall. You know, is my case typical, or am I an outlier? And I think that brings a lot of comfort to people to realize how common their own individual situation is as it compares to other people.

People.

Oh, yeah, I want to. I want to know the answer, too. Yeah, I think people want to. Want to see that research. They want to find the findings. Yeah. And then tell us one last time where to find you guys if they want. If. If people want to hear more from you.

Well, our podcast is the Untoxicated Podcast. You can download that anywhere. You get your podcasts. And, you know, the focus is on relationship issues. We spend a bit of the time talking about intimacy specifically, but maybe for someone who isn't quite there yet, they've got, you know, they're in the throes of active addiction or really early sobriety, and they're not ready to talk about intimacy yet. We cover all relationship related, alcohol related issues. We have guests sometimes. Sometimes it's just us, and sometimes we have roundtable episodes with people that are participating in our program.

I love it. It's a great podcast. I encourage everyone to go check it out because it specifically addresses the relational aspect of addiction recovery. It's like family recovery. And so there's just not many places to get them.

So glad we are blessed to have some great guests. Like for instance, you've been on our podcast three times, Amber, so we love, we love interacting with you and working with you. Thanks for this opportunity to come on your channel today.