Ep367 – Accountability: Why did they do that?Ep367 – Accountability: Why did they do that?
Untoxicated Podcast
Matt and Sherry talk through what accountability really means by sharing stories of addiction, marriage tension, business struggles and a house-building disaster. Their humour and candour highlight how blame, control and self-esteem shape recovery and relationships.
1:07:30•28 Sept 2026
Accountability, Blame and Nachos on the Floor
Episode Overview
- Accountability has layers: it starts with who is at fault but grows into asking why someone acted that way.
- Addiction often twists obvious responsibility into partner-blaming, protecting the drinking at all costs.
- Partners’ fearful or disappointed reactions can be valid responses to real risk, not a lack of love or support.
- When one person controls all decisions, it becomes hard for the other to feel ownership of failures.
- Healthy accountability and sincere apologies depend on having enough self-esteem to admit mistakes without collapsing into self-loathing.
“We can’t just stop at blame and then be pissed off and move on.”
Curious about how others manage accountability in recovery and relationships? This conversation between Matt and Sherry Salis looks at blame, responsibility and emotional safety with plenty of humour and brutal honesty. Matt kicks things off with a story about a billionaire baseball owner who seems fixated on power and unable to answer a simple question about how he feels.
That sets up the theme: accountability isn’t just about who’s at fault, it’s about asking, “Why did they do that?” and being genuinely curious about the answers. From there, they move into their own messy, very human examples. Matt shares a drunken nacho disaster from his drinking days and jokes about the many ways active addiction can twist even obvious blame back onto a partner.
Sherry highlights how easily responsibility gets shifted in alcoholic relationships, especially when the drinker is desperate to protect their habit. They then talk about a raw, recent incident: Matt accidentally pulling down telephone lines with heavy equipment while building their house. He owns the mistake, but the real tension comes from Sherry’s reaction—fear for their finances, his safety and the whole project. Matt admits he wanted comfort, got disappointment instead, and took weeks to recognise her response as completely reasonable.
A past chapter—running a bread bakery franchise together—adds another layer. Matt controlled most decisions, then wanted shared blame when things went wrong. Sherry explains why she pulled back from owning the failures when she didn’t feel like an equal partner in the successes.
Finally, Sherry links accountability to self-esteem: “If you don’t have good self-esteem, you can’t take true accountability because then it’s like, ‘I never do anything right.’” Anyone dealing with addiction, emotional abuse or just everyday relationship friction will likely see themselves here and might leave asking, in the best way, “Why did I do that—and what do I want to do next?”
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