She IS Stuck in the Past

She IS Stuck in the Past

What drives someone to seek a life without alcohol? For Matt and Sheri Salis, it isn’t just about sobriety; it’s about facing the wreckage alcoholism left behind, especially for the partner who lived through it sober.

This Untoxicated episode shares Matt’s essay, “She IS Stuck in the Past,” where he looks back on moments like promising “a couple of beers” and then stumbling home at 2 a.m., or getting drunk on Halloween and leaving his pregnant wife to handle three young children alone on dark, crowded streets. He can recall these memories with regret, but he explains that for Sheri, they’re “an open wound that requires healing.

Not time.” Matt talks about learning that trauma isn’t the event itself, but “the wound left behind,” and that sobriety doesn’t erase those wounds for the partner. While he carries shame for his drinking, he realises Sheri carries her own shame: shame for missing red flags, tolerating emotional abuse, believing his promises, and feeling her anxiety affect her parenting.

When she revisits those nights of passed-out drunkenness, vomit, and terrifying car rides with the kids, Matt now understands, “She is not processing my shame. She is processing hers.” The episode speaks directly to anyone in recovery who finds themselves asking their partner to “stop bringing up the past.” Matt challenges that instinct, owning how deep his selfishness went, even into early sobriety, when he assumed her healing was all about him.

You’ll hear a candid, sometimes uncomfortable, but deeply human look at what long-term healing as a couple can require: listening without denial or deflection, allowing the story to be told again and again, and recognising that recovery means releasing the partner from their shame too. It might leave you asking: whose pain have you been overlooking in your own story?