Tag Archives: alcohol and drug abuse

Shaking the Family Tree: Relapse

The Edge- Simi K. Rao

Self Honesty

On ballerina slippers, temptation sneaks up from behind. Dressed in our disease, she does a silent soft-shoe, enticing us to turn around: to wallow in past mistakes, to bury ourselves in regret, to pull her out of the rearview mirror sheathed in the glamor of alcohol’s good times.

As temptation turns on her charm, she reaches into her bag of tricks and pulls out euphoric images of that first high. The one we could never recapture, no matter how hard we tried. Feeling little resistance, perhaps because we have become lax in practicing our program, she continues to entice us. Revving up her engine, target in sight, she takes dead aim at our vulnerabilities. If we start to feel edgy, she gives us a nudge, reminding us of that momentary relief that a shot of Jack Daniels gave us. Engaging our ego, she replays those feelings of superiority, lust, and pseudo-independence that were as fleeting as they were fallacious.

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Shaking the Family Tree: Self Honesty

Moving Day


“Truth or consequences?”


“Truth.”


“Do you think you are addicted?”


And my response to that question resulted in several more years of me, and the ones that I loved, and who loved me, paying the consequences. It was not an intentional lie. Instead, it was a skewed perception I had based on my keen ability to stay afloat in an ocean of denial.


Most alcoholics and addicts, even well into their addiction, sweat bullets as they strive daily to maintain that phony façade that supports their unfaltering battle cry that screams from the rooftops, everything’s just fine: And let me tell you, I can attest to what a grueling, demanding job it is trying to prove it.

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HealthWise: Dementia- An Overview

The Self Portraits of William Utermohlen

The White Room

I lie on the bed

in the white room

They sit around me

These strangers with familiar voices

I think we are waiting for something

or someone.

These strangers, they look at me

They mutter words I don’t understand

A man in a white coat walks in

He stands next to my bed.

He speaks not to me,

but to these strangers

They are talking about me, I know.

About what, I don’t understand.

Irritated, I kick off the covers.

Mother! They chide me and pull them back.

About the poem: This is a poem about dementia, the hallmark of the disease being loss of memory. I write about a scene I came across during my rounds in the hospital—an elderly woman in the advanced stages of dementia is lying on the bed surrounded by her caring relatives. It’s difficult to know what’s going on in the poor woman’s mind because she has lost the ability to speak, even comprehend. Yet it’s apparent she’s unaware of her ailment. She doesn’t even know where she is or who she is with.

Dementia is a syndrome that results in gradual and progressive decline of previously acquired mental abilities that results in a loss of social and occupational functioning and ultimately to loss of independence. It is imperative to distinguish this from normal aging- normal aging never results in loss of independence.

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