We all have our demons. Some of us face them, some of us don’t.
Not everyone chooses to share the struggle.
Freelance writer and children’s book author Carol Weis chose to do just that, chronicling the raw emotions of her 12-year recovery from alcoholism in her recently released memoir, “Stumbling Home – Life Before and After That Last Drink.”
Prime recently chatted with the Easthampton resident about getting sober, her turn to writing and why she felt it was important to share her story with others.
Weis admitted she began the book “because I got tired of my daughter [saying] ‘Mom, I think you should write a memoir,’ after all the wild stories I told her about my earlier days.
“I would laugh it off,’ she confessed, “ Untill I thought, she was right.”
“When I first started writing, I had no idea the theme it was going to take,” Weis said. The onetime chef – who said she turned to writing poetry when she first got sober as a way to cope with her subsequent divorce – admitted she wasn’t eager to relive a lot of the memories from her past, which included abandonment issues that stemmed from being “passed around for 18 months” at age three when her mother was diagnosed with tuberculosis. That early experience, coupled with “being brought up in a time when we didn’t talk about feelings … it all got depressed with my alcohol intake,” Weis recalled. In an essay published in Guidepost magazine, she revealed her issues with alcohol started when she was just 16 years old.
That alcohol-fueled coping mechanism continued through college, her marriage and the birth of her daughter, who is now a clinician working with adolescent girls.
It all started unraveling, Weis explained, when she chose to attend her first AA meeting when her daughter was 5 years old. “Her dad left four months after I got sober and I had to carry on trying to stay sober and raise my 5-year-old,” she said.
Though she’d penned a successful children’s book, published in 2006, had pieces published in national outlets ranging from The New York Times to Woman’s Day magazine and been part of a supportive writing group for 20 years, recording her life story was “difficult,” Weis freely admitted.
“I spent four months, six days a week in my bed writing the first draft,” she shared. “I needed my bed to support me.”
When she had the first chapter complete, Weis shared it with her writing group.
“One of my friends – she’s an author and illustrator – said to me, ‘Carol, this is absolutely the best thing you’ve ever written,’ which really helped me stay with it,” Weis said. She kept writing from July to November in 2014. The writing group, she said, helped her to find her voice and define the book.
She also had her daughter to, as she said, “hold me accountable…she pressed me to do this,” acting as a sounding board when she hit bumps – or found herself stuck.
“Once I started to write, the memories just flowed,” she explained. “I was constantly [jolted by memories] … of course I couldn’t put everything I wanted to in the memoir, but once I started the process I couldn’t stop the memories. It was very interesting just to observe.
“Even after all the years of recovery and nine years of therapy I had,” Weis said writing the book was “cathartic".
“Not to mention all the revisions that I did, the going over pages that I did, honestly by the time I was all finished I could see things in the world more clearly than I ever had,” she shared. “[Now] when I’m in nature, I’m in the moment all the time, and I think before I wrote the memoir I was still living in the past. It really freed me from the past, finally.”
“Stumbling Home” was published on April 21 of this year, “Queen Elizabeth's birthday,” Weis noted.
“The first day it was out [on Amazon] it was number one in 12-step programs for new releases,” she added.
Though hers is a very personal tale of redemption, Weiss said she hopes that others – especially single mothers – will find inspiration and strength in her story.
“I think it depends on where they are coming from,” Weis said, talking about the overarching power of a shared experience. “At a 12-step meeting people talk about all the things they did, all the stupid things they did when they drank too much. People will relate to some of [that in] my story but also to my story as a single mom – because my daughter’s dad left four months after I got sober and I had to carry on trying to stay sober and raise my five-year-old.
“I think it will speak to a lot of single moms, maybe who are not addicted, but [who] have to raise children by themselves.”
When Weis learned the story on “Stumbling Home” was going to appear in Prime during the month of September – which is National Recovery Month – she also wanted to be sure readers understood just how impactful her sobriety decision was, in the hopes it might inspire others.
“Giving up alcohol was one of the scariest and best things I've ever done,” Weis shared. “The relationship I have with my daughter would not exist had I not taken the step to break the family cycle of alcohol abuse. It took me 12 years from the time I knew I had a problem to finally quit. And my advice to anyone who's concerned about their dependence on alcohol or drugs, don't wait as long as I did to make a change. You'll be glad you did.”
Weis said she has author talks and book signings tentatively scheduled for the fall – pandemic conditions permitting – beginning with a signing/reading slated for September at the Emily Williston Memorial Library in Easthampton. Check Weis’ Facebook page at www.facebook.com/carol.weis for information and updates on author events.
