Carol Weis

Carol Weis bares herself (sometimes literally) in her debut memoir, where she unveils her two lives, before and after, in a collection of alternating chapters that divulge her change. In those chapters, you’ll meet a desperate young woman riddled with anger and fear from childhood trauma and an equally desperate sober, single mom struggling to push those feelings aside to care for her young daughter.

Like many who abuse alcohol, the author grew up in a world where feelings were never discusse...

When I was 12, I fell for a family friend, someone we considered a cousin, which at the time seemed like a safe thing to do. He was 15, making him a desirable older man to my inexperienced eyes. He had a crush on my sister, as she was the same age, and seemed more his type. He lived hundreds of miles away, so access to this older guy was limited to family gatherings and our summer vacations at the Jersey Shore. Besides, he liked my sister.

And then, the Thanksgiving of my freshman year in col...

John’s seeking earned him fame and financial success and love from millions of fans, but it wasn’t enough for his emotionally starved heart.
To me, a sign of a good movie is one that makes me cry at least three or four times. I sobbed during Rocketman. And apparently Sir Elton did the same.
In a piece he wrote the week before the movie came out, he said, “I was in the cinema for about 15 minutes before I started crying…really sobbing, in that loud unguarded emotionally destroyed way that make...

When people think of curiosity, what often comes to mind is that old proverb relating to curious cats and their demise. Or maybe you think of your nosy boss (neighbor, child or mom), who's always curious about what's going on in your life. If you're a science buff, you might think of the car-sized rover that's been roaming the surface of Mars since its 2012 landing, in the hope of solving the mysteries of the planet.
For as long as I can remember, I've been curious about everything. I was alw...

My daughter is moving out of my house, and like many parents, I’m not doing well with it. But unlike other parents, I have a history that plays into this mix of emotions. And I’m having a hard time tamping down those feelings.
My mom was hospitalized with tuberculosis for a year and a half when I was 3. I bounced from family to family during that time of my life. She relapsed when I was 6 and was sent away again, for another year.
Another year of family chaos and grief.
The aftereffect of thi...

Raised a Catholic, I believe in the spiritual phenomenon of grace — and I believe I became a mother exactly when I was ready.

Special to espnW.com
As much as I love college hoops and all the excitement that comes with March Madness, this time of year often arrives with a little sadness. It's a reminder of one of the toughest years of my life, 1989, the year before I got sober, which led to the ending of my marriage.
My fondness for basketball started from playing the childhood game "Around the World" with my brothers in the driveway of our home, beating them often with the shots I made. In high school, I dated guys ...

There’s so much to love about growing older. But the skin that’s been swaying below my chin, draping itself unceremoniously beneath my jaw, had been a bit difficult to take.

Let’s face it. There’s a reason why Nora Ephron titled a book I Feel Bad About My Neck.

With more than 178,000 face- and neck-lift procedures performed on women 40 and older in 2017, it seems it's difficult for many to find beauty in this part of the face. But since I’m not into cosmetic surgery, I’ve been challenging mys...

One of the things I never considered when I stopped drinking wine was losing friends — losing the women I drank with and ones I had a history with. They were surprised I quit.
Like many of us who enjoy drinking, either at home or on nights out, I surrounded myself with a like-minded circle of friends. People who liked to party and who made me feel OK about the amount of wine I consumed. They helped keep my denial intact, and their presence continued to encourage my drink-too-much lifestyle.
I...

This is part two of Carol Weis’ journey on how she finally stopping drinking.

The day after I stopped drinking, I felt relief. The knots I’d carried around like rocks in my shoulders were gone. I didn’t shake or tremble, like many in detox do.

My desire to drink had been lifted.

It felt like amazing grace. The words to the song played blissfully in my head. The depression I’d experienced from knowing I needed to quit disappeared. It seemed like the blinds had been raised, ...

The feeling had been building for years. A kind of knowing that needed my focus — but I wasn’t paying heed. It was an awareness that I could no longer control my drinking, which was a big part of my life — and something I by no means wanted to give up. This realization had been tapping me on the shoulder and was getting increasingly hard to ignore.
It tried to get my attention in my 20s, when drinking was a normal part of my social life. I drank like everyone else I knew — no more, no less. O...

Why you should care

Summertime romances are a dime a dozen, but not many of those dozen include dissolute nights with drug-dealing surfers and celebs.

The day I met Patrick Abrams, I knew I was in trouble. That gleam in his eyes as they quickly latched onto mine. He introduced me to the all-encompassing beauty of Montauk, Long Island, in New York, back when it was a small fishing town.

At the time, I was living on the south shore of Long Island with a commune of cousins. Their parents had mov...

She knelt in front of the toilet, like I used to do in church. Kneeling before the votives, I’d light a candle with an offering and a prayer. Right now, I was praying for my daughter, asking to take away the pain she held from my relationship with her dad—the kind that went straight to her tummy.
Her father and I were getting divorced, and the angst leading up to it lived inside her gut.
Though I hadn’t actually told her yet, my daughter got wind of what was going on, taking cues from my beha...

It happens when you are three. Your mother is hospitalized with tuberculosis. She contracts the disease right before your first brother is born. She gets sent away to one of those sanatoriums used for longterm illness. During her infirmity, you and your siblings are scattered about, staying with various relatives and family friends, while your mom grieves while she works on healing herself in that far off hospital for 18 long months. The trauma it causes paints permanent scars on your heart.

...

We pull into the parking lot. My daughter sits beside me, shoving Pringles into her mouth. This is a reconnaissance stop, before our official visit. We park for a moment, hardly breathing as we sit there.