NEWTON, N.H. — Craig Jackson still remembers lining up four shots of cheap vodka in his college dorm room and thinking he should be careful because his father was an alcoholic, a quiet warning he would ignore for years.
That early awareness evolved into a life shaped by concealment, manifesting in the extreme measures he took to hide his drinking from his wife, Nicole.
“You get real creative,” Jackson said. “The fight, flight or freeze response, it’s a primal survival response. When you’re faced with not being able to drink the way you need to, you start scheming and trying to figure out how to get it done without getting caught, because you need it.
One of those schemes was discovering that he could crush beer cans and fit a dozen of them inside a Triscuit box before throwing it away.
“All she’d see was a Triscuit box,” Jackson said. “But all of that planning, it was exhausting.”
Jackson, 54, has been sober for 11 years and comes from three generations of alcoholics. His grandfather died drinking, his father got sober at 51, Jackson followed at 43 and his older brother has been sober now for six years.
His personal history and the stories of his friends and family, form the foundation of his first nonfiction book, “Beyond the Lies,” released Jan. 20.
Unlike many books about addiction, Jackson’s work doesn’t center solely on the addict. Instead, it focuses on what he calls the “collateral damage,” meaning spouses, partners, parents and children who quietly absorb its emotional, psychological and relational toll.
“What happens to the people who love addicts?” Jackson said. “And why is their trauma so often overlooked?”
Though the book is aimed at people affected by substance use disorder, people in active addiction often recognize themselves in its pages, Jackson said. It blends personal narrative with explanations of misunderstood concepts, such as the addict’s delusion, rock bottoms and the way addiction reshapes family systems.
Jackson described himself as a “speed-limit alcoholic,” a person that is outwardly successful while battling addiction.
“I was killing it at work,” Jackson said. “People need to understand that an alcoholic isn’t just someone in a trench coat with a brown paper bag under a bridge. It can be people up on stage getting sales awards, too.”
He drank mostly at home, hiding his alcohol use from his wife, who also grew up with an alcoholic parent. Jackson that that manipulation and secrecy became a full-time job, an exhausting endeavor driven by what he now understands was a primal survival response.
“They’re playing checkers,” Jackson said of loved ones. “We’re playing chess. We’re on a completely different level.”
The turning point came in 2014 when Jackson woke up with severe chest pain and drove himself to the hospital, convinced he was having a heart attack. On the phone with his wife, she encouraged him to be honest with the doctors, and Jackson new he was done.
“That was the day I was shocked sober,” Jackson said.
Jackson was released from the hospital the next night and hasn’t had a drink since. Instead of rehab, he immersed himself in recovery, attending daily meetings for more than a year and completing the 12 steps twice. Through that process, he began to understand the damage his addiction caused, particularly to his wife.
“They call it a family disease,” he said. “This book explains why.”
The idea for the book took shape later when Jackson’s older brother relapsed and his brother’s girlfriend began calling him, confused and desperate for clarity.
“She’d describe something he did and I knew exactly what was going on because I had done it,” Jackson said.” She told me, ‘You should write this down, people need to know this.'”
And he did.
Jackson structured the book by topic rather than as a traditional memoir, using short personal stories to illustrate broader patterns. Through advocacy work and support groups, Jackson said he realized that loved ones often sense something is wrong but lack the language to articulate it.
The project became a collaboration with communications specialist and family friend Christi LeClair, who also grew up around addiction. She helped ensure the book reflected the experiences of those living alongside addiction.
“You can’t heal if you keep getting injured. At least if you understand what’s happening, you can make a choice,” Jackson said. “This isn’t about blame. It’s about giving people the words for what they feel and letting them know they’re not alone.”
Jackson said he hopes the book helps families feel less isolated, and sparts conversations many have avoided for generations. He is already working on a second book, expanding on the themes of addiction and recovery.