Today I have been sober for 7 years.
I’m writing this on my back porch after dropping my daughter off at school. Just writing the last part of that sentence still seems like a miracle to me. I’m a full-time dad now, something that I thought I’d never get to experience after 13 years of waiting. The decision I made 7 years ago today is what made much of my current life realities possible.
Now that I am back in Santa Rosa Beach, I decided to start going to a new AA meeting close to home. My old home group was in Fort Walton Beach, almost an hour away. One positive aspect of life post-pandemic has been accomplishing a solid amount of work in the immediate vicinity of my own house. The group I go to has been a nice change of pace and it’s a diverse cast of characters with whom I feel comfortable talking to. There is raw power in that room when someone peels back their inhibitions and expresses their emotions and stories of combating an addiction. For a while I thought that I didn’t need the meetings, but I have changed my viewpoint since I have been back. The meetings need me. It is a duty of an alcoholic to assist those who need or want help.
Being gone for 10 months and adapting to the rigid lifestyle of what the military demands was a challenge, but one that I embraced. It was a time to block out external distractions and confront what had been bottled up in my mind for several years. There are no AA meetings in bootcamp. By the time I got out I felt like a well oiled machine, completely comfortable in my thoughts and decisions. Again, being sober for this many years put me in a position to join the Navy and thrive. I would have been no good to them 7 years ago.
Every day when I wake up, I am in control of the following things:
- My second thought
- My first action
I choose what I decide to do, and my aforementioned drive-my-daughter-to-school routine makes it pretty easy to start my day on a positive note and wipe away any frantic thoughts I wake up with.
Over the years, I haven’t read many books or sought out content from many people in recovery. I guess I thought I had enough positivity coming my way from the meetings I went to or just by continuing to be sober. A bit selfish on my part actually. This is by nature, a selfish condition, and even when you achieve sobriety I think it is a process to not put your own self-absorbed existence before other people. Fortunately, I recently was able to hear the words of two very public figures who are in recovery from their addiction: Ryan Leaf (former NFL QB) and Randy Blythe (lead singer for Lamb of God). Leaf is best known for flaming out of the NFL and battling addiction to pain medication. I distinctly remember being in highschool and rooting against him (he went to Wazzu), and then making fun of his fall from grace as one of the biggest “busts” in NFL history. Fast forward almost 20 years and there I was listening to him talk about his journey and multiple failures before finally achieving stability and a family once he was able to make the choice to change who he was. Ironic right? You never know when your own life will end up mirroring someone you once mocked, so maybe try a different approach when you see someone going down in flames. Ryan was a guest on one of the local sports-talk radio shows, and I called in before his segment. The host kindly relayed a message to him and I guess in my own mind that was my way to apologize for being such a hateful jerk back in the day. His podcast is incredible and brutally honest, which is so much more valuable for anyone either in recovery or who has a loved on going through this. The title is “Bust”, an ode to Ryan’s sense of humor which I found refreshing and relatable.
Randy has had a book published for a few years called “Dark Days”, and I had thought it was written about his unfortunate incident in the Czech Republic that landed him in court (and prison!) after a fan died at one of his shows in Prague. It turns out that he is in recovery after spending his entire adult life as an alcoholic doing many of the self-destructive behaviors that so many of us can relate to. I first met Randy at a club show in Tallahassee back in 2004 while Lamb of God was still able to play smaller venues. Afterwards I drunkenly introduced myself to him, and he was gracious enough to put up with my blabbering in the parking lot behind the club. I’ve met him several times since that night, and thankfully was able to attend his photography exhibit in D.C. last summer when I was at Fort Meade (which is where he was born!). Getting to re-do that conversation with both of us being sober now was a cool experience (he got a kick out of the fact that my wife mailed him his EyeHateGod coffee mug – she manages their online store), and had I known his book had so much relatable anecdotes on being an alcoholic, I would have read it sooner.
My biggest takeaway from both of those, is that the honesty it takes to finally change who you are as a person has to be directed at yourself. You can promise everyone else that you’ll change this time until you’re blue in the face, but it doesn’t matter until you make that promise to yourself. When you finally say back to your own reflection in the mirror “I am done being this person”, the cycle can finally be broken. If you are in a relationship or family with someone battling an addiction, just know that the promises they make to you also have to be made to themselves, for they are the only ones who can hold themselves accountable. Whether that is done by going to AA meetings, talking to a therapist or sponsor, a treatment facility, however they feel like this change can be realistic and obtainable – it has to be something they seek out and truly want.
Christopher
