Today I have been sober for 8 years.
As I looked down at my son this morning as I held him, the weight of those words were far more of an impact than when I have wrote them the seven years prior. I am a full-time father to two beautiful healthy children and have a wife who has stood by me and supported all of my goals and dreams. I am acutely aware that none of that would be the case if I had never made the decision to Change.
Sometimes people ask me how I knew that I had a problem and what it was like towards the end. My answer is that I never ever acknowledged that I had a problem until it was practically over, and that the end was the same as the beginning. I didn’t drink to drown anything out, it was something that I did almost every single day as routinely as getting out of bed and getting dressed. Good times, bad times, this didn’t matter. I was going to do it no matter what. When it all ended eight years ago, it was like a constricting snake finally had wound so tight around my throat that I had only two choices: to Change, or to die.
That is a realization that only the recovering addict can describe in full. You simply don’t know how to describe it unless you have been forced to reconcile with that split fork in your life’s journey. Until that moment is upon you, no amount of AA, therapy, intervention, whatever you want to try and do to put a band-aid over this is going to work. Rock Bottom is a unique place that is decorated differently for every soul who finds themselves there. I appreciate the creative, beautiful moments portrayed on social media, I really do. I just think we should also talk openly about the other side of the coin, and that dialogue would if nothing else, let human beings know that they are not alone. Which is a bigger deal than most realize.
“The darkness in me recognizes the darkness in you”.
Nole’Core, 2016
I find it morbidly ironic that today is Groundhog Day. If I had a dollar for every time I sat in AA and heard the phrase, “the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result,” then I would have quite a few bucks in my pocket. That is quite accurate though. It is like you are stuck. You do the same fucking thing no matter how counterintuitive, self-destructive, and hurtful to your loved ones it is, on repeat. Yes the locations change, the bars you frequent vary, the relationships collapse and reignite with a different cast, but the results don’t. ever.
Until one day it finally does.
One thing I am proud of and I will readily acknowledge as a reason I was able to get sober, is that I always told myself no matter how difficult this situation was, it wasn’t going to be permanent and it was not going to last forever. I spoke that into existence. I never said a single woe-is-me. I think that’s a big component in this. Accepting responsibility and always leaving the door open for optimism.
I am up to 155 pounds now (10 pounds heavier than when I finished Moab a few months ago!). I usually state my weight on these posts because of how gaunt I was during my first year of sobriety. I went through the awful withdrawals, got pretty sick, and also had my 2nd hernia surgery. I was in the 130s and looked like absolute shit. I feel really good at this weight.
I am very excited about the changes that have happened over the past eight years and continue to set goals at the age of 40. I think that is important, to keep pressing forward and challenging myself. My career in the Navy has provided infinite opportunities to see what I am capable of and I am eternally thankful for that. Becoming a father to a little boy is quite a different set of challenges, but I am having so much fun being Dad that I really can’t complain about any missed sleep. Running 240 miles on 5 hours of sleep is nothing compared to being on a newborns sleep schedule, right?
So as I sit here and acknowledge this day, I can smile knowing that I will go to bed tonight in the same house as ALL of my family, and wake up tomorrow one day closer to whatever adventure the universe has in store for me.
I didn’t arrive here by having everything go right. In fact it went very, very wrong at times. I arrived here Because I finally made the decision to Change.
Photos by my good friend Brandon Stutzman (@shotbystutz) while we walked the Arizona Trail a week after I finished Moab, talking about the ideal lighting that evening and what drives and motivates us to be the best versions of ourselves.
