Today I have been sober for 10 years.
📸| my daughter
Year 10
Year 9
Today I have been sober for 9 years.
Every year has been a unique timeframe of personal growth, personal setbacks, triumphs and disappointments. All have the common theme of not having the specter of addiction hovering over each moment, waiting to derail everything. There have been times over the past few months that I have felt lost as I took a step back from ultra running and focused more on being a full time parent. I know that might sound disappointing, but I will admit it. As I’ve said on these annual musings before, not everything is a positive experience just because you get sober. Alcohol whisked away the responsibilities before, I had a built in subconscious excuse to every selfish action I took. As easy as it may sound to every rational parent out there, just having my babies with me every day that I spend at home should be “enough”. So why have I felt so lost lately?
Traveling with my daughter as she nears the penultimate moment in her young adult life has been a revelation. I didn’t want to try and make up for lost time once I returned from my time with the Navy, I just wanted her to have a chance at a normal healthy life. The chance to travel with her and show her so much of the world, however, has been some of the most enjoyable experiences of my entire life. Our trip to Seattle, my first time back as a sober person, was a huge moment for me personally. Seattle was place where I had gone through so much personal adversity yet came away with a degree from UW that continues to open doors for me to this day. Unfortunately, it is also where my addiction went to a very dark place. Instead of partying and revelry, it was many nights drinking alone and an emotional rollercoaster that plummeted further and further away from who I should have been. I should have been a better parent. I should have been a better son. I should have been a better student. I should have been a better athlete. I should have been a better person. Instead, I was none of those things and in the back of my mind I felt like a failure, even walking across the stage during graduation inside Husky Stadium.
Going back there and having every minute of every day we spent together seem like a joyful dream, was therapy that I didn’t even know that I needed. I’ll remember them fondly for the rest of my life.
The ability to mentally handle the hard times is one of the blessings of sobriety. When things are a challenge, I do try and acknowledge that I can sort through them so much better now that I’m sober. Feeling something, even if it’s an unpleasant feeling, is better than feeling nothing at all. Feeling lost is better than feeling empty and the crushing weight of nothingness. Eventfully, I am going to find what I am supposed to find, when and where I am supposed to find it. The Universe Speaks.
Year 8
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.
Year 7
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
The Age of Bootcamp
It has been 10 days since I finished Navy bootcamp. While I was in, I thought about why I had decided to enlist and leave my family while starting my journey into a completely new world of the United States military. I’m 38 years old, 20 years older than most of the recruits I was surrounded by during my time at Recruit Training Command in Great Lakes, Illinois. I didn’t know what to expect despite all of the research I did beforehand, and just hoped that my age wasn’t an issue. What ended up happening to me was unexpected personal growth and a much needed attention to detail that I had been sorely lacking. Beginning a military career later in life presents a unique set of challenges mostly due to the fact that you’ve already lived so many years of adulthood and have so much waiting on the outside. Closing yourself off utterly from your family, friends, job, and everything else that we are constantly connected to is a shocking change to dive in to but that is exactly what I ended up doing. In the weeks leading up to when I shipped out to bootcamp, there were a lot of things I had to take care of before it was my time to disconnect from the real world. The final 48 hours I spent with my wife and daughter in Mobile were surreal and I kept asking myself, “Are you absolutely sure you can take yourself away from them?”.
Bootcamp can be a cold and cruel place. If it weren’t for the friendships I formed with my fellow recruits I am sure my experience would have been far different as we were cut off from our families while scrambling to adjust. The first month and a half were the hardest since we weren’t given a phone call and mail was slow to come in. Your concept of time is distorted and it is hard to grasp that life on the outside has gone on while your own existence has been confined to a bubble. I wrote my wife and daughter every day while day dreaming of what they were doing without me. I’d check my watch around the time that my daughter would be going through track practice and I tried to remember the dates that she had meets. Each time a letter did come through the morale boost it gave me was a feeling comparable to receiving a Christmas present when I was a child.
Our Recruit Division Commanders (RDC’s) demanded excellence from us in all aspects of our training. In the moments, we all probably resented this fact but by the end of bootcamp I found myself pushing harder and harder to accomplish the impossible task of living up to their standards. In bootcamp you will never receive positive feedback, never be told that you are doing a good job or that you have completed the task correctly. It will simply be time to move on to the next evolution unless you have made a mistake, in which case you will be strongly if not brutally corrected. The verbal and emotional abuse was always said to not be taken personally and that definitely played a part in how I handled myself at RTC. I took nothing personal, never even batted an eye when I was being screamed at. The trauma I have experienced as an adult oddly served me well in the rigid environment of basic training.
Not once was my age ever a factor and it was rarely brought up by either the RDC’s or the other recruits, except when it was an opportunity to give advice on certain aspects of life that I’ve experienced. I wanted to make sure I was able to help guide them in the right direction when they came to me with questions about everything from finance to relationships. There were a few that I opened up to about alcoholism and tried to preface the discussions with the fact that I could distinctly remember when I was their age and how I set myself on the path of ruin. When I decided to enlist I had a random thought come through my mind that I was going to help young people when I joined the Navy, and I was glad I was able to act on this during bootcamp.
When we got close to the end of bootcamp, I picked up my intensity during our workouts and runs with the goal of hitting the maximum scores on the final Physical Fitness Assessment. The scores varied according to your age, and I was determined to get the highest possible. I was already safely above the standards that I had to meet in order to finish bootcamp but I was at the point where manifesting challenges was getting me through each week. The uniform and rack inspections, reciting the chain of command from memory, and outpacing recruits that I was old enough to be fathers to became my personal challenges that consumed my mind each day. I told myself that if I could just get to the point where I was confident enough to try and get a perfect score on each event, I’d be OK. This repeated itself over and over. I brought my best effort every single rep during PT and ran my absolute hardest every time we were given an opportunity to run. Those were when I felt the most free and normal, and it reminded me of who I was before I arrived at bootcamp.
On the final Sunday before graduation, one of our RDC’s who shares the same rating as me said we had 4 candidates in our division who had finished in the top 3% of the training group. I was one of the candidates. To be honest, I was stunned. I’d gone into bootcamp thinking that I could blend in and just get through the experience without incident but my RDC’s noticed my potential and pulled from me every ounce of effort and skill that I possessed and forged me into the best version of myself that I have ever been. When the time came for the top 3% to be interviewed by the ships LCPO and several chiefs, I was ready. Still, when one of our RDC’s came into the compartment to announce in front of our division that I had won the Military Excellence Award which goes to the top recruit in the training group, I thought I was imagining things. My name with the words military excellence beside it? I thought back to the years leading up to this moment and it just does not seem possible. All of the failures I experienced as an adult and setbacks that I had to overcome were in fact turning points that were guiding me towards where I was supposed to be: the beginning stages of my military career on which I was being rewarded with the highest honor that a recruit can receive.
The reason I joined the Navy was because I believed that I could do more. I wasn’t content sitting behind a desk for the majority of my career, and I knew that my education in digital media and the passion I have for creating could be put to use professionally. As a Mass Communication Specialist in the United States Navy I will be afforded a grand opportunity to just that while assisting the warfighter in ways that I just could not envision through my civilian job. The time I get to spend as EHG’s web designer always keeps my fire for digital media content creation burning and I am eternally grateful for the opportunity to keep improving my skills. I wouldn’t be sitting here writing this if it weren’t for them! The sports journalism role that I began last year with West Coast College Football was also a dream of mine for quite some time and the chance to practice my writing skills made me a stronger prospect to become an MC. I hope that my skills in each of the fields that mass communications encompass will be useful as I begin my training here at my “A” School and I’m looking forward to learning how to use equipment in a professional capacity.
As I take the next step on this journey, I realize in the most basic terms why I decided to enlist and go to bootcamp. I am here because I wasn’t comfortable being comfortable. This is the path I was meant to be on, the road less traveled will always be the direction I take because that is how I can grow as a person. The Navy is getting the best version of myself and all of my life experiences made me ready for this moment.
Year 6
today I have been sober for 6 years
pt I
It’s become an annual revelation of the things in my life I’d consider to be unattainable had I not gotten sober. This year has amplified these acknowledgements and I’d like to point out something to anyone reading this: when the pandemic ground our country to a halt and AA meeting places closed their doors to those who sought solace in a daily ritual, it left an uncountable amount of people to fend for themselves. There is no shutdown of an addiction, and quarantine is a frightening proposition for anyone desperate for open doors of a fellowship. Our local meeting place was closed for several months and I hope those that needed the support were able to weather the storm. These are challenging times and everyone fighting the ghosts of their addiction shouldn’t be forgotten about.
pt II
Never would there have been the possibility of gaining custody of my daughter had I not gotten sober. I’m only a few weeks into being a full time parent and it is just as serendipitous as I’d thought it would be. Thinking about it, that this is (by far!) the most days in a row that I have gotten to see my child’s smiling face is both a joyous dream of what is to come and a bittersweet reminder of the time that I lost. We will make up for it though. There’s an entire world waiting for us to explore, and there’s no cold unfeeling system keeping us apart anymore. Every isn’t exactly the same but they are all wonderful days with her in my life.
pt III
It was never close to being perfect and that should be ok. As I try and think back to the common theme of these annual moments of reflection I would say it’s that things don’t magically change the day you stop drinking. Things might briefly get worse as you’re forced to reconcile with all of the mistakes that you’ve made and the chaos you’ve immersed yourself in is finally confronted with a clear mind. Further down the path is when the results of the changes you’ve made start to appear. There will be a day that comes when something you thought was previously impossible finally becomes possible. In that moment, you’ll realize that everything was set in motion from the decision you made years ago. The decision to change.
Christopher
