Sober Motivation: Sharing Sobriety Stories - 27 Years Sober: How Dr. Donald Crowe Quit Drinking

Episode Date: April 13, 2026

Dr. Donald Crowe was telling patients they needed to stop drinking. Then he'd go home, open two bottles of wine, and pass out. Every single night. A physician with 40 years in medicine, Donald started drinking in college and spent the next two decades convincing himself it couldn't be that bad because his career was still moving forward.A possible ALS diagnosis at 40 gave him the excuse to drink harder. He lost his first marriage. He chose alcohol over her. When legal consequences finally forced him into treatment, three months of sobriety cracked open a truth he'd been hiding from: "I wasn't drinking to feel better. I was drinking to feel less bad."You'll hear about: the bitters experiment that proved his brain was wired differently; defending your drinking as an early warning sign; why consequences aren't the real measure of a problem; building a life where resistance is unnecessary.If you've ever told yourself it can't be that bad because things are still working, this one's for you.Dr. Donlad Crowe on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@SecondactrecoverySober Motivation Community: https://sobermotivation.mn.co/Sober Motivation Website: https://www.sobermotivation.comSupport the Podcast: https://buymeacoffee.com/sobermotivationContact me anytime: [e-mail] Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

As a physician, I would go to work and I would take care of people whose lives were being destroyed by alcohol. And I could see that and I would counsel them and I'd tell them I needed to stop drinking and point out all these things. Then I'd come home and have two bottles of wine and pass out. And I would do that every night. Today's guest on the show is Dr. Donald Crow, a physician who built a life of success on the outside while quietly at times battling something very different behind the scenes.

And this is his story. on the Sober Motivation podcast. If you're just checking out the show for the first time, don't forget to subscribe. And I would love to hear your thoughts about this conversation down in the comments below. Now let's get to the story. Welcome back to another episode of the Sober Motivation podcast. Today we've got Dr. Donald Crow with us.

How are you? Very good. Thank you. Thanks for having me. Of course. Thank you so much. What was it like for you growing up? I had a great childhood.

I was an only child, which was a bit lonely, but I didn't know it at the time. I had two parents who doted over me and raised me with the idea that effort brought results and that, quote, I could do anything I set my mind to it, which is a bit of a double-edged sword, but that was the mindset with me growing up. I never wanted for any material things. We weren't a rich family. In fact, if you go back and visit my childhood home, you could argue that I grew up in a ghetto, But again, if everybody's in the same boat, nobody's aware that anything's less than or anything like that.

I never had any substance used, no alcohol, nothing until I got to college. It just was irrelevant. I was too busy in sports, too busy trying to find myself academically, which was a bit of a challenge. And I had good friends and none of us drank or drugs. So it was all about playing a lot of baseball football. ball and later tennis and then off to college. And that's when kind of I got introduced to having a beer. Yeah. Well, thank you for sharing all that. Where did you grow up? In Indianapolis, Indiana, the heartland. Okay. And did you see a lot of drinking growing up or no? I know some people

they do, some don't. No, I really didn't. My parents, the routine was that my father and mother both smoked until the mid-60s. My mother quit, and then several years later, my father quit, and I think the cancer scare that emerged at that time kind of got to him. He always said that quitting smoking was the most difficult thing he ever did. He would typically have a martini when he came home from work, and sometimes too, but I never saw him change his behavior in a way that I could say, oh, my dad's drunk or he's intoxicated. It just didn't happen. If my parents had a party on New Year's or something like that, they would cut loose a little bit. And that was more, it was so atypical, it was kind of a joke.

It was never a systematic issue. I never really had that as part of my growing up. In fact, I saw really no useful as far as I remember having disdain for alcohol and those who drank it. It just didn't see any purpose to it. And then things kind of. I changed. Once I got to college, I became more curious because so many other individuals were drinking and a lot of marijuana use and things like that. Other drugs really weren't accessible or available. But a lot of pot, a lot of booze, obviously. And I became increasingly curious about it.

And I've always been somewhat of an analytical soul, kind of a scientist at heart. And so once I started seeing other people use alcohol by the curiosity of, you know, why they would do it and what they do it caused me to have an experiment. So one weekend in college, I sat there with a bottle of Boone's Farm, Strawberry Hill, and measured out precise amounts and drank some, waited for an effect, then drank a little bit more, waited for an effect, then finally drank a little bit more until I'd finished off basically half the bottle over a period of an hour or so, and I really can't tell you that I felt much of anything. So I thought, okay, well, alcohol has no effect on me, and that was basically it.

That was halfway through my first semester in college, and I had no more alcohol or other use of anything until my second semester. And in my second semester, I pledged a fraternity and had a great deal of respect for some of the other guys that I pledged with, one of whom was brilliant and accomplished, starred on his basketball team in high school, was a smart guy. His dad was the head of the biochemistry department at Purdue. I mean, he was a smart guy. And he would drink on the weekends.

And I explained to him that this alcohol has no effect on me. And you looked at me and he said, well, you're just not doing it right. And so during spring break, he introduced me to chugging. beer. And so I, he put a eight-ounce glass in front of me and, and I drank a few sips. He said, nope, drink it all. And so I did. Nothing happened. He said, try it one more time. Then all of a sudden, something happened. And I kind of woke up the next day and kind of wondered a little bit about what had happened the night before, but I knew that whatever it was, I liked it. And so that that began.

my foray into the world of drinking and drugging. Yeah, was your kind of, I've heard not this exact story, obviously, on the podcast, but the college years of a lot of people getting caught up or introduced or, you know, all of the dynamics there, maybe being a perfect storm for drinking. Yeah, it was natural. It was the standard operating procedure for young men. In the 70s, I don't, you know, I have no frame of reference for growing up in any other decade, but I grew up, graduated high school in 1972, went to college until 1976, and it was just

standard operating procedure. You went to a party, they had a keg. You drank beer, and it was accepted. It was the norm. It was, I don't remember anybody trying to force me to drink, but I certainly felt like I was blending in by doing so. There was really not much in the way of a downside to it at that point in time. There was, you know, kind of sucked to wake up with a hangover, but that was manageable still. You got a 20-some-odd-year-old body.

It's pretty resilient to poisoning. And so I was able to push that aside, and I was still able to function. My job was to get through school, make good grades, and then decide what I'm going to do with my life. And I was able to kind of do that. And the people that I shared that experience with were all drinking the same way I did. So it all seemed very natural. Yeah. Yeah.

So this kind of carries on with you, you know, throughout the rest of your college years to any sort of big red flags stand out at all. I mean, any trouble, any consequences from it or not really? Not really. No DUIs, no legal issues as it pertains to the drinking. The first time that I really was given a reason to pause and consider that it might be an issue was when I was in medical school. When I graduated and had gone to medical school, my roommate and I, we put up a beer list on the refrigerator, and we'd study and work hard throughout the week. And then we'd have a particular kind of beer that we'd buy for that weekend after that week of hard studying. And we had 11 weeks because that coincided with how long the term was in a particularly difficult

part of medical school. Drinking was part of the ritual, but it was not interfering with my capacity to get through what I needed to get through. But after the early parts of medical school and then moving on into the clinical things where I started actually going to the hospital and doing that, what became, what was only weekend drinking became occasionally on the weekday. And then if there was a party, of course, that was my ticket to go ahead and drink more aggressively because everybody else was drinking and I kind of could blend in.

And during one of those events toward the end of my medical school, another medical student friend of mine asked me if I knew that I was alcoholic in the way I was drinking. And I thought that was ridiculous. I mean, what do you mean? I'm, you know, I'm doing fine in school. I'm not the top of my class, but I'm, you know, I'm doing all right. I'm going to graduate. Everything's fine. And he just kind of said, you know, the way you drink, I think you need to really consider that you might be alcoholic and that maybe you should stop.

And no one had ever actually said that to me before. And I thought it was ridiculous. My initial thing was to defend my drinking. It was an early warning sign. In fact, on my YouTube channel I had just released a video about early warning signs. I had basically all of them. but defending my drinking was a big one. And, yeah, I defended it because I couldn't conceive that I might be better off if I gave it up. The idea was just difficult for me to accept. So that was the first warning signal that something was afoot, but it certainly didn't alter my behavior. In fact, I kind of doubled down on my drinking to prove to myself and everyone around me that I could do both.

I could still move forward in my career and I can still drink in ways that I thought I was free to drink. Yeah. What was it when that person mentioned to you like the way you're drinking, maybe alcoholic, like what was the way you were drinking different than all these other people around you? Not that I was aware of, but again, I can only speak from my own perspective. To me, it seemed normal, but to him it did not. And he was a smart guy. He was far smarter than me.

And so when he said it, it really got my attention. And part of what struck me was exactly what you referred to. I didn't think that there was, you know, I wasn't like dancing on the tables that night or anything like that. It didn't seem to me like it was that out of the ordinary for me, which caused me to really give a lot more thought to maybe he was right. But again, thinking about it and actually doing something about it, it was another 20 years before I finally did something about it. Yeah.

I mean, I think that's so relatable for so many people, though, is like it seems like in so many stories there's an outside force of, you know, something, a family member, maybe a partner, maybe kids who mentioned something that, hey, like, you're drinking too much. and then the person who's drinking. I mean, you just can't picture a life without drinking. I mean, some people seem to mention that what's, like, is it even worth it to live a life without drinking alcohol when they're in that spot? You know, I absolutely get that. I mean, I drank for a reason. I drank because it worked.

Okay. Now, I wouldn't have been able to tell you anything beyond that before I got sober. I just knew that, yeah, you know, I would have told you, I like drinking. I feel better when I drink. I would have defended it a number of different ways. I think that basically those were rationalizations defending a behavior that I couldn't imagine not having as part of my ornamentarium for getting through the day. I have come to learn a lot in the decades that I've been sober about the reasons that I drank,

But the fundamental reason was because it worked. It gave me something that I thought that I needed. I knew that there was a cost to that, the hangovers, the monetary expense, the risk of going home after a party and getting pulled over and having a DUI, although thank God that never happened. But I knew the risk was there. And I knew the cost, but the benefit exceeded that cost and therefore the behavior continued. Yeah.

I like the way that you framed that up to, and I think it's probably in your story and as so many. At the beginning, there's a big distance between the cost and the benefit, but with time, that gap narrows. Well, that's true. I mean, I don't know of many people. I guess as a physician who has been engaged in the recovery community for decades, I've met a couple people throughout the thousands that I've met that got some. sober because they just woke up one day and said, that's it, I'm done. But most of us, it required a kick in the ass, you know, and some consequence that, you know, had to happen so that the cost

was so apparent that it motivated a change. And that was certainly the case with me. Yeah. So where do you go from there? It was sort of this party and sort of maybe this first, you know, red flag. indicator conversation? I kind of set that aside. I kept, I kept judging my, quote, success by my career. Am I moving forward? Am I getting done what I need to do to develop a life that is self-sustaining and so I can take care of myself? The answer was, yes, I've got a residency, I practice a specialty that interested me. I moved from Indianapolis to Gainesville, Florida, to join the faculty at the University of Florida on their on their fledgling emergency medicine division. So I was part of that from the early days.

And I felt, okay, you know, I'm a success. So the drinking, you know, is part of that. So, you know, it must not be that bad. How could it be that bad if I'm successful and respected and doing these things? It can't be that bad because I'm doing this. And I justified that. I met a woman that I fell in love with. I got married.

The drinking and continued, she drank, I drank, we drank together. But toward the end of my time at University of Florida, I developed a medical condition that kind of came from out of the blue. I lost muscle strength in my right upper extremity. Now, having been a tennis pro throughout my early. earlier years. That's kind of how I put myself, helped put myself through college, is by teaching tennis and being a country club tennis pro and things like that. And all of a sudden, I couldn't use my right arm in ways that I had before. So when I was on the way out the door at the University

of Florida, I got a neurologist to look at the situation. And he told me, after assessing me, that he I wasn't really sure if it was amyotrophic lateral ps, ALS, Lugaric's disease, but, you know, obviously we have to worry about that. And frankly, I hadn't even considered that would be a possibility. So when he told me that, knowing what I know about Lugaric's disease, that's a death sentence, that's five years max at the time. Anyone who survives longer as an outlier. And so I walked out of that door, convinced I had a death sentence. I'm married. I've got my first daughter on the way.

And it was a great excuse to get loaded and stay loaded over the next five years. So my drinking accelerated fairly dramatically during that interval. And that led to basically a point where I began to use other substances to try to limit my alcohol. And when I did that, the whole thing just unraveled. Yeah. And how old were you at this time? I had turned 40-ish, I think. I got so, I have to do the math. I think I got 40, sober on as 46. So the last half-dozen years were pretty out of control. Yeah. And things too. I mean, there's a lot of people who share sort of maybe a slow progression of just maybe just getting more and more normalized, more and more events, you know, involving.

in their life, like drinking, drinking is involved with everything. And a lot of them share too, like, and I can relate to this, not even really realizing it at the time, maybe how much we're drinking or how everything is sort of revolving around drinking. And did you notice that for you too? Like things. Well, I, again, as a physician, I couldn't, I would go to work and I would take care of people whose lives were being destroyed by alcohol.

And I could see that. and I would counsel them and I'd tell them I needed to stop drinking and point out all these things. Then I'd come home and have two bottles of wine and pass out. And I would do that every night. And it's not like I didn't know that things were problematic. I knew with increasing precision. I engaged in a consuming struggle to get it under control. I mean, I had this idea that, you know, I don't need to quit drinking. I just need to stop the pot, stop the other substances. I needed to get rid of all the, all the thing else, and then limit the alcohol to just a couple glasses of wine like a gentleman does.

I mean, that's what I need. And I engaged in this ongoing struggle to control it. And that's kind of where I was when circumstances conspired to bring law enforcement into the situation where I suddenly was looking at loss of my license, loss of my livelihood, loss of my relationships. I'd already, that first marriage had already gone by the wayside. I chose alcohol over her when she started pointing out to me that I needed to get sober and that our lives were diminished by me getting loaded every night, passing out,

and that was our life. I'd come home from work, get loaded, pass out. and then it was just not the life she wanted and I just got angry with her and said, okay, fine, I'm out of here. And, you know, I chose alcohol over that marriage. And so when the proverbial shit hit the fan and I was suddenly looking at significant legal issues, my strategy was to go to treatment instead of going to jail. And so I thought, well, that's a, That's a much better deal. This gives me an opportunity to stop.

I knew I needed to stop, and this will force me to stop, so that'll take care of the problem. Yeah. Did it take care of the problem? No, it did not. It did a little bit. I mean, you know, look, here's the thing. I fully believe that the only way anybody like me who has a medical condition that precludes them being able to use alcohol, will get sober as if they can get a little bit of

clarity to see the bigger picture. I was completely unable to get any clarity so long as I kept drinking. So going to treatment where I couldn't drink, where I was carefully monitored, my bodily fluids were inspected on a routine basis. I could not get away with it. And I was essentially, compelled to not drink and enter a period of abstinence that lasted the three months that I was in treatment. And I needed that to get some kind of clarity to see the bigger picture. You know, when I drank, I drank for a reason. I drank because it worked, but worked to do what? It worked to change the way I felt. I would have told you at any time in my drinking career, I'm just having a couple drinks to take the edge off, to, you know, to celebrate, to feel better.

And it wasn't until I'd been sober for several months that I realized the truth. And the truth was I wasn't drinking to feel better. I was drinking to feel less bad. And that was an important distinction. I mean, I never could have seen that so long as I was drinking. And when I put down the alcohol, I did feel better. I didn't have hangovers. I didn't have, you know, looked like the legal situation was straightening out.

My career was going to come back to me. The woman I was seeing was all supportive. My family was supportive. So, yeah, it felt better for a while. Then I got out of treatment. And I went to my first sober event, which was a Fourth of July party at the neighborhood I live in. We have a big fireworks thing and everything. And I went there thinking that, you know, I got this. I'm, I don't need to drink. I'm three months sober. I've, you know,

I've got this now. And I have never wanted to drink so badly in my life. And it just like blindsided. I said, how could this be? I've got this under control. And yet, I was around people that cared for me and they were on my side and all of the things that should have aligned to make it an easy event, did not. And I realized a couple very important truths. Number one is that the people that I'm, that are supporting me the most are the people I'm most afraid of. I mean, I was terrified to be around these people without being loaded. And that just struck me. I'm thinking, how is it that people terrify me? And yet they did. And then it just began to crack open the door to this idea that alcohol was my way of dealing with this crime.

discomfort that followed me everywhere I went. It was like my shadow. I needed to change the way I felt because I needed to escape that feeling. And then, you know, I'd say to myself, well, why do I drink when I celebrate? Everything's great. It never was great enough. You know, it wasn't great enough. So I'd get loaded to make it more significant, to make it better. But it was all the same theme. Nothing. You know, I had, I was uncomfortable, profoundly uncomfortable, and a drink or a drug changed that. And so once I took that away, I could begin to see that. And that uncovered the real problem, which was, why do I feel that way? What is it about being around the people I care about that terrifies me? What is it about a celebration that makes it not good enough? And that, to me,

has been the crux of the journey of recovery is answering those questions. Yeah. Well, thanks for walking us through that, too, about, I think a lot of people find themselves there. You know, why? So I think there's a lot of people, too, who maybe they have a similar experience in college and they get introduced, but it doesn't mean for the long term going to be leaning into alcohol as a way to, you know, deal with all of this stuff.

How were you feeling, though? Because, I mean, this is a very, it seems. like anyway can be a very difficult spot to get out of. I mean, you go to medical school, you're a doctor, you're doing all this stuff, right? I mean, this is all incredible. And I think there's a lot of people that find them in in those situations where a lot of things are going really well. From the outside, people might not even be able to pick up on it. How do you feel about yourself? And especially kind of in your work, you mentioned there too, you're meeting with patients and, you know, they're having some serious consequences from drinking and you're sharing with all of them and then you go home and you have the two bottles of wine.

I mean, does that stir anything up? Yeah. I mean, I knew that I was living a fraud. Okay. And it's not like I didn't understand that there was a problem. I tried everything I knew to solve the problem on my own. But I wasn't willing to give up drinking while I was doing that. And truth be told, I wasn't really open to resources beyond my own resources.

I truly believe that for me to escape that, I had to become a different person. I had to grow beyond what I was before. Alcohol very successfully kept me stuck using the same techniques, the same. You know, I tried everything I could think of. I mixed my beer with water. I gave my drugs to my wife and told me to give them out to me on a schedule. That worked out great. Let me tell you.

I mean, I tried all of the things. Not like I wasn't working at it. I was trying to solve the problem. I was just failing miserably. And I've come to believe that for myself, and I think most other people, so long as they're continuing to drink and drug, they won't be able to. see the way out effectively, you know, which is why I really strongly advocate for a period of sobriety as the primary focus. And I think for most people, that involves resistance.

You have to have the discipline. You have to have the gumption and courage to resist taking a drink or drug. Now, having consequences hanging over your head, it's a double-edged sword. You don't want the consequences, but if it helps you get sober, in my case, I definitely needed them. But that's not the point of recovery. You know, successfully resisting alcohol is necessary, but it's only the doorway. It's going through the doorway and getting to the reasons why you drank and then substituting something more beneficial is the, that's where recovery, you know, comes to fruition. You know, if I was still fighting the urge to drink and drug here 28 years into this, I'd have put a bullet in my head along. time ago. I needed to change into somebody who doesn't need to drink or drug. I needed to change into that.

And, you know, I had no idea really how to do that. I had to be open to other people trying to help me. And fortunately, I met some people who were able to help me. Yeah. And what you mentioned there, too, I think, is what a lot of people who are new or starting out, they're wondering, like, it may be in their first three days. Am I going to feel like this forever? Like is this going to consume, you know, is this going to consume everything forever? I mean, if you just simply don't drink, I don't know if it forever, but I think it would be more as opposed to what you're talking about, you know, making those changes necessary to where drinking doesn't make any sense.

I kind of related to, for me personally, an identity shift, you know, like a new lifestyle and a shift in identity of who I was and how people expected me to show up in the world. all of that had to change. A lot of the people I hung out with, vast majority of them had to change. I tried to keep them, but they always expected me to be a party guy and a party animal. And I just felt like kind of what you mentioned, so uncomfortable around them. I mean, that's sort of ending us up here. The big question that a lot of people, when they're in maybe the earlier denial phases,

they relate to what you said earlier. Maybe I just enjoy drinking. I just like it. It's what I do. It's all I've known right here is getting into the deeper question of, you know, why are we doing all of this in the first place or what is this doing for us? Here's where I kind of diverge from a lot of people. I think that everybody drinks for exactly the same reason, okay?

They drink to change the way they feel. My wife, you know, she can have a drink. And when she drinks, she doesn't like the way it makes her feel. won't have another one. She'll leave half of a margarita on a table or whatever. And I am not like that. So what's the difference? And here's where 40 years of medicine and studying this has left me with a different paradigm. And that paradigm is this. I believe that there are certain people whose brains are hardwired in such a way that if they put intoxicating substances in their body, I'll call being the prototype, then

their brain does not function in ways that others do. In particular, we all have an inhibitory system in our brain. And, you know, if I, that inhibitory system does everything. If I reach for something, if a part of my brain didn't stop me for reaching for it, I have to motivate the action and then inhibit the action in order for that action to have some usefulness to me. In a broader sense, alcohol is the same way. I put into my brain a couple drinks. If I had my wife's brain, that part of her brain would say, okay, that's enough. Two is plenty. You're starting to feel it. That's enough. My brain does not function that way.

I have a primary problem with the inhibitory system of my brain. And if I were given the ability to change the world, one of the things I would do would be to abandon the term alcoholic and replace it with the term chemically mediated disinhibition syndrome. Because to me, that's what this is. A chemically mediated disinhibition of my brain. I put alcohol or other substances, fill this role too, into my brain, and the part of my brain, which should tell me that's enough, doesn't function. Now, that's the way I'm hardwired.

I'm no more able to control that than I'm able to control gravity. If I stand on a cliff and jump off the cliff, gravity is going to have its effect. If I stand at the bar with a drink in my hand, take that drink, it's going to have an effect. And I'm just built that way. That's the way I'm built. I think that we can classify that condition as a disease. The symptoms of the disease are a struggle to control my use. Denial that I have a problem is a symptom.

And then there are signs, tolerance is a sign. There are signs and symptoms. And there's enough people whose story is exactly in alignment with that that I think we can say, yes, some people are just hard word that alcohol and the life that they want to live are incompatible. And that's me. Um, until I accepted that, it was about trying to figure out a better way to drink, trying to find a loophole, trying to find a way out that didn't involve stopping.

But once I realized that I am biochemically unable to control it, then the point became, let's build a life where alcohol isn't part of it, that identity shift you referred to. And I've had the same thing. I'm not the same guy I was, you know, 25 years ago. Yeah. Well, that's good. That's good news. Yeah, you don't want to be stuck in the same place. Thanks for sharing all that too. I mean, I wonder too. I mean, with your thoughts there that you shared, you know, where would people fall into this, right? A lot of people I talk to and they've joined the show. I mean, they drank without consequence or they were able, there was a point in time for maybe a decade. They were able to put it down. And then maybe they had kids or maybe they started a new job that, that they kind of identify it into that range. Like now things are too much. I'm hiding it.

I'm sneaking around. I'm having the two, three, four bottles a night or whatever it is. Like any sort of thoughts on that? Yeah, I think one of the big problems with our current understanding of this medical condition is this. It is classic to define alcoholism as it pertains to consequences. In other words, if you've never had a DUI, you've never had a divorce, you've never had financial problems, you never had this, never had that. So, you know, it's not a problem. The consequences, when I was in medical school, I was taught that alcoholism is a disease or people to continue to drink despite adverse consequences.

So, no adverse consequences, you can have the disease. And I think that is fundamentally flawed. I think the primary symptom of this disease has nothing to do with external consequences. I think it has to do with internal struggle. You know, almost every day I know who has this condition knows what it is to be wandering around their house, looking for something to drink or something like that because they, you know, they need it. They're struggling.

They know they shouldn't, but they need it. and that internal war, that battle, that internal struggle to me is the primary thing. And it will generate misery. You know, you can be a millionaire. Look at all the people who are at the top of their game. And, you know, Michael Jackson, you know, somebody who's, you know, like a musical icon, millionaire, all of these things going from. And yet his life had degenerated where he's paying somebody to give him a drug whose primary purpose is just to blot out.

consciousness, you know? Give you high, it just takes away consciousness. So the fact is that this discomfort can evolve into misery where you just have this internal struggle and consequences, if they don't occur, you can, I certainly diluted myself into believing because the consequences hadn't occurred yet, it couldn't be that bad. So I lived a miserable life for a decade that I didn't have to. You know, I mean, it took what it took for me, but I don't think you have to hit a bottom that destroys your life in order to get sober.

If, you know, at least that's my hope. I hope that my message that I'm putting out there with my podcast or my YouTube channel has at least the capacity to maybe shed a little light on that for somebody. Yeah. Yeah, that's such an important. important point. It's that internal. That's what I hear people that come on the podcast. I mean, a lot of people I have on the podcast, they don't necessarily call themselves an alcoholic or, you know, maybe do more traditional type stuff. I mean, they just got sober and they, so it's working for them and they enjoy it. And some of them, you know, hit sort of, you know, subjective anyway, quote unquote

rock bottom or, you know, had consequences. But then there's a lot of other people I pick up on it. I don't know if they really do sometimes. They have that internal struggle. of they're not, it's not, it feels like they're not in alignment, you know, with where they want to be and who they want to be and show up how they want, be the parents they want, be the parents they know they can. Alcohol is getting in the way, rushing the kids to bed just so they can start drinking, you know, different things that they're not okay with. And that really seems to bother them a whole heck of a lot more than what might be going on around them. And it takes what it takes for that light bulb to go on. The fact is, what kind of life is it when you're systematically getting loaded every night to escape your life? I mean, that's what we're doing.

It's not party time after a while, you know, it's not a party. It is a necessity to just get through the evening. And you got to look, step back and say, what's wrong with my life? life that this has become necessary. And yet the alcohol becomes so much a part of you that you can't see beyond that. You know, I had to have that moment of clarity. I had to have a few weeks without alcohol in me for me to step back and say, wait a minute, I'm miserable. Getting loaded isn't making me less miserable. It's just making me less aware of how miserable I am until the next time I get loaded. This is not, this is not a life that works. But then,

You're faced with the issue of, okay, well, this life doesn't work. What the hell do I do now? This is the only way I know how to live, you know, and I had to come to believe that I was capable of change. You know, and it's one of the things that alcohol stole from me and steals from a lot of people is the idea that you really can grow and change and become a different individual. The only way I was able to get there was to get sober for a little while first. Yeah. What did that look like in your life? I mean, so you left the rehab and then you stayed sober since then or no?

No. I, after my rehab experience, I had, I got my job back. I got my relationships back. And I thought, because I wasn't drinking, that I was okay. And after a while, all of the same reasons that I used to drink, that discomfort, of boredom, the anxiety, the sense that life wasn't. enough, that was still there. I just wasn't drinking. And so I thought, maybe if I just try a little tiny bit of alcohol, then that will be able to, I'll be able to find the balance and I'll be

able to control it. So being the scientist I am, I took a small amount of an alcoholic substance called bitters. It's used to make mixed drinks. And I put that in huge tumblers of club soda. and it was essentially a sub-therapeutic amount. It was not enough that I ever felt intoxicated when I drank this little bit of bitters. And I did it. And I thought, okay, great. And I'll try a little bit more. And then that's great.

Nothing happened, so I'll try a little bit more. And I realized that what was a drop or two is becoming four or five drops, was becoming 10 or 12 drops. And even though I never got drunk, I realized that, the part of my brain that was supposed to be activated and tell me this is a bad idea, it was already malfunctioning. And that's when I realized that I'm just hardwired different and alcohol has to be off the table.

And if that's the worst that can happen to me, then that's not that big a deal. It's not cancer. I have a disease that will kill me, but the treatment is straightforward. I need to not drink. and the only way I can sustain not drinking is to change the reasons that anxiety, that boredom, that lack that sense of insignificance, those were the issues that had to be addressed. And that's when I got kind of serious about addressing those things. And that's, you know, that was 27 years and 10 months ago.

Yeah. I've been doing that ever since. For me, I've, you know, found a community that that I deal with. I've had other opportunities, you know, working with alcoholics. I've been medical director of regional alcohol and drug treatment centers. I've been involved with my local AA communities. I've been, you know, I've been very fortunate in finding a bunch of people that are on the same journey I am and have the same ideas about this disease that I do.

And we're able to learn from one another. So it's been a joyous kind of a journey. if my life wasn't infinitely better now not drinking, I'd go back to drinking. You know, I mean, but it is. It's simply a better way to live, but it took some effort to get here. Yeah. And it takes time, too, to all of the things that you listed off there, right? That probably for anybody listening who might be considering, you know,

everything that you just listed off there is probably not changing in one day. far from it the fact is i had to struggle uh i had to struggle to struggle to resist drinking and drug until i learned how not to and for me that took several years okay but again the point is not to resist the point is to construct a life where resistance is unnecessary because you're not obsessed with changing the way you feel. And if, you know, I, I had to, you know, it wasn't, it's not like some great sacrifice or some, you know, heroic thing. It is just doing some basic, simple things to take care of myself and to allow myself to grow. I don't view getting sober as a heroic adventure. I think it is doing what I should have been doing all along. And, you know, I really feel like

if someone is new in sobriety, you know, I dealt with a newcomer today and trying to explain that thinking about drinking and keeping that out there in the future as a possibility. And he was thinking that there was something wrong with him because he's thinking that way. I said, no, that's just that's the way. That's part of the disease. I mean, you know, you've got a memory. That memory is going to tell you that, you know, a drink or a drug is the quick way out of this discomfort that you're in, whatever that is. And resistance until you learn how to dismantle that is the way you have to go. You know, if you're struggling, keep struggling. But the point is not to struggle forever. The point is to learn new ways to live. And if you don't, then I think

that you're going to eventually get sucked back into the void. Yeah, for sure. Sure. You mentioned off there to be in part of groups and community and connecting with other people. I mean, is that a suggestion, too, you put out there for people? And, like, it sounds like it's been really helpful for you. Oh, absolutely. I think that one of the things, like I said at the outset, my parents told me that I could do anything that I set my mind to. I could do anything I set my mind to. And so I had the mindset that alcohol was a problem, drinking and drug and was obviously a problem for me, and I needed to fix it. And the only way to do that is to suck it up and use discipline and white knuckle it and get it done. You know, if it wasn't coming for me, it wasn't coming at all.

And that is so wrong. We're heard creatures. Human beings are heard creatures. We're meant to work with one another. And on my deathbed, I'm not going to be thinking about sitting and doing work in isolation. I'm going to be thinking about my family. I'm going to be thinking about my friends. I'm going to thinking about other human connections.

And why is that? Because that's what really matters, is those human connections, okay? As much as I'd like to think I'm independent, that's just a fear-based defense mechanism. Okay. I'm not independent. I am completely dependent on other people. And once I recognized that and started allowing other people to influence me, both good and bad, once I started doing that, I felt less alone. And I drank a lot because I felt alone all the time.

So the other thing is that I believe that alcohol, people, the disease, whatever you want to call it, thrives in secrecy. We like to keep things uncovered up and things like that. I remember the first time I announced to a group of strangers that I thought I might have a problem with alcohol, much to my amazement, I felt emancipated. I felt, you know, like it was, you know, I thought I'd feel terrible letting the cat out of the bag. But I felt this sense of freedom that I finally let that secret out. And I think the more people early in sobriety start connecting with other people, letting their secrets out of the bag, the more they're going to feel that same sense of freedom. Yeah.

I love that too. For so many people share that, but on the flip side of it, it's so many people don't do it. Like, they won't do it. They don't. They're afraid of what people might think of them or how that's going to look or that they're not strong enough or that they're weak or that they don't have what it takes. But all of that stuff prevents them from making those connections, which I relate to you. I mean, that's an essential part of everything that I've been able to put together is connecting

with other people. And when I share my story anyway, I feel less shame about everything, you know, unless I'm alone with sort of the madness that it brings out in us. Well, one of the things about my paradigm of understanding the biochemistry, the neuroanademy involved with this disease, is this. If, in fact, you buy into the idea that some people have a problem with chemistry, mediated disinhibition. Those people did not ask for that problem. They did not cause that problem. This is just a fact of life for a certain segment of the population. And I think you can argue that about

15 to 20 percent of the population at least has this predilection. Now, it's on a spectrum. Not everybody who has a drink and has trouble with drinking is going to completely lose control every single time. It's on a spectrum. Some people I know that if they have one drink, they're off to the races. You know, they end up in, you know, New Mexico three days later wondering what the hell happened. That wouldn't be me. I'm on a spectrum where I could tolerate tiny amounts for a short period of time, but

eventually it happens. Now, the fact is, I have no shame about this. I didn't ask for it. I didn't cause it. It's not my fault that I'm alcoholic, but it is my reason. responsibility and only my responsibility. And that responsibility begins with not putting alcohol in my body to activate the disease. You know, I can stay in remission as long as I don't put the first drink or drug in my system to activate those cravings and those other feelings that draw me further into the

abyss. And so I think that reframing my understanding, of the biochemistry involved has helped me a lot with that shame. I don't, I don't have, like I said, I didn't ask for this. This is just the hand I was dealt. And it took me a long time to figure out how to play the hand. Yeah. What about sort of the behaviors that spin off of it? Well, those absolutely are my fault. Here's the deal. I think that a lot of people will get sober and they'll say in AA you make amends for things that you've hurt or injured other people, you're supposed to make amends. The fact is, is a lot of people say, drinking caused me to be a real dick in this situation. And I think that's horseshit. I think alcohol doesn't cause anything like that. It reveals

who you are. Okay. If I was selfish, alcohol didn't cause me to be selfish. Alcohol revealed the fact that fundamentally I had a life that depended on selfishness to get through the day. I mean, I believe alcohol reveals the defects of character does not cause them. I think none of us are perfect. I think we're all deeply flawed. I think we're transient, flawed creatures living in a dangerous world. I think that's the human condition. And I think that so long as people think that alcohol is the problem, I'll get rid of the problem,

then it'll be, you know, put me up for sainthood. And that has not been my experience personally or in witnessing other people. Getting rid of the alcohol gives you an opportunity of getting to know who you really are, what you truly believe. And when I got rid of the alcohol, what I discovered was I made 99% of every decision I made based on fear. and all of the all of the things that fear caused me to to do to be selfish to be you know overbearing or to be angry or to be rageful or to be self-pitying to be a victim all of that is just variations on the theme of fear and fear dominated my life now I'm not sitting here saying that because I got 28 years sobriety I'm no longer dominated by fear I am but it's more in balance it doesn't completely rule

everything that I do. I realize that a lot of my fears are irrational. And there's really, I'm able to employ my thinking brain to help me overcome my instinctual brain's fear-based way of doing business. Yeah. Thanks for sharing all of that too. So in the last, you know, 27 years and even, you know, your life before that, what are some of your biggest takeaways, you know, from this journey, you mentioned to you, you've worked with a lot of people in different settings. You know, maybe any insight you'd like to share from that, you know, with what's helpful for people or a good place to start? The sad fact is this. The best place to start is to not take a drink or a drug today.

Okay. I think that you need to do what is necessary to reach a moment of clarity. or you can step back and see what your life truly is. I could never do that in all the decades that I tried to figure out a better way of drinking and drugging. So long as I was drinking and drugging, I couldn't find a different way of living. I was blind to it. So I'm a big believer that the first part of recovery involves sobriety, okay? not drinking, not drugging, and then seeing why the drinking and drugging had become such a part of

your life. If you don't know why you take a drink or a drug, I think that's a huge problem. You know, the idea that people say, I drink because I'm alcoholic. That to me is tantamount to saying, I will never change. I'll never get better. And to me, that is absolutely wrong. I think that people drink for a reason, and the vast majority of time, that reason will be unknown to them so long as they're drinking and drug it. Once they take away the drink and the drug, they can start to see why they drink and drug, and importantly, start to determine other things that may substitute for that, you know. So the bottom line is my life and that of the people I know and care about who are in the same spot in their journey, our lives are better. If they weren't better not drinking and drugging, we know where the liquor store is.

It is simply better and we're not struggling and resisting drinking and drugging. We have reconstructed our lives. As you pointed out earlier, you're a different person. and that identity change, it's difficult. It takes some effort. But, you know, life is effort. Whoever promised this that we, you know, that we would be adults caring for ourselves and our families and we wouldn't have difficulties.

Life is hard. You might as well devote yourself to things that give you a return on your investment. And I don't know of a better one than getting sober. Yeah. Thanks for sharing that too. Yeah, it's a great. Yeah, it's a great. But you're right.

It does take time. People often ask me to, if they're new, maybe they're 30 days in or 60 days in or 90 days in, they're kind of wondering too about, you know, how do you make this change? Because they see you in the, maybe they just came into my life recently and they see me in sort of this present moment of life of 16 years worth of work and wondering how fast it happened. And I'm like, no, no, slow down. Like this was, this was years. This wasn't just an overnight flip a switch, you know, connect with two people and everything

changed. There's still so much more to do. Not with not drinking and not using drugs today, but growth and self-development and everything else that is going on in life. I saw one of your YouTube videos. I watched a little bit of it, but I didn't get to the bad advice. I was curious about what is some of the bad advice. What was in sort of that video as the bad advice people are getting? Was that the direction you were going with it? Well, that one. This is a few months ago. I'm not, I'll have to have to think that. The fact is I think some of the bad advice involved, do it by yourself.

You know, keep it a secret. Don't tell anybody because, you know, you don't want to let anybody else in on your business. I think that's really bad advice. I think other bad advice is things like do it later. Another bad advice is substitute something different. Alcohol, if alcohol is the problem, well, why? not try some of those THC gummies. So that's a good idea. Let's use those instead. And I see this, you know, repetitively, the fact is this systematic need to change the way you feel with a substance

is the issue. The substance is not so relevant as the problem with trying to depend on a substance to get that as opposed to something more real, more tangible. So those come to my, I have, I rarely go back and rewatch my videos. That was four or five months ago, I think. Okay, gotcha. And it's interesting, too, and you've brought it up here a few times in the chat, and we'll head towards wrapping up soon.

But it's a lot less about the alcohol is what I'm picking up from the conversation. It's a lot more about why you're drinking the alcohol and kind of digging into finding that out. And that's where you can really begin working. Like, am I reading that right? Absolutely. The fact is, alcohol was a tool. It was a necessary vital tool for me to use to get through the day, not just alcohol, but pot and a bunch of other substances. You know, I use those as tools to get through the day. The fact is, when I put down those tools, I thought, well, you know, now I'll be better. I'll be better because I'm no longer, you know, I can't get a DUI if I don't have the alcohol. And it's true.

I won't get a DUI, but, you know, I'm still miserable. You know, I give away the one tool I use to deal with the misery. You mentioned, you know, somebody's a month into sobriety. I think that's a very dangerous point in time because they're through the withdrawal. They're no longer hung over every day. They're starting to see, you know, that morning isn't a time to just be nauseated. You know, there's actually good things about morning. You know, they see all these great things.

And yet it begins to. creep into their head that I'm still bored, I'm still lonely, I'm still anxious, and because I got a month, I can probably drink because this time it'll be different. You know, how many times have you and I seen people go back out? Because this time, it'll be different. I mean, I did that a thousand times. The fact is that, yeah, sobriety is not the finish line. It is the starting blocks.

And for me, you know, the sobriety is not the answer. It is the prerequisite for getting to the answer. Yeah, so well put there. You know, and I agree 100%. It's even going back where you had mentioned to is kind of blaming what we did, you know, while we were drinking our drugs like on the drugs or the alcohol, too. It's a big part of this side of the journey for me has been taking accountability, being responsible for myself and kind of, you know, I've got to do what I've got to do.

There was nobody coming to save me at the end of the day. And that wasn't going to work anyway. I went to rehab and I went to rehab for a year trying to appease everybody and change my life and didn't take long a couple months after. Back at it, back doing the same stuff I was before, was trying to do it for everybody else. For some people, they start there. For me, it didn't really pan out. But yeah, it's kind of getting, yeah, the sobriety is that you mentioned earlier.

to the doorway. Like, you have to do that and create a little bit of space to be able to see what's, like, get a clear picture of what's actually going on. Anything for closing? No, it'd be helpful. You know, I put a lot of effort into my YouTube channel. I'd like to give a plug to Second Act Recovery. I'd like to have people, you know, who are interested and maybe some of the things that I've

talked about with you have resonated with them. check out a couple of those videos. You know, I'm, I'm, when you said, I put a lot of effort into it. My primary reward for doing that is when people comment and tell me that it helps. I think that we don't try to keep what it takes to get sober and stay sober a secret. And yet, so many people who need to know how to do it simply don't know how to do it. We don't, we don't glamorize or popularize. what it takes to get and stay sober the same way we glamorize and popularize getting loaded.

You watch any TV show or any movie and figure out all the benefits and wonders of alcohol pretty easily. But there's very few people out there talking about getting and staying sober and all the benefits of that. Yeah, that is so true. And yeah, that's how I came across you watching a couple of your videos. and, you know, it was a great perspective on things. And I saw that there was a lot of people engaging and a lot of people seemed to enjoy what you were putting out there. When did you launch the YouTube channel?

And I mean, for a whole side note, like, I would love to hear that story, you know, too, if you're willing to share it. Like, how do you get into, you know, doing YouTube and creating videos? I retired early last year. And I figured, you know, I put in my, been a physician for four, 40 plus years. I'd been in a fairly high stress kind of position for a while. I'd been working nights for the last several years by my choice. It fit my lifestyle. And all of a sudden, I put that aside and did some traveling. And I began to feel like I should be doing something else.

You know, I just, I felt like, you know, I need to do something. I, I've always enjoyed photography. I've done a little, I had a podcast, medical podcast for half dozen years from like 2017 up until 23, 24, something like that. And so I had some rudimentary kind of thing, just doing it on my phone for my own self, my own amusement. So I thought, you know, I've got 27 years of sobriety. I've got 40 years of medical experience. how many people with those credentials are talking about sobriety on YouTube? And it turns out nobody.

I figured, well, maybe I'll have a niche that people will consider me a voice listening to. And once I overcame some of the imposter syndrome, like who am I to tell people how to get so right? I just try to basically share my experience. I mean, this is my understanding, my experience. And I think this idea that the crux of this medical condition involves a biochemically distinct group of people, that the observations that you can apply to alcoholics all seem to fit this way of understanding the situation, this chemically mediated disinhibition. So I would like to drive home that point because I think.

think that it will get people shifting from being ashamed or or being trying to figure out a more successful way to just saying, okay, well, maybe I'm just one of these people who can't drink. What do I do now? And that's the key. If you don't get to that point, I don't think it's going to be easy for you to stay sober, even if you get sober. You know, I think you have to, you said it earlier, that identity shift is really what has to happen.

You don't want to be somebody, I don't want to be the guy who wishes that I was drinking. I can go to a party. I can go to any kind of gathering where people drink. I don't care. I know why they're drinking. They're drinking to change the way they feel. Same way as I used to drink. I don't envy that because I don't need to change the way I feel most of the time

because I live my life in a way that I've structured it. So it's just irrelevant to me. Yeah. Yeah, awesome. Yeah, that's exciting, though, on YouTube. And yeah, I mean, like I said, there seems to be a people. there that are really enjoying what you're putting out. So, I mean, great job. Like, it's tough to do, right? I mean, I don't know if it is for you. Maybe you're, it's easy for you, but it has its challenges,

but it's an opportunity for growth. I mean, that's the key. It is challenging. I've learned, boy, I'll tell you what, you want to learn, if you're a 72 year old guy and you want to learn how little do you understand about any of this, try a YouTube channel. Because I'll tell you, it has been a steep learning curve. But I look back at videos that I released, say, back last July, and I compare them to the ones I'm doing this week. I'd like to think they're better. I mean, it's one of those things where I've enjoyed the process of doing that.

I'd like to think a year from now, I'm going to be better than this year, but we'll see. I'm sure you will. I'm sure you will. Well, thank you so much for jumping on here and sharing your story with us today. You're very welcome. I'm happy to be here. Well, there it is another episode here on the podcast. Great episode. I thought so anyway. I would obviously love your thoughts down in the comments, whether you're on Spotify or YouTube or send me over an email, Brad at Sobermotivation.com. Thank you, as always, for the support, subscribe to get notified when more episodes, and go over and check out Dr. Donald Crow's YouTube, some incredible videos that he's put together over there. I'll drop all of that down in the show notes below and I'll see you on the next one.