Sober Motivation: Sharing Sobriety Stories - Alcohol ran Eric's life and sobriety changed everything.

Episode Date: December 4, 2024

In this episode of the Sober Motivation Podcast, I sit down with Eric, who shares his powerful story of overcoming alcohol addiction. Eric discusses his upbringing, the impact of his mother's unexpected passing, and how his drinking spiralled out of control. Despite multiple setbacks and two DWIs, Eric's journey took a turning point when his family intervened, leading to a life-changing experience in rehab. Now three years sober, Eric talks about the support systems that have helped him— including AA and Celebrate Recovery—and how the birth of his son has become his new motivation for staying sober. -------------- Join Sober Motivation Community: https://sobermotivation.mn.co Download the Loosid App: https://loosidapp.onelink.me/vZuQ/62ui9njg Connect with Eric: [e-mail]

Welcome back to season three of the Suburmotivation podcast. Join me, Brad, each week as my guests and I share incredible and powerful sobriety stories. We are here to show sobriety as possible, one story at a time. Let's go. In this episode, we have Eric who shares this powerful story of overcoming addiction. Eric discusses his upbringing the impact of his mother's unexpected passing and how his drinking spiraled out of control. Despite multiple setbacks and two DUIs, Eric's journey took a turning point when his family

intervened, leading to a life-changing experience in rehab, now three years sober. Eric talks about the support systems that have helped him and how the birth of his son has become his new motivation for staying sober. And this is Eric's story on the sober motivation podcast. How's it going, everyone, Brad here. Welcome back to another episode. Huge announcement for the month of December is I want to invite all of you to check out the sober motivation community, which is going to be free for the entire month.

This is an opportunity for me to give back. help anybody out who wants to stay connected over this busy and stressful holiday season. The holidays can be really tough for sobriety, especially when you're not drinking around the parties at work and family and everything else. So this is an open invite to all of you. If you've been on the fence with joining the community to come and check it out, I'll drop the link down in the show notes below or you can just head over to the link in my bio on Instagram at Subur Motivation.

We have a bunch of meetings, community connection. And it's really making a huge difference in people's lives, bringing their sobriety and their recovery to the next level. And I host three meetings a week over there. So I would love to meet some more listeners of the show. A bunch of people who are already there are listeners of the show. And that's how they heard about the community. So I would love to have you.

Everybody who signs up gets one month completely free. You can cancel any time if it's not your thing. That's cool, too. No hard feelings. But I would love to see you there. if you want to stay off the alcohol this holiday season and you want to find some support and just an incredible community,

sober motivation is where it's at. I also want to give a big shout out to MJ over at Lucid with the holidays coming up. Be sure to check out their brand new Lucid Sober Shop. Their community app is incredible. Great way to get plugged in, very soft place to land. He also has some awesome recovery stories on there

and just a ton of features on the app. The marketplace is incredible. Get exclusive discounts. to some of your favorite brands through the Lucid app and through the Lucid Marketplace. Also, if you download the app, you can use the Marketplace code for 20% off,

I believe it is, for your first order into Sober Shop. So I'll drop that link down to the show notes below. Download the app, check it out, and I'll see you guys over there. Before we jump into Eric's story, you know, Eric reached out to me, wanted to share a story.

And I hope you guys enjoyed it as much as I did. I really appreciate it. Eric's vulnerability here on the episode. It just, you know, everything he put out there in hopes to maybe help one person. So let's get to the episode. Welcome back to another episode of the Sober Motivation podcast. Today we've got Eric with us.

Eric, how are you? I'm good. How are you? I'm good, man. I'm glad we could jump on here and share your story with everybody. Yeah, I've been wanting to at least get it out there to somebody. There might be somebody out there that picks up something, you know.

Yeah. So what was it like for you, growing up. Growing up, it was good. I had a real close family, very close, extended family, grew up outside of Denver, lived out there, all through school, graduated out there, and then moved out to Missouri, Clinton, Missouri, in between Springfield and Kansas City, about the dead center. So I got to one younger brother. Yeah. So it was good life, played sports all through great school, wrestling. My dad was a wrestling coach. I wrestled, played basketball, baseball. I was real big into everything. I liked school, but I didn't like school at the same time.

Like, I liked being there, but I hated missing it too. So, yeah, I'm with you, man. I love the social aspect of school, but going to class and doing everything like that, I don't know, I wasn't, I wasn't the biggest fan of that stuff. So you have a younger brother, what are some your earliest memories of growing up? Just, we lived out, we're a real rural, so we were outside of Denver. So we had bikes, motorcycles, we had a track in our backyard. Now we'd even, when my dad wasn't around, we'd bring our little motorcycles down in the basement and ride them around the basement was unfinished.

We had a big open basement, so we were riding around down there, like a little NASCAR track down this in circles, you know? And he didn't know about that until actually, I was telling me about this podcast the other day, and he was like, yeah, the motorcycles downstairs? I said, yeah, we did. So he didn't know about that until about two weeks ago. He didn't know.

He didn't believe me, but I said, yeah, we had that little 50 down there. And, yeah, it was good. We were very competitive against one another. My brother, he's my younger brother, but right now he's bigger than me, so he's my little big brother. But we were very competitive, and I'm sure I was harder on. I should have been probably, but we got along. We still get along great.

It's one of my best friends, and he's one of the main reasons you'll hear later on why I actually got sober, or how I got sober, rather. But yeah, we had all of our family, like I said, our extended family was very close. My dad and mom were both from Western Kansas right on the Colorado lines. We'd go out there for all the holidays, and there ain't nothing to do out there. So we'd go out there and hang out in later years, we'd hang out and drink. That's all we did. There's nothing else to do.

So it was good. I liked, like I said, I liked being in school, and I just, I hated to miss school. I had great, good grades all through, ever since I could remember, I was kind of the class clown trying to, I was good at making people laugh when that brought me joy to see people laugh. And still, today, I really just love to make people laugh. I feel like I'm good at it. Just positive attitude all the time. I just, I loved it. And my mom passed away from unexpected cancer when I was 15,

and that's when my life went downhill. Is that when you started drinking? No, I think my first time having a beer or something. I remember me and my friend, And back then, we went out. We were crawdaddads hunting. We'd set traps for crawdads, crawfish, whatever we want to call them. But we go out there, and I remember sitting there around this fire.

And my dad, he said, go get us a beer out of the cooler. And I said, okay, cool. And he let me have a sip of it. And I was like, gosh, dang, this tastes nasty. He's like, I don't ever want to drink this stuff. And that was my first time trying alcohol. And I just from then I was like, oh, this isn't really for me. And of course, I got a little older and things started to happen.

And I remember the first time I actually got drunk. And me and another buddy of mine, we were in his basement. And somehow we got a little fifth of Crown Royal. And I don't know about you, but Crown Royal is probably not the best choice to get drunk the first time. I vaguely remember getting drunk, but I do remember just sitting there what is going on. And then I thought, I don't really feel nothing until I fell off my bar stool and landed straight on my head and then realized I didn't really feel that either. And then, of course, the next day fell like garbage and thought that was probably not do that again for a little while at least. Yeah, fell off the bar stool.

Didn't feel that either. Hey, going back to when you sent me the notes before at 15, your mom passed away from cancer there. how did that change life for you or life as you knew it? Because I could imagine something like that would. Yeah, my mom was everything. She was the rock and the glue that held our family together. And I was, like I said, at the time I was 15 and that was hard to go through. Just dealing with the emptiness, the sadness.

And then later on, the anger that came from her. being gone and I went through a lot of years of life being mad at God and I never understood I still never understand it but we never will but I just my turn to alcohol because it made those feelings go away for a little bit when like I said and about going back to school I had perfect attendance through all my high school and except for one week I missed because of her funeral. Yeah, it just rocked my whole family's world. She had, she has four sisters still living right now and we're still close and my dad has four sisters, like five sisters and four brothers.

So we had a big family and it just shook us all to the core. It was just so unexpected and she had lung cancer and never smoked. cigarette in a day in her life healthy. She was our basketball coach for quite a while and she was at every game. It just took me by surprise. It was just it was just tough and I found alcohol was my answer. It was my go-to and I just started drinking and from my senior year about second semester I think I drank every single day until about 2010. So she passed away in 2004. And until 2010, I drank every single day,

except for maybe a handful of days in between. I drank every single day. And I know it's sad that somebody keeps track of things like that, but I drank just about every day. And that was just to hide the paint. And that was just to hide the, get that pain away when I would drink at school. I was drinking at lunch. I was getting people in trouble that shouldn't have been in trouble.

Because just because they were with me and I'm like, hey, you want to go to lunch? I got to fit the Captain Morgan in my truck. And there was a couple times where I did get in trouble. I got a couple days suspended out of school, being in the class con, you're going to get in trouble every now and then. So that's just where it all turned and it went really downhill from there. Everybody knew in school if you wanted to take a shot or if I was around, there was probably going to be alcohol nearby. I drove a S-10.

If anybody knows, the little S-10s have that little third door that's got that pocket in the back. A half gallon of vodka fits in there. Perfect. Everybody knew, yep, Eric's got some vodka in his truck. Vodka was my go-to all the way up until. the very last day I drank three years ago, I was still drinking vodka, like it was nothing really. But, yeah, that's, yeah, that's, damn.

Yeah. Yeah. Thanks for sharing that, too, where things turned for you there. What did you see around you? Like, how are other people moving through this or coping with this, this change in everyone's life? It was just empty. We'd go to Christmases, and after my mom passed away, we did that all the same stuff. It was just a huge void, and it just never, ever was the same.

And then we still stayed close, and we still are close when we've gotten closer since I went through my recovery and everything. There was a few years in there. A little after probably about 2017, where the family, I was. wouldn't say, like, distance each other. It was probably more distance me. It was probably me. As a matter of fact, I know it was me because I was concerned more about drinking than being a part of anything. I would, and it didn't help that the family, my closest relatives, other than my dad, my brother, who live here in the same town as me, but they're five hours away. And then the further ones are in Colorado, which eight-hour drive from where I am right now. So it didn't make it easy. But I feel like

That was my excuse. Oh, it's nine hours away. And then in the back of my mind, I'm like, can I make it nine hours? Although it's a straight shot down 970, but I'm thinking, where am I going to drink at? Who am I going to be with? Are they going to care if I'm drinking? Because everything I did, not necessarily back then, was about drinking, but later on in the story, it's just everything was, what am I going to drink?

Where am I going to drink? How am I going to get it? What am I going to do? But my family, they all took me and my brother in, and it was just hard and just kept on making the best of it. It just never, ever was the same because my mom was just, she was just our glue. She was just the one that was there. Yeah. Where did things go for you after high school?

So after high school, we moved my dad. My mom backing up just a little bit. We used to go camping and camp all the time. different lakes around Colorado and Kansas, Nebraska. So we were real close and outgoing and camping. So we'd go to these lakes and my dad and mom, and I always remember hearing them say, we sure like to have something like this one day.

We stop in the local bait shop, a little marina or whatever. And they always say, man, we'd like to have one of these one day. And so after high school, my dad came out to Clinton, which is where Truman Lake and Lake the Ozarks were real close to the Ozarks, that he bought a marina and resort on Truman Lake, which is just up the river from Lake of the Ozarks. So naturally, he's on buying this marina. You can either stay in Colorado and come with me.

I'm like, I'm going. Hello. I'm on Lake every day, and it was great. So we moved out here. He bought the resort. And basically, I was living the dream. I'm thinking I can drink every day. I'm on lake every day

There's boats There's women There's alcohol What else could What else could a guy want? 18 years old? So that's where I That's where we came after high school

And That's where we've been ever since Yeah So you still do You're still working at the marina Actually he sold the marina back in 2019 I managed the The marina and the restaurant

for about 10 years. Did that for quite a while, and now I'm working at the post office. Yeah, that's right, that's right. Did your younger brother work there too? Yeah, he came out with us, of course. He started school here, so he was a freshman when we moved here, so he got to go through his high school years here.

But yeah, he worked here as a dockhand during the summer, and then he later on moved. He worked a little bit longer, and that he decided to go, he was a welder. He went to welding school, and now he's a very good welder. One of the best we have in town here, for sure. Wow. So how do things move forward with your drinking career while you're,

I mean, it's a perfect storm. You just laid out there, right, for this career, right? Yeah, it was. So do you ramp up for you here? Yeah, it got. worse. There right after we moved, I actually made a trip back to Colorado to see one of my ex-girlfriends, and during that time, I actually got a DWI, so it started off with that little explanation point. Got a DWI. Of course, I was alone in Colorado at that time. My dad was in Missouri. I got in jail right

there, call my dad, and he said, yeah, you're going to have to sit there because I'm all the way in Missouri. I can't do nothing for you. So I had to sit there and had to wait out the time, whatever it took for me to get sober enough to leave. And one of my cousins picked me up and brought me home. You'd think that would slow you down and be like, holy shit, that's going to DWI. I'm going to lose my license and all the repercussions that come from that. My first thought, I got back to my vehicle that was still in the same place I left it, and I saw three unopened beers in the front seat. I'm like, okay, it's Colorado.

It's, I think it was, dang, I don't know, it was cold, so it might have been October, and then beers are still cold. I'd cracked them open and started drinking again. I didn't skip a beat. You'd think I'd make the normal person slow down and think what's going to happen to you now. I didn't skip a beat. I just started drinking. I stayed there for those three months I had to go to court,

in anna court, ended up losing my license for a year, and did all the stuff that comes along with that. Came back to Missouri, got my license back. Did you have any thoughts during this time? It doesn't sound like it, but that alcohol was causing some chaos in your life or no? Looking back, no, not really. I thought, you know, I got a DWI.

That's not good, but it could be worse. I was thinking, I usually am trying to be the positive thinker. It could have been worse. I could have wrecked. Could have done this, could have done that. So in my eyes, I'm like, you got a DWI, you lost your license. Now what are you going to do? But I didn't really think at that point that I was having, like it had a problem yet.

So I just kept on my normal life. I didn't skip a beat. I didn't even let it affect me at all, really. Yeah. How are you feeling emotionally like throughout this time in your life? Do you get little glimpses of like how things actually are or is it just like the goals just to keep drinking all the time so that maybe can try to avoid that other stuff? Yeah, I guess I was thinking that I needed to probably do something different. Back then, like I said, 18 years old, I really didn't care. I just wanted to have fun. So I came back shortly after I got on McCourt, stuff, to Missouri again. And then I met, which is my second ex-wife.

So there's an interesting timeline there, but I was with her for quite a while. And then, in this, mind you, I've still been drinking every day, met her. She didn't drink much, but we didn't drink together. We went out partying once in a while, and she wasn't a big drinker, but I was, and she knew that I drank, and she didn't know how much I drank because I was hiding it from her and everybody. But we got into a health and wellness company, network marketing company, and we did quite well for quite a while, and I actually quit drinking for a while, because I didn't, I quit drinking for eight months. I was like, okay, obviously I didn't have a problem because I quit drinking with no trouble. I didn't even mean to quit drinking. I just got healthy and it just went hand in hand.

I didn't drink alcohol anymore. And through that company, we... Oh, I was 20. Okay. So I was 20. At that time, we had got through the company, we had earned a free cruise, the seven-day Caribbean cruise. And on the first day, we were sitting there in the atrium or whatever,

sitting at the bar, just taking it all in. And I'd been on several cruises before that, but I'm like, you think we want to get a drink and celebrate while we're here? What we did, and in my mind, I'm like, is this okay or not? And back then, I was like, yeah, that's fine, it's cool. From that day till I quit, I drink every day, every single day. So that was back on the roller coaster.

I punched my ticket again. I got right back on it. And it was just, it was crazy. And it was just like, I never quit. I never quit. It was just like I never quit. Yeah. That's quite the turn of events going from drinking and then jumping into the wellness thing there.

Yeah. Talk about two ends of the spectrum. Yeah. A lot of people share that, right? Like, you get some time. of not drinking and then the wheels start turning again. Of course, like, I can get back to this just being normal or I can just, it'll just be a one-offs

and I'll get back, get back to things. And a lot of people share with that. But it's so interesting, right? Because a lot of people who share that, they also share the next sentence that you talked about there. And it was right back to where it was eight months ago. And then usually gets worse over time, right? The longer we stick around.

Yep. Yep. It sure did. I was with her for a long time. We ended up getting married. and just ended up not working out. She was a night nurse, so she was working from 7.8 or 7 p.m. to 7 a.m.

Me coming home from the marina at whatever time I wanted to, I didn't have any rules. I didn't have any responsibility when I got home. I came home, I got drunk, and passed on the couch. And she never knew because I was gone by the top. She knew because she was very smart. She was not done by any means. Everybody knows.

You think they don't know, but they do know. They just don't know the extent of what you're doing. So anyway, her working nights made it easy for me to drink, and I didn't have to do anything. Being at the marina, people would say, hey, come up to a camper after work, or stop by and have a beer, and we have 100 campsites,

and by the time I make the three of them, I'm already cross-eyed and I end up waking up in the gravel. That part made it easy for me to drink and hide it at the same time because she was never home, which obviously that led, into our divorce because I was hiding it from her when I just wasn't the person that she married, which she's on my list of people that I wouldn't love to make amends to,

and I'm working through that. And I heard a lot of people that I cared about. I still care about, and I love. It brings a lot of shame when you go through something like this, just because I've heard in so many people's stories, just the lying and keeping it from everyone you love and lying to yourself. More importantly,

we don't think we have a problem until we think we might have a problem. And you ask yourself if you have a problem, you probably already have the problem. Yeah. No, good point there. Going through all of this, though, I mean, is anybody around you?

Obviously, your ex-wife there, It sounds like picked up on it or saw through what was going on. Is there anybody else around you too? Like at the workplace, right? Because I see that, man. I go to different trailer parks and stuff for the weekends. And man, the owner's son lives on site. Very similar story.

But you're saying, and it's what it is, right? Popping around to all the different places. And it just seems like in those environments. And it's obviously not what everybody's necessarily doing everywhere. But it is a big time to let loose. You don't have to drive anywhere. You're just kicking it. You're hanging out.

That environment really, I could see how it could really fuel. And you could really maybe hide out is the right word. You could really fit into that environment. Little do we know those people go home after the weekend. And some of them might carry on. Some of them it's just for the weekend. But for guys like us, weekend or weekday, we keep it going. Did anybody else mention anything to you?

There was times where people would say, hey, you probably ought to slow down. I met a lot of good people there at the marina and a lot of old timers that been around the block of time or two. And I had one especially close buddy in mind. He was one that I thought of as another grandfather figure to me. And I would ride the senior bus would take from Clinton. They'd take it up to Harris, Cannes City Casino. And he'd say, Eric, you want to ride with me on the bus? What bus?

The senior bus. So I'm like, oh, hell yeah. I'm going to ride the bus. I'm going to go gamble for a few hours, and I'm going to come home. And he'd come in to the marina and sit there, and he'd have two beers in the afternoon, two beers in the morning. And he'd look at me and he'd look over his glasses and he could tell I was hung over, which most time it wasn't really hung over. I was still drunk or drunk already in the morning.

And he'd say, you got drunk last night, didn't you? I'd say, yeah, Raymond, I did. you're going to learn. So there, I mean, there was definitely a lot of people and my dad who I'm very close to. And, I mean, my aunt's cousins, I mean, my dad's side of the family is they drink. I'm not going to say like big drinkers. I have some cousins that we all just go hunting and drink and drive around to shoot stuff and go out rabbit hunting that night and just drink. Like I said, out in western Kansas, there's not much else to do.

but drink. There was family members that would say, hey, you might want to slow down. And I'm like, yeah, okay, I will. It'll be all right. That was my line. It'll be all right. Yeah. It's almost like we convince ourselves, right, that it's just a phase. Eventually, we're going to wake up from this, this nightmare in a sense. We'll just wake up one day and things will just turn around. And I did anyway. I just believed that I would just wake up from all this. And then one day we do wake up and it's, oh, shoot, I want to stop, but I can't stop. Yeah, that's what it was. And after I got divorced from my first wife, I got another DWI.

And it basically, and that was 2016, I was 26 when I got the second one, and that was here in Missouri. And still, same reaction from my dad, I'm not doing nothing for you. You made the decision, you're doing it. you're dealing with it. I lost my license for three months that time. But so now I've got two DWIs. I've lost my license prior to my first DWI

for an amount of points off my license. So I've lost my license three times now, age 26, been divorced, and right now I'm just like, what else can I do? I was lost. I had been 14 years. without my mom. My dad remarried one time and he had gotten divorced.

Yes, there was lots of people who probably saw the early warning signs of where I was going. I just never listened to anybody. Yeah. Reflecting back there to the times where, you know, maybe it was mentioned or you're getting this other stuff like DUIs and divorce and stuff. What was going through your mind as this stuff was happening? Were you like, this is related to alcohol or this is what this stuff is happening? Or is it the other stuff we tell ourselves, right?

About, oh, it's just a one-off or I learned my lesson now. I'll figure it out next time. What are you thinking going through all this stuff? I was thinking you probably better listen to somebody at some point. But then I would think that maybe the morning after a big drunk, I'd say you wake up the next morning after DWI, And your second DWI, and you think, man, maybe you should slow down now. And then that last till 5 o'clock when you get off work and then all your worries go away again.

Still, I'm at the point where I'm really not having much care about anything. And then I met my next girlfriend, and she liked to drink. She was from Louisiana down there. And then Cajuns, they like to cook, and they like to cook. and they like to drink. So I was like, I got another match made in heaven. I'm at a marina. I have a woman that's a good cook and she likes to drink.

What could go wrong? Did you meet her at the marina? Yeah, I did. But that lasted a while. She was one of the people that went through. She didn't go through, but she was there when I had my worst days. my very worst days. She was there and I thank, I thank God for her every time I pray. Because without her, I don't actually know if I would have pulled through my withdrawals

and my everything that went along with actually stopping drinking. So I thank God for her every day. Do I blame her for any of my drinking? Absolutely not. Because I was, by the time that ended and I decided, I didn't decide, I had a decision made for me, but I was way past that. I was to where I didn't want to drink because I knew what it was doing to me. I didn't want to drink anymore, but I couldn't physically stock. Yeah, because of the withdraws. Yeah, backing up just a little. We had, me and her, we had decided we were going to try to get pregnant, and we tried and

it just didn't work out and it was just a pretty another heavy blow and she had to have some big surgeries to go along with some stuff and now I remember looking back she's laying in hospital bed and all I can think is how can I drink in here and I'm laying next to her and she's in a horrible place and all I'm thinking is I got to get out of here because I need a drink And it's horrible as it sounds I was so selfish and that's just the mindset I feel like we get in is how can I get my next drink? And it was just absolutely horrible. Yeah. And I think stories like that too and a lot of the different stories we hear on the show and stuff, I think that's what fuels the shame because we're stuck in that place of wondering.

obviously that this is important to be here, but you're also battling this addiction thing on the other side. So it's like picking between drinking or being there and it's like you can't be both places, right? And then that adds to the shame to be like, I used to go through that cycle all the time while I'm a bad person and I just can't get it right. But I always looked back, man, when I was having those really difficult, tough moments in my life asking myself that million dollar question, like how did one drink at one party or one drug end me up here? Like how in the head? How in the heck did this happen and time just seems to have flown by. And here I am with this wanting nothing more than to quit, but not being able to.

And it's a really difficult spot to be in. What were you going through at the end? And are you close in your story here to quitting? Yeah, we're getting pretty close. Me and her kind of decided I was at the point where I was drinking way too much, Drinking vodka from when I woke up to when I went to sleep, I would hide it and she would find it. I would hide it. She wouldn't find it.

I would hide it and I wouldn't find it because I forget where I hit it. I was at the point to where I'm drinking and I'm trying to plan my next drink before I even drink what I have. I'm trying to plan out my next morning. Am I going to have enough to get through my. morning, which is looking back is just absolutely ridiculous. And I was hiding vodka bottles and the seat back in my pickup and underneath the seats, little shooter bottles and my work gloves, just things that you're just looking back, you're just like, man. So I didn't have a problem actually physically quitting drinking because I have, I feel like I have a lot of willpower,

but I quit drinking and I told her I'm like, I'm done drinking. That's it. So I made it. A couple, first day was great. Second day was great. Third day was great. Fourth day, I'm like, holy cow, I'm doing this. I just quit drinking, and I've drank every day since I was in high school. And then the fifth day, I'm sitting on my couch, and I'm looking around, and I'm starting to, I'm just seeing, seeing things, hearing things. And I'm like, what in the hell is going on now?

I was having like visual and like audio hallucinations. And I had no idea what was going on. So I was freaking out because I thought I just quit drinking and I never even heard of people hallucinating from withdrawal. I didn't think I was bad enough to be in withdrawal. You know, because I always thought maybe is my body really depending on alcohol right now or I was always think I'm not that bad. surely I'm not that bad.

I hear about stories like withdrawal and people being dependent on alcohol and I'm like, I'm not that bad. No way until I was. And I'm hallucinating for two days straight. And her at the time, she's at the point where she's getting mad. Like she's mad at me. She's arguing with me. You're not seeing nothing.

And it was bad, man. And like I said, I thank God that she was there because. I couldn't have done it. And then so I got back on the train again. Started drinking more and more than the first time. And that lasted a month. And I was like, all right, I'm going to try it again. Day three, no alcohol, I start withdrawing again.

Hallucinating, terrified out of my mind. I don't. It was the craziest, craziest experience I've ever witnessed. I was laying in my bed crying. because I can't sleep because I think somebody's in my house. I'm terrified. I even one morning I called the cops because I thought somebody was trying to break into my garage outside. And they come and they're like, obviously there's nothing there.

But the cops show up and now I feel like an idiot because I'm hallucinating coming off of alcohol. And there's some more to add to the shame. It was just, it was absolutely terrible. then jump forward about another two weeks and I decided I was going to start trying to wean myself off and I ended up having, I had seizure and I was across the street here and she saw me from outside the window and called the paramedics and they said that I was just severely dehydrated in my mind. I'm like, could that have been from alcohol?

And they said, you're very lucky for the amount of time that you were seizing that you don't have any brain damage or whatever. And I'm like, okay, this is real. Like, there's a problem here. I'm throwing up every single morning. If I didn't throw up, something was wrong with me. I felt if I didn't throw up every single morning, that something was wrong. When was this? What year was this?

That was 2021. Oh. So this was like a back and forth thing of like you tried to quit, but then ended up with it. And did you have, I think you mentioned it before. Like you had no idea that this would, this could be part of the process. Like that alcohol could cause these other side effects by removing it. You didn't, you weren't aware of all that, were you? No, I had no idea. Like yeah. I never, I would shake and then I would take a shot and I would quit. So I'm like, okay, you got the shakes. That's probably not good. And I had no idea. that I could have hallucinations, seizures, the sweats and the shakes. Like, I had that all the time. I thought that was normal. And that was normal to me. That's my normal.

Waking up, puking, going to work, drinking, coming home, drinking, waking up, puking. That was my normal. I didn't care about none of that. It just, the hallucinations and the seizures was actually very terrified. And looking back, like, how lucky I actually was. to not have any brain damage from the seizure. It was in the middle of August when that happened.

So it was hot outside. I was sweating. I woke up and I blood all over me just because I almost bit my tongue in half. Were you working that day? Well, I mean, we were in the process of building my brother's house. And I was sweating profusely because it was like I was in the process of weaning myself down. So I had only one shot that day. and I was sweating so crazy

and my dad was like, hey, you don't look too good. You should probably get off the roof. I'm like, all right, see you later. And I stopped by and talked to my brother and I had heard this, like, when I was talking, it sounded, it was echoing in my head. And I don't know if anybody out there

has had anything like this, but it was echoing in my head, my own voice. And I asked my brother, I said, Does my voice sound weird to you? He looks at me like I had five heads. He's like, no, are you okay? And I'm like, I don't know, but I got to go home. And that day is when I had that seizure.

So I don't know what brought that on, but it was not good. Yeah. Oh, see, you probably got a pretty good idea, don't you? Not drinking as much as you were drinking. Yeah, that's exactly it. Like, I knew it was from the alcohol. I couldn't, my body physically needed it, and that was it. And my ex's birthday was September 5th, so we had a big old cookout.

I don't remember the cookout, don't remember any of it. And the next day, I was still drunk throughout that whole day after her birthday. And then the next memory I have is sitting in the front seat of my dad's pickup with my brother and my dad. and in there and we're driving around and they basically pulled over and they said, Eric, you're getting help. And instantly, that hit me like a brick.

Finally, I, finally, I admitted to myself, you have a problem. So they picked me up, like I said, I don't know exactly where they picked me up, but all I know is they said, you're getting on a plane and you're going down to Florida to a rehab.

They said, will you go for us? And I couldn't say no. I wanted to quit, and I knew if I quit again by myself, I couldn't do it. Like, I could quit physically, but I was so terrified of those hallucinations. I was so scared that I didn't want to go through that again, because I was so scared that I was scared that I would either hurt myself or I would either hurt someone. thinking that I'm hallucinating. I have no idea what I'm doing. So at that point,

I didn't even care about drinking to get drunk. I didn't even get drunk for a month. I was just drinking to give my body what it needed. And then I agreed. I went down in Florida and Port St. Lucie, and they spent seven days in a rehab down there. And I knew I told myself on the way there I was drinking before they picked me up.

I figured I might as well get one last, before I went to where I'd be unknown, because I was always the person, the stereotype is, oh my God, you went to rehab. You must have been really messed up. But I didn't want to go, but I knew I couldn't do it alone. And I feel like if there's anything that somebody can take from trying to get sober or be sober,

is you don't have to be alone. You don't have to. You can ask for help and it's no shame. I was one of the most shameful people there was probably. I still am. I carry a lot of shame every day. But I'm so thankful. They picked me up.

They saved my life that day. And so thankful. What day was that? September 7th was my sober date, 2021. So did they know about the hallucinations and stuff for you when you were trying to quit or no? No. They didn't, and they had no idea. It wasn't until I went to a therapy session after I got out of rehab,

and I went with my dad to therapy, and I told him, I said, Dad, I was hallucinating all day, and we were working. I was working with him, construction, and I was hallucinating all day. And he had no idea. He had no idea. So you go for this, you go for this seven days. So this is a detox program for you, medical detox, probably supervised, right? Yeah. And how did you find that experience differ from doing it on your own?

I knew that there was going to be medication where I wouldn't have the hallucinations. And if I did, then I was supervised. I was in a safe place. I wasn't going to hurt anybody. I was fine. I was seeing doctors three times a day, psychiatrists, everything. And I feel like I'm so glad I went there. Looking back, I don't know what I would have done without going there. Yeah. And that's the thing too. I think that's why your message there is so important about getting help and support. Yeah, I would, if you're on the fence or if you just don't think you can do it, if you've had the shit scared out of you from hallucinations and you're scared, don't be because they can help you. And I was more scared in my entire life. But looking back on that hallucination deal, like, I was prepared. There was one portion of that where I literally was prepared to die because what I was going, what was happening, I was going to die. I told her at the time, I said, you know, tell my dad what happened to me

because I thought I was going to die. And, you know, I was looking back at doing just some, like some, I know Google, but I was seeing. different things and animals and this i was being basically constricted by a snake and i i looked in a google you know snake as far as like spirits that da da da and i don't have the exactial term analogy or whatever it said but a snake if you see a snake it's metaphorically a big event is coming where you're shedding your old self to prepare for a new self as a snake would do.

So looking back from that happening, the most terrified I've ever been, shows me a good new future. So that had to happen in my mind, that happening was a good thing because it showed me it was for a purpose. You know, I shed that old life and now I've been, I haven't taken a drink since three years sober and just crazy craziness to me. I mean, it gives me chills. Yeah. So, I mean, how does this all go from there? Because, I mean, that's incredible, right? For three years. I mean, what a beautiful thing from where you were with life. And I mean, how you've been living

for a long time. How do you start to get engaged in the healing process when you're not drinking? Because You know, you take away that the drinking of course causes a ton of problems in our life. But you have other events in your life, right? With your mom passing and other stuff and that shame and everything else that you've been carrying around for a long time. How do you begin to unpack some of that and begin the healing process, you know, when you decide to quit drinking? Yeah, so I've spent all these years, you know, being mad at God for taking my mom. I spent all those years just absolutely pissed off at God for doing that to me. You know, why would you do that to me?

Why? And I hear, you know, a lot of stories of the same thing happening. You know, we're all mad of what happened and why, why, why we question God. And, you know, it took me till coming home on that flight home to forgive God. I forgave him for what he did to me. you know and that took a big a big weight off my shoulders i mean it was hard for me to do that because our family didn't deserve that but you know looking back if i hadn't gone through all that stuff all that pain all that hurt i wouldn't be where i was today you know i wouldn't

have a story that may change someone's life or save someone's life and that's all i can hope for is just somebody picks up a nugget that may help them get over that hump, get help, whatever, you know, whatever it may be, you're not alone. And the healing for me is not done. I mean, I still carry shame. I found, after I got back from rehab, me and my previous week, we parted ways. And we still, I mean, we still chit-chat from now and then. She's still big support.

And, like I said, I'm thankful for her. but I got with my next ex-wife. I'd known her for a long time, and we had a child together, and we got married and we wanted to have children. We tried, and the first time didn't really end up how we would have wanted, but now we have a beautiful son, Dexter, and he was born May 5th, 2023, And he's my new reason for staying sober.

I mean, every day, every day, I'm not going to sit here, Brad, and tell you that every day I don't want to have a drink. But I look at him and I see what God gave me when everything happens for a reason. I'm a firm believer in that. And every day when I want to drink because I had a hard day or just because I want that feeling again, I look at him and he's enough. I mean, there ain't nothing in the world that's going to make me drink. Yeah. Beautiful, man.

And that was, what, about one and a half years ago for a dexter? Is that how old he is? Yeah, he's one and a half. And actually shortly after he was born, me and his mother, we had some rough patches. And, you know, she was dealing with some postpartum stuff. and we just weren't getting along, and it was causing me a lot, a lot of anxiety, and, you know, I'm fighting my own demons here,

and I'm trying to be there for her, and her childhood wasn't the best. She's trying to deal with some of her personal stuff, and, you know, it was causing a lot of, a lot, a lot of just conflict between us, and I chose to stay sober, and we kind of split ways, and we had recently got divorced,

And, you know, we still talk every day. We're trying to make things better, and we're making it work for Dexter. And I chose to be sober. And that's another deal that adds to my shame, you know, that my past led to that. And I carry that. And it's pretty heavy, you know. And my past is having an effect on his life already, and I'm not going to let that happen. So I'm going to work my ass off to do something about that.

But, yeah, 100%. I mean, how do you feel about yourself now? I mean, you've kind of went back and forth too, which is completely understandable about, you know, still in the healing process, which I think, you know, all of us are in our own way throughout this, right? We can't turn decades around overnight.

It takes time. It would have been some of the really good things that have happened in your life, you know, while on this journey in the last couple years. So, I started going to AA. A, you know, I've met a lot of great people. I go to a group. My home group, I guess, would be in about 35 minutes away up in Harrisonville.

I feel it's a good place to go after a hard day just to open up, get it off a chest, whatever. You know, somebody's going to relate, you're going to relate. And I met a lot of good people in there. I started going to CR. We have a great celebrate recovery here in Clinton. I've been going there ever since I got sober and, you know, it took me almost three years to walk up onto that stage and hit my knees and give it to God. And three years it took me and I cried like a baby.

But it was so liberating to, you know, to be up there. And every time I walk through those doors of that place, I get chills. And that's, something's tugging at me, you know, something. There's there. It's there. It's just, and you know, you go into those CRs and you see the people and you know what they've been through. You know there's people there that, you know, have given their life to try to get sober and just can't get over that hump. It's a big thing that I would think is just huge, is no matter how many times you fail, you know, I would rather fail a hundred times than

fail to even try. You got to try. And if you don't try, you won't fail. Yeah, fail forward, right? Sail forward. Forward. I love that, man. So you plugged into a couple communities. You know, I used to love

Celebrity Recovery, too. Moons ago, many moons ago, I used to really connect with the community aspect part of it and, you know, the different formats that the groups offer. Huge congrats, Eric, on everything, man. And, you know, I really appreciate the, you know, the part of your story where it's like you're still writing it. You're still a work in progress.

You know, as we all are, I think some of us are more aware than maybe others at different points of their journey that there's a long way to go. That drinking is not going to, you know, fix anything or do any of that stuff for us. I mean, you've broken down that barrier. And just what incredible progress, man. and having your son as motivation and inspiration is beautiful. It was really beautiful just to show I think the next generation is the best we can. I mean, we can't, you know, ultimately as parents, we can't control, you know, what's to come or what they're going to go.

But I think what we can do is we can set an example that's okay for conversation and for struggle. And I don't know if you had that. I reflect back sort of on my journey and that probably was available, but I just didn't know how to do it. I didn't know how to talk to people around me, my parents or anything. They were great. They were incredible. But I didn't know how to talk about stuff I was struggling with. I had no idea.

And it took a long time to learn that. I'm thinking of somebody listening to the episode, Eric, you know, stuck somewhere in the middle here. We're trying to figure it out and trying to get on track for things. I mean, what from your own journey would you share with them to help them keep going? Just don't, don't give up because you never know what's around the corner. You never know what you might hear at that next meeting or at the next celebrate recovery or you never know. Someone may reach out to you, may see what you're doing. You know, like through my journey, I've had a lot of people that come out of the woodwork that support me that say, hey, I've seen you on Facebook and keep going, you know.

A lot of people I used to work with and I work with now, like have had a huge impact in my recovery because they're seeing me. And they're reaching out to me like, hey, Eric, you know, what could I do to maybe stop drinking? What did you do instead of drinking? You know, I've had people reach out to me that I haven't talked to in years. And, you know, and that to me is just keep moving because people are watching you. You're giving them hope. And that, I feel like hope is probably one of the biggest, biggest things in recovery. I've got getting chills right now.

Gosh, thank you. But I just, I feel like don't give up. Because no matter how bad do you think you have it, no matter how many times you've relapsed, if you have one day sober or 20 years sober, someone out there would trade you places in a heartbeat. No matter how bad do you have it. So I wouldn't give up.

Keep going. People are watching you. If you can do it, they can do it. Be someone else's hope that there is actual life after drinking. I mean, don't forget the reason why you got sober and don't forget the reason why you are still sober. If you're still sober, congratulations on another day.

You know, one day at a time, if it has to take you 10 minutes at a time, who cares? Slow and said he wins the race, you know? Just don't give up the hope. Yeah, beautiful, man. Well, thank you so much, Eric, for jumping on here and sharing your story with all of us. Thank you, Brad.

I appreciate your time and everything you're doing for the sober community. I hope that somebody picked up a nugget from me. Keep on, keeping on, and one day at a time. Yeah, thanks, man. Well, there it is another incredible episode here on the podcast. Thank you, everybody, for checking it out. Eric doesn't have Instagram, so he's giving me his email address. I'll drop that down in the show notes below.

If you enjoyed his story or just want to send it. him a note and say thank you. I know that would mean the world to him. So I'll drop his email down on the show notes below and I'll see you on the next one.