Sober Motivation: Sharing Sobriety Stories - Alcohol Use Disorder - Tom's Sober Story

Episode Date: November 24, 2025

For Tom, childhood was filled with positive memories—nothing that hinted he’d ever struggle with alcohol. After college, he stepped into his career, a world where late nights out were normal, and alcohol made social connections feel easier. At first, everything seemed under control. But when the pandemic hit, and isolation became a daily reality, drinking slowly picked up speed. Tom didn’t have what many would call a “rock bottom,” but internally, he felt the truth: something had to change. This is Tom’s journey of honesty, self-awareness, and choosing a different path.   Check out the Just Between Us Podcast: https://app.helloaudio.fm/feed/07bfba32-e173-41c6-973e-ceee488187c7/signup   00:00 Introduction and Guest Welcome 00:20 Tom's Childhood and Upbringing 01:43 College Life and Fraternity Influence 04:09 Post-College Career and Move to Boston 12:12 Pandemic Impact and Realization 16:42 The Struggle with Alcohol 23:06 The Hidden Truth About Alcohol's Impact on Society 23:55 The Dopamine Connection: Alcohol and Gambling 24:57 Personal Reflections: Evaluating Life Choices 26:05 The Decade Mark: Recognizing the Need for Change 26:50 The Internal Struggle: Awareness and Denial 27:41 The Turning Point: Family and Sobriety 31:20 Navigating Sobriety: Slips and Progress 36:20 Therapy and Support: Tools for Sobriety 40:58 The Journey Continues: Embracing Change 44:45 Final Thoughts: Encouragement and Suppor

Welcome back to season four of the Super Motivation Podcast. Join me, Brad, each week as my guests and I share incredible and powerful sobriety stories. We're here to show sorority as possible, one story at a time. Let's go. For Tom, childhood was filled with positive memories. Nothing that hinted he'd ever struggled with alcohol. After college, he stepped into his career. A world where late nights out were normal.

And alcohol made social connection feel easier. At first, everything seemed under control, but when the pandemic hit and isolation became a daily reality, drinking slowly picked up speed. Tom didn't have what many would call a rock bottom, but internally, he felt the truth. Something had to change. And this is Tom's story on the sober motivation podcast. Grateful to have you back for yet again another episode heading into the holidays. The U.S. Thanksgiving is coming up, and then after that, you got to have you. all know what we have it can be called the vermuda triangle of sobriety these holidays can trip up a lot of people

i want to mention too we are off and running with the just between us sober motivation podcast my brand new podcast and it's literally just between us i'll drop the link to get some more information down in the show notes below where you can get signed up getting your podcast player more episodes are coming out and i would love to have you there this is going to be a very intimate space where there's going to be a lot more storytelling. For me personally, it's not going to be about bringing on guests and going through their entire story. Although, I know that's what we all love.

But if you wanted to know a little bit more of the behind the scenes and how I got to where I'm at and the tools that I'm applying in my life today to stay sober and connecting with some cool friends along the way, I would love to have you check out the sober motivation just between us podcast feed. You won't be able to find it by searching Apple or Spotify. podcast. It's a private podcast. And there's reasons for that. And I'll talk about that in the show with a new episode coming out soon. So hope to see a few of you there. Now let's get to this episode. Welcome back to another episode of the Sober Motivation podcast. Today we've got Tom

with us. Tom, how are you? I'm doing great, Brad. Really excited to be with you here today. Yes, I am excited to have you here today, a longtime listener of the show, which I always love connecting with people that listen to the show and it's helped them out in one way or another. What were things like for you growing up? Yeah, so I had a great childhood. I grew up in central New York, two loving parents. I have three younger sisters and things were great growing up. I played sports. We did a lot of family activities. Came from relatively religious family. We go to church every Sunday and give thanks for what we have. And I was really grateful for what my parents had given me.

You know, one of the greatest staples that I've gotten in my life was playing sports, but then also my parents were very adamant about me doing martial arts. So I actually did martial arts for 12 years in my life. And that really helped instill some fundamental skills and values into me, like respect, self-control, discipline, integrity, perseverance, and courage. So these things have carried through to today. And now I'm trying to instill that into my little ones. Yeah, wow, that's beautiful.

Yeah, martial arts. Does that work you up 12 years to a black belt, or how does that go? A second degree, a bit rusty, but yeah, I do technically have my second degree, yeah. Yeah, so interesting story. I mean, you've listened to a lot of the episodes, and we kind of have maybe two, three, four different ways people grow up, right? I think sort of like maybe the stigma out there, too, is like, oh, people that struggle are going to struggle.

It's rough from the beginning, and it's definitely not always the case at all. what does life feel like as you kind of go through those younger years and school and everything else that's kind of going on a lot of memories there for you yeah like I said I there was no I guess you could say cornerstone traumatic event that had pushed me in any particular direction right I was a very astute individual I was always on the honors role I was in the you know top of my class and I worked really diligently to be able to actually garner some college credits while I was in high school. So I went into college with 18 credits. I'm a big scientist myself. I studied biochemistry and finance. And, you know, I love the sciences. I still practice the sciences

today. And so, yeah, I think it was mainly just me getting involved in certain things in college, particularly I was in a fraternity that normalized certain behavior. And I think that put me on a different trajectory. But it's interesting because it was almost like a delayed onset. Albeit I was in a fraternity when I was in college, I was still very busy. You can't be going out, getting drunk all the time and passing your organic chemistry exams or, you know, double majoring while you're in college. So it was really until when I got older and I actually had money to spend that things started to change for me. Yeah, so you have that experience in college, but you're still doing everything you need to do, you know, showing up, not experiencing. It doesn't sound like

in any way any consequences or sort of any repercussions of drinking. It's just maybe overly normalized. Yeah, I would say, you know, I've done a lot of research on this topic since, you know, I've made the profound change to become sober myself. And I think that one of the most frustrating things is that about 30 million Americans are living with alcohol use disorder, right? So that's one out of every 10 people is struggling with this disease, right? And it's not so much a problem of a few weak individuals. It's really just that culture normalizes the excess. Yeah. Yeah, it does. It definitely does for sure. How do things feel like for you after college? I mean, or is there anything else to kind of touch on for sort of your college experience there? Or college was

great. I really did enjoy myself, right? I wasn't a fraternity, had parties on the weekends, you know, had a great time. And then I graduated and I worked at a pharmaceutical company as a research scientist. And then from there, I actually moved into the commercial side of things. So now I'm in business development and sales where I'm selling commercial tools, life science tools to researchers and I'm supporting them. So I work with pharmaceutical companies, academic research centers, contract research organizations. And I moved up to Boston. And so after college, I moved to Boston. And I think that's where things really started to change. Right. I myself am an all or nothing person. And that is just who I am. Right. And so when I'm interested in

something, I dive right in. And that could be alcohol. That could be science. Right. It could be sports. And I think that, you know, that's something that I've come to realize as I've taken a step back over the past three years to evaluate who am I? Why am I doing the things that I am doing? And in moving to Boston and in particular moving into sales, I think that's really what it ignited something inside of me that it turned me in a direction that I didn't like. And it took me a while to move away from that, right? I mean, this was 10 years later that I made this change after moving to Boston and participating in what I like to call the roller coaster, right? You know, you go out on Thursday. It's Thursday. You go out, you meet up with your buddy.

he's at the bar and next thing you know it's sunday and you're just having a few drinks to feel normal while you're watching football uh and you got the sunday scary setting in and uh monday comes around you feel awful you feel great by thursday but then that roller coaster is just going right back up again yeah yeah and then we tell ourselves too like we're gonna uh take it easy or we're going to do things differently and then we we often find ourselves right back in the spot where we, you know, maybe made that commitment with ourselves or had that conversation or however it goes that we don't want to do it again. Interesting you bring that up to all or nothing. And I would love if you have any more insight on that for yourself. I hear that a lot from people that struggle

with this, right? It's either, you know, even when people get sober, right? It might be like all in on the gym now or all in on the career now or all in here or there. And I think that's a very real thing. I mean, what do you see as sort of how that's developed over time in your life to get you to, you know, maybe that spot. And you know, the other interesting part, too, is that I think it serves us really well in some areas, right? Because I imagine you'll go back in school and all of that. You're doing so well, right? You're all in. You're just, you know, going at it, getting really good results.

But then it's sort of the flip side of it when the alcohol comes in. Now you're all in here. And it's like, okay, it's so slippery. So any insight to where or how that? that came about for your life? Yeah, it's a good question, Brad. I would say that a lot of that probably stems from my early years where I did martial arts and I was very focused on refining and becoming somewhat of a perfectionist

in a craft, right? And that also was instilled in my educational years, too. I wanted to be the best. I wanted to be the smartest. I wanted to be the top, right? I wanted to be able to hold that crown, if you will, in terms of, you know, all the hard work and dedication that I put into things to pay off, I guess, right? And as I had mentioned, when it came to alcohol, that also was the mentality that I had. I always wanted to be the guy

that's buying shots and, you know, buying rounds for everyone and, you know, being that outgoing and fun guy to be with, right? And it's interesting that you had mentioned, you know, working out. And I would say that that has been a paramount part of my recovery process is channeling that energy and that focus into exercise. And what I'm seeing is a huge trend now, which is the longevity medicine, right, and all these people that are looking at biohacking, right? I think that's something that I really try and embody now

is understanding your body is a machine, right? And alcohol is not the fuel that you want to put in it if you want to live along and fulfilling life. Yeah, yeah, that's beautiful. And that has come up a lot over the years in the podcast, too, doing things perfectly, which can be tough, right? There's a lot of pressure in that area to, you know, to make things right. I always wonder, too, I mean, is that tied to self-esteem or value on the internal side of things?

I would say, yeah, yeah. Yeah, and then, I mean, the all or nothing, too, because I think, you know, people get into sobriety and like, I got to get rid of this. I got to get rid of it. And, I mean, I think it's like everything in life is there's this balance, right? I mean, if you're just getting sober, going to the gym six times a day, it's probably a bit much. But I feel like it's still like that superpower that we can harness, you know, if we use it appropriately other than for like the stuff that's not helping us in finding that balance. But also, I think trying to do everything perfect can be overwhelming, you know, as well.

I'm like the opposite of that. I'm like the done is better than perfect. You know, that's just my thing. Like so many things that I do is so. far from perfect you know there could probably be some room for improvement but yeah you know i do hear that a lot with people too about maybe the pressures of doing well and in succeeding too can you know maybe feel a little bit heavy what were you like outside of the drinking because you said you're wanting to buy shots and really um maybe be extroverted in a way and in connect how were you outside

of that i mean was that your personality in all areas of life yeah you know what's really interesting, Brad, is I've always been an outgoing and extroverted individual, right? And I've always participated in consuming alcohol as part of fitting in, right? It's never been this substance that I needed to feel like I could talk to people or feel like I feel okay in myself. I've always been very confident in who I am. So I feel like I have a rather unique story in how I found myself with alcohol because it was more of a substance addiction that I developed through chronic usage more so than, you know, wanting to lean into it for purposes of trying to, like, fit in or feel a part of something. I think the other thing, too, is I'm naturally just

very competitive, right? And I think that also kind of plays into how when I moved into sales, in particular, you go to these sales meetings and it's free booze and free food and you get a bunch of type eight people all in the same room and everyone's trying to, you know, one up each other. It's a very competitive environment. And I think that, I guess for a metaphor, was like gasoline on a fire, right? That really just kind of crank things up a notch, not to mention when, you know, where I lived in Boston, a southeast, right? South Boston's, you know, it's a very gentrified area. A lot of young, affluent individuals that are living there. And, you know, I think that was also part of the status quo is, you know, going out, being part of the Joneses, if you will, right?

keeping up with the Joneses, I think I definitely fell into that pattern and that just kind of snowballed from there. Yeah. Thanks for sharing that too. Is there any time in sort of your story earlier on that you had any awareness or clarity of like maybe this is a problem or maybe I'm doing a little bit too much or did that kind of come later for you? I would say that I definitely knew that something was off. I think that you can anecdotally take a step back and say, wow, I actually feel pretty good if I don't drink alcohol for a few days. But then I felt these societal pressures to partake and to continue to go out and be in that scene, right? And I think that's really the dangerous and slippery slope that a lot of people deal with, which is everyone else is doing it. So why can't I?

And I think that's a, it's a dangerous place that a lot of people do find themselves in. And I would say that it was acceptable up until we got to the pandemic. And that is when things really changed for me, where I started to become more closed off. We couldn't see anybody, right? We couldn't travel. We couldn't be out in the world. And I think that I turned inward and I found myself drinking more. And unfortunately, really affecting a lot of people, one of the,

of the few places that were still open were liquor stores, right? And so I don't think that I'm alone in that during that dark time of the pandemic from 2020 through really like 22, 23, a lot of people felt like alcohol gave them some comfort in knowing that they're not going to be able to see family. They're not going to be able to see friends, right? And as I mentioned earlier, I'm a very extroverted outgoing individual and I thrive off of those kind of environments. And as much as Zoom or FaceTime is nice to have, it doesn't replace those in-person interactions. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, it affected a lot of people, and it's interesting, you bring that up, because I feel like people here anyway in Ontario, they'd closed everything in Canada here,

and people were kind of scratching their heads about why they were leaving, they sell beer at a beer store and they sell liquor at an LCBO so it's like two of their own kind of stores and people were scratching their heads on why is everything else closed down except for the stores and I think what people came to realize if they didn't already some people who were open and willing to listen is the withdrawal symptoms that people can have I mean alcohol is one of the drugs you know I feel like for a long time we always said drugs and alcohol you know when I did the dare program and everything it was like drug it was almost like two different categories of of things right it had been alcohol always kind of stood on its own it felt like anyway and you got to really really

watch out for the drugs you know that was like red flag red flag but this yellow flag be cautious but you know that was the way it was kind of explained and but then people kind of came to realize too like wondering why these stores are the only ones left open and that was the reality of it because some people that were heavily addicted. I mean, you had to have it to keep going. I mean, you could go into withdrawal and die, and it's one of the only drugs. I mean, that and the benzodiazepines, X, and all of that, too, are the two main ones that the withdrawal symptoms can be deadly.

So, yeah, that was kind of an interesting thing. And then you're right. I mean, we have all of our routines and our connection and our communities and everything. And then it shuts down. And, I mean, you're definitely not alone at all. I mean, if you listed off sort of the stats of people that struggle with substance use disorder or alcohol use disorder, and yeah, leaning in, man, it became a lot of people's best friend. You know, the interesting part about this is too, Tom, which I've kind of picked up, and I'm not saying it's better or worse. I'm just saying this is what I've noticed, is that that period of time really sped things up for people.

You know, so is it better or is it worse? I don't know, but I feel like a lot of people were able to come to the conclusion or have the awareness and clarity, maybe a lot sooner than if this thing took a slow burn for the next 10, 20, 30 years, decades, because it can. And it kind of brought it to the forefront. I mean, was that kind of your experience or no? I think you nailed it, Brad. I knew that what I was participating in was unsustainable, right?

So I was in my later 20s and just about to turn 30 as 2020 approach, right? And I found the hangovers to get worse and worse. And you know, you start to find these patterns that you get into where once again, it's completely normalized like, hey, we went out, feel like garbage last night was a movie, right? You know, all these like discussions that people like to have. Yeah. But then it's like, oh, let's go to brunch. Let's get mimos.

Let's get bloodies. You know, we'll just kind of ease back. into reality and that's that's very common right i mean it's actually idolized in hollywood and the movies and these shows right and it's so from like a societal level it's it's uh it's very much acceptable or you know on surface level it seems acceptable but then as the pandemic ensued i found myself it's completely fine to have a bottle of wine on a tuesday night right it's not like somebody's going to smell my breath over zoom the next day right and i think that a lot of individuals that I've listened to on your podcast too are in this category of functioning

alcoholic, right, where everything is fine in terms of like a mental capacity. They're able to produce. They're able to interact. Obviously, that can fall off the rails if you go a bit too far with it. But overall, you know, I found myself in that position of, yeah, I'm going to have a bottle of wine tonight and yeah, I'll feel like garbage tomorrow, but I'll make it to like four or five p.m. and I'll have a few drinks and we'll be fine, right? And, um, and, that's just a that's a miserable life right you it's just i found myself doing that and well in the moment and i like to look at it being akin to a band-aid right that you put water on like it's sure it helps cover the wound for the moment you feel okay but eventually it's going to get soggy it's

going to fall off and it's just going to be the wound's still there right and so you can't you can't pretend like it's gone yeah and that's a good way good good way to put it there too it's like a band-aid it that's kind of like the question that i might pitch to people sometimes if not now when you know because sometimes i think that we want to believe that things are going to get back to maybe how they once were or we're going to be able to figure this out or we're not going to have the consequences of maybe the emotional pain or the hangovers or everything like that but i think the reality is for most people i can't speak for everybody obviously but i think for most people like it's just progressive and the longer you keep it around the more you open yourselves up

you know i mean i hear so many stories of people they're kind of cruising along like it sounds a lot like you were things are there's no you know life is not falling apart but the longer we stick around there's i feel like there's just so much unpredictability when i go to events and stuff concerts and everything i feel like i'm always on the lookout for the unpredictability of of people drinking right and in how they change and if you you know i was no different it was the same for me it was unpredictable i didn't know when i would take it too far when things would you know go sideways most of the time they were okay i didn't feel good in the morning and i wasn't really happy with how i was showing up what about on the inside you know because i think that that's where a lot of

people who kind of quote unquote are functioning and things are going well which can be a very confusing place to be, right? Because we see the movies and we see the stories on intervention and we see all of this and it's like, oh man, I'm so far from there. Like, I'm good to go. What about on the inside? How were you feeling about how things were going for you? Yeah, I had tremendous guilt. Like I knew in the back of my mind that what I was doing was destructive, right? I studied biochemistry. Like I understand the whole process of ethanol to acetyldehyde to acetate, right? It's this, and it's worth noting, too, now I work in the field of oncology and genetics, and so I think it's somewhat fascinating and somewhat astonishing that in the

world that we live in today, that this class one carcinogen is still promoted the way it is, right? It's well understood, it's well documented, that this substance is really harmful, especially when consumed in excess. And I think that there are some societal and economic underpinnings that keep it where it is, right? And so that's, you know, one of the other things that I wanted to get across to the audience here today is that you're not alone, right? If you're struggling with this, it's by design. And so I hope that your viewers and, you know, the listeners out there can understand that if you feel like you are looking to make a change, I implore you to reach out to those around you for support because it's very difficult to do on your own.

I couldn't have done it by myself, right? Without my family, without therapy, I went through cognitive behavioral therapy to really get to the root cause of why am I doing what I'm doing. I went through that process of, oh, yeah, I'll just have light beer. Famous last words, dude. Like famous last words. Yeah. Because one turns into two, two turns into four, four turns into eight. it's just you you will always go back to this pattern of alcohol and unfortunately that's

just allow how a lot of us are hardwired right yeah and so much more is coming to the surface now which it is so interesting you bring that up just the marketing and the promotion and you see the billboards and the commercials and everybody's having a good time and everything like that and it's just so far from the truth for the vast majority people when do you because you're right in there with this stuff man when do you see the shift in us as in like the world getting the truth about the impacts of alcohol i feel like for the longest time i mean i didn't have any idea none of this stuff was kind of on my radar for a long time um what what did you see kind of out there in your world when we started to really get the truth or has it always been there we just weren't

looking for it it just wasn't in front of us yeah It's kind of funny. I always think back to when I was in a research lab, right? And I would be underneath a fume hood and I would be working with cultured cells and I'd be running experiments. And it always struck me as strange that the one thing that I would use as a potent disinfectant when I was in a fume hood because you need to have sterility when you're in these fume hood is 100% ethanol, which is basically what you're consuming. fundamentally vodka is just 40%, not 100%, so there's just 60% water that's added to it. And that always stuck in the back of my mind,

like, wow, I'm spraying this to kill anything and everything that is inside this fume hood, and then we are voluntarily consuming it to elicit this effect that is somewhat of a side effect of the substance itself. I think that from like the societal and marketing perspective, we've had alcohol for thousands of years, right? early on with meat and wine and beer.

And it was actually considered quite valuable back when the potability of water was actually quite concerning, right? Water oftentimes made you very sick. There was dysentery or listeria. There was these horrid diseases and beer or wine would not carry these deadly pathogens because they couldn't thrive in that environment, right? And so getting back to your question around the societal or marketing side of things, I don't know. I truly think that there is forces at power that don't want this truth to bubble to the top because it's underpinning a lot of things in our economy, right?

I mean, think about that industry itself, which is big alcohol. There is a lot, a lot of money that's in there. And to think about all the restaurants or bars that are that are kind of, you know, this spider network that falls underneath all of that, you're talking about billions and billions of dollars. revenue that that could be perturbed, right? I think tangentially to that, right, because a lot of this, when I think about it from a biochemical standpoint, is these industries are thriving off our doponinergic pathway, right, which is dopamine. And I'm sure that, you know, you've heard of this before and a lot of others have talked about this in this space. And we're seeing a similar trend happening now with sports gambling, right? These companies are getting away with these applications where somebody used to have to go to a casino to place a bet and to be able to gamble but now somebody can do that on their couch somebody could do an eight leg parlay on their

couch while drinking a beer and it's completely fine and it's completely fine because the government has basically told you in small very very small font at the bottom of an advertising that please responsible game or please gamble responsibly or please drink responsibly right uh and so it's got the stamp of approval. Just because someone said that you can do it, doesn't mean that it's good for you, right? And I think that's something that I've come to find out since taking a step back and really evaluating, what am I doing? What am I doing to myself? What do I want in life? And it wasn't really until, you know, my wife and I were getting ready to welcome my daughter into this world that I really needed to take that step back and understand, like, what do I want for my family? What do I want for my

future. Do I want to stay on this roller coaster or do I want to be able to be available, be present and be who I want to be? Yeah, yeah. And connecting those dots, I think, is part of the journey for a lot of people. Alcohol is holding us back. And I think, yeah, and I think it's easy for us to say, and I think maybe we all go through it in our own way, right? It's got to be this or if I do that, like just to try to make things work to keep it around, you know, kind of some people share like make excuses, you know, for the alcohol, right? Maybe it's this. Maybe, maybe, you know, everybody's different, but maybe it's the job. Maybe it's their relationship. Maybe it's these friends. Maybe it's this. And it takes some time. I mean, you shared kind of that 10 year mark.

And a lot of people share that. I don't know what it is about like sort of that decade mark of like, hey, I kind of am having thoughts of my life could be better without this. This might be causing some friction or this is causing some friction. And then like that decade mark of like, okay, it's time to make the jump. And then you share about how it's impacting you internally. And that's kind of the thing that I think can keep us hidden for a bit. Right? If you break your arm, then everybody says, oh, you broke your arm, you know?

Do you need help with stuff? Everybody's there to help you out with this thing. I mean, with the guilt and the shame involved and us struggling internally, people might not pick up on it. You know, it's almost kind of like there's two sides to this I look at, right? There's your story here where it's this internal tug of war, right? I know if I wasn't doing this, I would be in a better spot or could potentially have that. And then there's the other side where it's completely obvious to everybody that, you know, Brad's got a problem with alcohol. and they're both very difficult to get out of.

You know, I mean, if you're towards the end of the spectrum and the elevators completely in the basement, it's like, okay, you're kind of starting maybe from scratch in some ways. But the other side of things, too, is that being honest with ourselves, that, hey, I might not be having all of this stuff happening around me, but I still know something that's going on. And the other side of that, too, that always kind of blows me away is that some people have awareness that this is impacting their life and some people don't and that's a really interesting thing to me as well so you mentioned your wife too did anybody around you ever say anything that hey what

you know is this something to have a look at or or was this kind of came from within it was combinatorial right i think it was both something from within me and then and my wife when she got pregnant and my drinking partner stopped drinking it became blatantly obvious what what was going on right the normalization and just we're going to have some drinks frequently right and then when that stopped it became the data was able to be normalized so it's like you're not partaking but i still am and i think that's really when things started to accelerate rapidly in terms of i have a problem it used to be we are doing this together everything is is fine family events social events everything is okay. Sure, I'm definitely drinking in excess, but so was everyone else, right? Or so I thought.

That's the other component too, right? A lot of times you delude yourself into thinking like, oh, yeah, that guy also had five beers, like whatever, I had five beers. Irrespective of that, five beers and one occasion is also not healthy in general, right? And so it wasn't really until my wife got pregnant and we were about three months away from welcoming my little girl into this world where my wife did have to have that conversation with me like you can't like you can't do this anymore this is unacceptable and I knew at that time at that moment which is going to be three three years in about three weeks from right now I just I could not bear the thought of being that person in front of my my daughter right like I just couldn't

couldn't think of it. And I'm proud to be with you here today and say that I have never been drunk or hungover in front of my daughter and I never will be. And that's something that I take great pride in. Yeah, that's incredible. And two, those conversations I think are difficult, maybe in some sense for the people around us, right? But what I've constantly heard too, if anybody out there's listening is kind of in that spot, how do you approach somebody who you see struggling that you want to try to support them but i find a lot of people feel a lot feel some relief in that it's kind of like an off ramp it's like okay you know what like this is maybe my opportunity to not only gather support but to bring it to the light you know not sort of

the dishonesty or kind of the delusion of it's just like everybody else and i think by i think we naturally it's kind of like the red car effect right like if you buy a new red honda civic well guess what Like everybody owns a Red Honda Civic, but before you bought the Red Honda Civic, you never noticed one of them. And I feel like that can be when we're drinking. We just seem to notice everybody else who's drinking a little bit too much without, we don't know the rest of their life and the rest of their story. But it's like, okay, you know, let's see. It's not that bad. But we don't necessarily pay attention to the people who don't drink or the people who only have half a drink.

You know, that stuff doesn't make all that sense to us. but it's like we kind of focus on maybe what's going to reinforce where we're at, you know, and sort of this subconscious, strange kind of thing. And so your wife comes to you and mentions and you've got like this, you know, this life-changing event, too, your daughter being born. I mean, how do you go from there? Is it then like, does she come to you and mention, hey, I, you know, we got to make these, you got to make these changes and I'm here to help you.

Is it the next day that you get started on things? It is. Yeah. Yeah. Everyone has their own rock bottom, I guess you could say, right? It's all about perspective, too, right? Somebody's rock bottom might be a simple conversation. Somebody else's rock bottom might be going and dealing with law enforcement and having to deal with that, right? And that's why it's important to note, too, I don't like using the term alcoholism because there's a lot of stigma that's associated with that. I think referring to it as alcohol use disorder is really helpful because even somebody that might have just a few drinks a week. You don't know what they're dealing with. They might be dealing with some demons inside their own head. Everyone's biochemistry is different, right? And so that's the way I typically view it. But for me, it was really a conversation and having that discussion with my wife and basically realizing that my normal drinking behaviors are just

unsustainable. And I cannot keep doing this, right? And I'll be completely frank and honest. If there are people out there that are struggling with this and think that I just stopped and I've just been this, you know, perfect individual since I've stopped. I'd be lying, right? There are, I think, six occasions that I have slipped up, right? And slip, I like to use it as an acronym, which is sobriety lost its priority, right? But each time that I have slipped, I did not take this mindset of the shot clock starts over, right? Like, I think that that's a very dangerous. way to go about it. And I think that's how a lot of people start to spiral because if you look at it as like, well, back to day zero, right? This is, this is that that can be very mentally defeating, right? If that was the case, I wouldn't be able to say that I'm going to be three years. But when you look at it and it's really just six times over a period of over a thousand days, that's that's nothing, right? That's like a percentage of a fraction. And so that's the way I like to view things because, likely are you will you will slip up right I think that most people it's part of that recovery

process I don't know many people that haven't slipped up in the process you have you are swimming against the current right as we talked about these societal norms that were up against another big thing that I come to find out is believe or not like some of your friend group is going to change right some of the people that you thought were friends turn into oh well that was really just a drinking acquaintance right and you kind of go through this transformation of who are my true friends right and i know who my true friends are because they've stuck with me because alcohol was just a thing that was there it wasn't the core competency of our relationship yeah yeah and um i think such a beautiful way to look at it too because you're right it

we can't get stuck and i mean i think those of us that struggle with this kind of tend to have maybe that internal, I call it like roughing ourselves up, right, that negative self-talk of like, here we are again, you've failed again. But if you look at it sort of from a different perspective, the only person who can have a slip or have a lapse or have a relapse is somebody who's actively trying to get sober. And that in itself is massive as opposed to the way life used to be. So progress is already there. You know, when I first started this whole journey, it was kind of like this hierarchy in an interesting way of like, you're continuous days of sobriety was like your badge of honor you you kind of sat at the top and you

were you were the most looked up to and in all of that and you know if that's the way people want to go about it i'm not saying what's right or what's wrong but i also can see somebody that's maybe 30 days that's really been grinding hard going to therapy you know maybe support meetings and doing a lot of work maybe make that emotional or that internal progress and there's some people maybe that just decided not to drink in 10 years later, maybe not a whole lot has changed except for not drinking. And I think when we get into this, we realize that what we're going through this whole thing, there is an element of the drinking that is sort of the quote unquote problem. But there's also other things at play too that we really go to work on, you know, that therapy helps so good

with. And that's it. You're not starting from scratch. It's kind of like I look at it too. Like if you do grade nine and you fail the final exam, it doesn't exempt you from what you learned throughout all of grade nine it doesn't say okay well you you learned nothing but you pick things up you learn from it and I think statistical wise I don't know them or have them in front of me and I think finding something that would be extremely accurate would be difficult but I think a lot of people are going to go through committing to not drinking and find themselves having to drink again and how that looks is going to be different for everybody but the most important part is how do I get back up and keep going with things other than roughing myself up and

like you mentioned to spiraling out of control plugging into therapy share a little bit with us how that was helpful for you and I'm also curious before I forget how did other people take this right because your your drinking might not have been out there right in everybody's face how do they take it when you say hey you know what this is what I was struggling with this is the journey I'm on yeah that's a great question That was probably the most difficult part. I would say that for me and what I've come to find out and my journey here, because it's just a continual process, right, is that alcohol, I think at its core is a disease of somebody's ego.

And I think that that's really what I've come to find out is that I, in the beginning, was extremely jaded. I was like, why can't I do this? this is not fair everyone else gets to do this and as i've had time to really just go through this process and you know make some mistakes and then and take a step back and once again re-evaluate like what am i doing i've come to find that you will eventually arrive to the conclusion that people are there for you right and people want to support you because they love you you and they want to see you be successful. And with where I was going with things, it was a path of destruction. And so those that really loved me and cared for me were extremely supportive

and they wanted to see how they could help, right? Those that just wanted to drink with me, stop texting me. They stopped calling me, right? And they kind of went off to the wayside. And I think that it can also just be recognized as a normal part of life. You have a lot of friends when you're younger and then just each year you just have this factor of attrition that happens where these people just turned into more of acquaintances. So I think that, you know, the alcohol component in terms of accelerating some of that, perhaps, maybe some of it was more of a facade that was established through alcohol. But I also would like to mention that as a guy, you know, going to therapy is difficult, right? There is, once again, the stigma of like, oh, you're not strong. You need to go talk to

a shrink, whatever, right? Yeah. And I also just have the humility to say, hey, you know what? Like, sure, I can talk to my wife, but I think it could also be super helpful if I talk to an agnostic third party. Somebody that just, like, doesn't know me. They don't have any stake in the game. Yeah.

Just somebody to just bounce ideas off of. And I would highly encourage those that are evaluating sobriety to evaluate, in particular, cognitive behavioral therapy. I think for myself, somebody that's an all or nothing, somebody that experiences 80, PhD, it's been tremendously helpful for me to be able to talk to somebody and understand and deconstruct, who am I? Like, why am I ticking the way I am? There is a lot to be said about that.

And then to just also get things off your chest. I think a lot of people drink because they have just so much going on. Brad, the world we live in is insane, man. I know. You have all these apps on your phone and notifications, and we live in this capitalistic environment where everyone's trying to upsell you to the next thing. And I think that can push people in certain directions. And alcohol is definitely one of those directions.

And I think the ability to just have that release valve, similar to working out, right? Like this is another release valve for me, is to be able to talk to somebody and understand. Like I had mentioned, why am I ticking the way I'm ticking? How can I better understand how I am constructed so that I can better get in front of things when I see certain patterns come up and make better choices than the, deleterious ones that I was making prior yeah so plugging into yeah I mean there is that that underlying sort of stigma of plugging in and getting help you know I had one guy explained it to me so good about therapy too because I think it's often thought about you wait until

everything hits the fan and then you plug into therapy but he had mentioned he he he does therapy as more of a preventative thing of he stays plugged in so that things don't spiral and he can get that support and I love how you put it there too somebody without that emotional investment in the relationship that can have that different viewpoint obviously drawing experience and education

and everything else too to help us develop new tools on how we're going to go about this too you mentioned there too like the ADHD part do you ever have any discussion or feel like that played into how things went or is that kind of on its own

I definitely think it plays into it, right? And I would say that it's part of how it plays into me being all or nothing, right? I think that hyperactivity and just extreme focus, it can be harnessed for good or it could be harness for bad. And I've seen both sides of the coin. And so, yeah, I would definitely say that for those that do have ADHD, which there's a lot of people that do, I think that a lot of people tend to lean into alcohol because there's just so much noise, there's so much chatter going on in your brain. And a lot of times alcohol can just

dole that, right? And it can just kind of bring you down to just not have to listen to all of these various components of the day to day and the stress, right? It helps you just kind of relax a bit. But as I mentioned earlier, it's purely temporary, right? And oftentimes what I found my myself is I thought I had severe anxiety and all of these, you know, mental conditions. And then after I stopped drinking within a few months, I was like, wow, this is, this is pretty great. Like, sure, I don't exhibit these insane highs and getting this dopamine rush from drinking, right? And that's really what it is. But I think John Mayer actually has a, is a famous quote in terms of his decision to stop drinking in terms of you may not exhibit the high highs

anymore. But eventually the floor raises and you start to feel normal. And so you're just kind of even and you're not feeling those low lows because that's really the difficult part, right? Is what goes up must come back down. And that's where a lot of us find ourselves is sure, you know, you can have a great time on that night out. But then the next morning, you're looking at your phone and you're like, what did I do? This is awful. And you know, you're super jittery, which is a biochemical component of having a depressant and then rebounding hard off of that, right? Yeah. Wow, man.

Yeah, thanks for sharing all that. And that is I find people that really are starting out on the journey. That is one of the most difficult challenges that they have, is that we're so used to kind of the, I kind of refer to it as the chaos of like the up and down, the roller coaster. And it can feel a little bit bored or a little bit blah, like what, you know, I'm not experiencing that. that. And then it's finding other things that we're going to do. It's finding other things that we're going to do in the evenings or when we're just kind of used to plugging into that, that routine. What else we're going to do? And a lot of people, when they kind of get to the spot, I think of quitting. It's like, who am I now? What do I like to do? What are my hobbies?

What are my interests? And there might not be much going on there. We might have kind of disconnected from what we used to enjoy. So it's kind of re-exploring that and who am I without this and who am I without drinking and going out and maybe you know like you mentioned there too changing up friends and you know how that stuff shifts it's such an interesting thing how that starts to shift right you just i look back and i'm like man i god we me and some of my buddies i mean we were great of pals but we had nothing in common other than drinking like but we did that really well but there just really wasn't much more to it and even as i tried because it's it's kind of like that lonely chapter even though I tried to keep those things alive, it just never would.

And then you enter that kind of lonely chapter where you're not really who you are yet. Like the new build is not there. You don't connect with the old friends. You haven't found your new ones. And it's like, okay, here I am in the middle. But that's all part of the process. Thank you so much, Tom. Great work with everything.

Really appreciate you reaching out and sharing your story with all of us here on the show. Any thoughts for closing for anybody out there who might still be wrestling with is? Yeah, I just want to thank you, Brad. As I mentioned, a longtime listener. I think that, you know, your podcast has truly helped me. And at a minimum, I hope that, you know, my, my story here can help some of those that are struggling, right? Don't give up. It's an enduring process. And we're all struggling, right? Being a human is not easy. And, you know, there are a lot of forces that are at play to make you act in a certain way. At your core, you, you, you, you, you, know who you are, right? And what you should do, what's going to be best for you. And if you need

help, I encourage you to reach out for help. There are people that are people that are out there that are willing to help. And so, yeah, I encourage anybody that's looking for help to reach out for help. Yeah. And that's so true. There's so many people that are willing to help. I think it's that hurdle of let them know where we're at with things. You know, we keep it so guarded and so so secretive when we don't share and it's really hard to get the help and support that we need with all of the secrets that we keep so it's kind of like opening that door slowly it doesn't have to be kicking it off the hinges the first go at it but just letting people in a little bit to what's going on and i think that over time we'll realize that hey we're not alone and everybody like

you said they're struggling with something and even on the journey even in not drinking life like lot of there's still a lot of struggles i mean family and career and relationships and all that stuff is continuously we have to work through everything with the holidays coming up too it um it can be really difficult so stay plugged in and yeah reach out for help well thanks again tom yeah thank you brett well there it is another incredible episode here on the podcast huge shout out to tom thank you so much as you guys know by now i love having people on the podcast that are listeners of the podcast that have gotten something out of it. It's so cool. Full circle moments for sure. Tom wants to stay anonymous in this whole thing. So I will not be dropping his Instagram channel

below. If you have anything you want to share with Tom, send it to me. I could definitely get it over to him via email. But hopefully there's a few things in there you guys can connect with. I think it's a very relatable story. It's interesting in the pandemic there. A lot of people on the show anyway, things really sped up for them. there. And even though it was difficult, I think a lot of them look back and are maybe grateful in one sense or another, other than maybe it carrying on for a lot longer and kind of just kind of being a problem instead of being right there in front of your face. So interesting experience. Thank you as always for listening. Don't forget to drop a review on Apple or Spotify and

I'll see you on the next one.