Sober Motivation: Sharing Sobriety Stories - Ben’s Hidden Battle with Alcohol and the Magic of Sharing

Episode Date: January 15, 2025

In this episode, we have Ben, a pastor from South Georgia, who shares his life story marked by childhood challenges, struggles with perfectionism, and eventually alcohol addiction. Ben discusses growing up in a tumultuous household, his late start with drinking at nearly 21, and how alcohol became both a coping mechanism and a source of shame. He talks about the moment that led him to seek sobriety in January 2022. Tune into Ben’s amazing story of sobriety and newfound gratitude that has transformed his life. -------------- Join the Sober Motivation Community: https://sobermotivation.mn.co Download the MyDry30 App: https://mydry30.com/ Ben on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bgosden/ Ben's Book: Grace Rediscovered: Finding Hope and Healing Through Faith and Recovery  Check it out here: https://a.co/d/7AAgfnT

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. How's it going, everybody? Welcome back to the podcast, our first episode of 2025. And I don't know about you guys, but I feel like 2025 is going to be a great year. A lot of great stuff happening.

I feel like it's going to be the year of living in our... authentic life. Pursuing the goals that we have for ourselves, whether it be in sobriety in other areas of our life, I feel like it's going to be the year of less excuses, less of why we don't deserve or why we can't do things that we've always wanted to do. I feel like it's going to be the year where we have to lead with kindness in all of our interactions, and also the year where we reach back into the fire and help the next person struggling. That's what I always visioned this podcast to be, a place that's safe for people to land without expectation of getting sober today or tomorrow, but a place where they could come hear stories and maybe find one that relates to theirs.

And if we can offer a sliver of hope, that if this guest was able to find a way out, maybe the listener on the other side could too. I'm excited for you guys. I'm excited for us to hang out in 2025. I'm excited to bring you guys a bunch more stories here on the podcast. I'm really excited for all of you that have joined the sober motivation community, which we are still offering one month free for anybody who wants to join, plug into the live meetings, a community that's just incredible. It does all of those things that I mentioned above. It accepts people where they're at.

I think one of the biggest things that I struggled with when thinking about and considering and trying to get sober was everything felt like all or nothing. If I wasn't staying completely sober, then I was failing at the task at hand. It seemed like everybody's expectation around me was to stay sober, and that was the goal. And if I was short of that at all, it was just complete failure altogether. What I've realized since doing this, working with people and talking with people and supporting people, is that we all have a very unique journey of how we internalize our struggles and how we decide to approach them. And one thing stands. Sober people just tried one more time.

You don't hear the story every day where somebody tried their first time and everything worked out from that point onward. It's a very rare story in the community, I think. Of course, it's out there. But the more common story you hear is get up, fall down, scrape your knees a little bit, get back up, figure out what didn't work. repeat the process. And it's very tough to go through that. I just want to throw it out there heading into 2025. No matter where you're at in your journey, just keep going. Just keep showing up. And there's one suggestion, if I could make it, get plugged in with other people that are on this journey. Whether that be online, in person, at church, a therapist, some group therapy, something.

get plugged in because that's going to make all the difference. You're not alone. You're not alone. You're not strange. You're not weird. You're not a failure. Because you're struggling with something that a lot of us have struggled with. Like 2025, we've got to make more ground on the shame and the secrecy that's involved with struggling with drinking, with drug use, with all of this.

And we have to come together and say, you know what? We've been there. We get it. It's difficult, but it's also possible. Now let's check out the intro for this episode to start 2025. Thank you guys, as always, for supporting the podcast, and I love having you. In this episode, we have Den, a pasture from South Georgia who shares his life story marked by childhood challenges, struggles with perfectionism, and eventually alcohol addiction. Ben discusses growing up in a tumultuous household, his late start with drinking at nearly 21, and how, alcohol became both a coping mechanism and a source of shame. He talks about the moment that led him

to seek sobriety in January 2022. Tune into Ben's amazing story of recovery and newfound gratitude that has transformed his life. And this is Ben's story on the Suburmotivation podcast. I want to give a huge shout out to this episode sponsor. An app called My Dry 30. My Dry 30 is incredible in just 15 minutes of hypnotherapy, 10 minutes of journaling, and five minutes of reading each day inside the app, it can help you achieve your goals when it comes to not drinking. Check out the app today. It's completely free in the Google Play Store and the Apple App Store. And it's going to answer the big question for you. What if alcohol is the one thing holding you back from being your best self, from your true self? Check out the app today.

My Dry 30. It's a 30-day app challenge to rethink alcohol using hypnotherapy, journaling, and quick reads. There's also really cool motivational videos, I'll drop the link to download the app down in the show notes, or you can just search your favorite app store, My Dry 30. Welcome back to another episode of the Sober Motivation podcast. We've got Ben with us today. Ben, how are you? I'm good.

How are you? I'm doing well. We're just chatting before we hit record here. This is my first session anyway, back after the holidays. So I'm happy to be back and so happy for you to join us. Yeah, thank you for having me. Absolutely. Of course.

So what was it like for you growing up? You know, for me growing up, I'm from South Georgia, if you can't tell by my accent. And I was just a typical church kid growing up. We did church, school, baseball, all that kind of stuff. I think the stuff that I've processed that's been more difficult later in my adulthood is the other things. Like my parents who argued constantly, my father who suffered from manic depression and bipolar disorder, his attempted suicide, the fact that he left us when I was 12, and then my mom became a single mom, you know, so on the outside, it was very much your typical growing up kind of thing,

but a lot of that was forced and created to cope, I guess, with the tough realities of a difficult home life. So, yeah, I mean, I think like a lot of people, if we're being rigorously honest with ourselves, it was a mixture of wonderful things and pretty difficult things. Yeah, well, thank you so much for sharing that with us. Do you have a tip? I knew I have a sister who is 18 months younger than me, which is, you know, almost twins because you don't remember life without them. She was one grade behind me, and we were the best of friends and the worst of enemies. Yeah, so growing up with that type of environment, you just described for us a little bit there. I mean, how did that impact like your, you know, your life in school and relationships and how did those things look like?

for you. So, you know, I was the good child, the older child, the one who wanted to be perfect at all things and make everybody happy. My sister was a little bit more of the wild child who was more authentic, but explored life a little bit. For as long as I could remember, I was very uncomfortable in my own skin. I didn't quite know who I was, and I just knew that I wanted people to be happy with me. So it probably had a huge effect on relationships and all that kind of thing. You know, part of the reason I'm a pastor, and if I'm being honest, part of the reason I probably went that route was because it pleased my mother, then I would pursue such a thing. Thankfully, I did come to realize that it was something that did speak deeply to my own soul. But yeah, I mean, some of those dynamics had a tremendous impact growing up.

When did you start drinking? Was it a high school thing for you or no? You know, I was almost 21 because I was such a perfect child and had a teetototeling mother. that we didn't touch alcohol because it was such a naughty thing to do. I remember I was almost 21. I went with some friends who were already going to bars. I surprised them by showing up at the bar because they just thought, well, Ben doesn't come to this place. And then I showed up and they were like, oh, my gosh. I remember my first drink because that warm relaxation that washes over you like a cool wave,

it was the first time in a group setting like that that I finally felt comfortable. and relaxed. And I thought, this is magic. This is what I've been looking for my whole life to feel comfortable. So yeah, and then once I started, it was like the switch flipped and we were off to the races. Yeah. How did you feel, though, especially sharing there that you grew up with a different perspective of alcohol, not really being around. And then now you've had your first drink and you felt this way about it. Did you have any like internal battle of, you know, enjoying it, but no better I shouldn't be? What did that look like?

Yeah, I think shame was always a part of drinking for me. And as I aged and became a parent and was it just a nightly drink or a hemie drinker? I mean, I struggled with shame in many aspects of my life because shame was weaponized when I was a kid. And so it just comes, anything you do that's not perfect, you carry a tremendous amount of shame. But yeah, I mean, I carried shame for that. At the same time, it felt really good to rebel. it felt really good to finally break free of such a strict, you know, household. So it was a weird thing.

I loved it and hated it all at once, which I think now that I'm in recovery and talk to people, they're like, oh, that's typical. Most of us love and hate it. Yeah. I think like for me, I loved it until I've realized I couldn't stop drinking. And then it was like, now I hate it. But now I'm in this, like, this middle ground where I want to stop, but I can't stop. Going back to the other part of your story there with your, I think you mentioned there,

your dad kind of left the left home and then your mom was a single parent. I mean, how was that for you, like that transition? I was 12, and 12 I've learned now through therapy and things. 12 was a very important pivotal age for young men, for all kids, but the young men is uniquely pivotal. it was difficult. I mean, there's still wounds there that I'm trying to work out in how I'm trying to be a father and a husband. And I would say both of my parents, I mean, struggle with it. My dad was an alcoholic who my mom forbid to drink. And a buddy in recovery told me, he said, man, there ain't nothing worse than being an alcoholic who's not allowed to drink.

Like, that's awful. And that's how he lived. And so there was a lot of resentment and things like that. So it was hard and even trying to come to terms with, if you have a parent, leave, there's a lot of resentment and hatred that we can have, which is totally normal. I think I'm coming to the place where I'm also acknowledging the deeper hurt, which is, why didn't he let me love him the way that I wanted to love him? Because imperfect as your parents are, it's still your daddy, you know, it's still your mama, and you want them to be better and let you love them, and you want them to love you in good ways. And so I think that's the deeper under the resentment and the difficulty there that I'm finally at 40, you know, dealing with that piece of.

Yeah. Yeah. And that's sort of the work that we do after the fact. I think if we go back to 12, you know, like when I'm thinking back to 12, I don't have too many memories of probably when I was exactly 12. But I knew a lot of things were going on. But I just didn't have the tools or feel like I, you know, somewhere to channel it or comfortable or, you know, it's kind of like you just. get stuck in that routine. I grew up way too fast. And I remember being told by my mom and others, well, you're the man of the house now. And it's only been in my adulthood that I've realized

there's nothing worse you can put on a 12 year old kid than just say, time for you to grow up. No, you need to be a 12 year old kid. You need to go through the adolescence of that. And so a big piece of my childhood kind of evaporated when he left. Yeah, that's heavy stuff, especially that other the expectation too of being the man of the house, right? Yeah. So back up to where you had your first drink and you surprised everybody at the bar there and everything. You know, I mean, you kind of, it sounds like it anyway, you fell in love with the escape that alcohol provided. Yes. Provides us for, you know, the insecurities kind of drop. You know, it was the same thing for me. I was carrying around this heavy backpack of expectations to do well in school, be a good kid.

And I was like the complete opposite of sort of what you're sharing here. I was the troublemaker getting arrested in high school on probation, failing all my classes, running away from home, causing complete destruction. And everybody around me, my parents, people that supported me just wanted, they weren't expecting the moon, but they were like, come on, can we just kind of get these basics down? And I was always pushing it back. And when I started drinking, it was just like, man, everything that maybe I didn't even realize I was struggling with kind of just slid off my shoulders and the world felt a lot less heavy

as it did before. So you kind of, you know, share that maybe in a different way. How do things go from you, you know, for there? You graduate high school and everything. I mean, do you go to college after, right after high school? How did that look? Oh, yeah. I had to go to college when graduate school did all the things that, you know, be due to be successful. And this was my little secret, you know, and for all the, you know, like what you just, you just. described, even though we kind of had two different approaches, I think we're both voicing the same thing, which is someone says, do you have a problem with alcohol? And I want to say, no, alcohol was the solution to my problems. My problems were way deeper than all of that,

but alcohol helped fix it until it couldn't do it anymore. So I did all the right things and lived at this almost internal fever pitch of pressure. And I said that the drinking, and for me was like releasing a pressure valve or almost, you know, sort of walking into an elevator shoot and just hitting a button and just it's your escape hatch. You know, you just kind of escape for the night. You'll be back the next morning. You'll deal the expectations. You'll try to be perfect for everybody. Let's take a break from that. And that's what alcohol did for me. And so it progressively became more and more. You know, when I was in college, it was just a lot of beer, you know, liquor here and there. But as I got older and wanted to

to be sophisticated and, you know, got a job and post-grad school and I could afford things like good bourbon and gin. And, you know, I was a, that's what sophisticated friends did. And we'd had bourbon tastings and all that. Nobody realized, though, that while they were like sipping, I was guzzly, you know, I just, I didn't understand why anyone didn't feel this intense, let's get after this, you know, even in casual settings. So, yeah, I mean, it, yeah, yeah, yeah, I feel you. Yeah. It's so interesting, too, that, like, I picked up on it probably fairly early on that I drank different than my peers. Like, my motivation about it was drink, you know, just try to get to that buzz as fast as possible as to where, I mean, there were some people like that that I associated with. But, like, most people seemed like they were just pacing things, enjoying the parties, especially in college, enjoying the company.

Like, trying to stay somewhat coherent to, you know, whatever it was or flirt with girls or, you know, whatever. whatever people wanted to do, play the drinking games. But for me, it was just as fast as I could get it going. And was there a time for you where you had any insight to, you know, like maybe this looks a little bit different than other people around me? Yeah. So I said I'm a pastor and I was the cool pastor. I'm the pastor who'll go have a drink or two with you. And I realized at some point that I felt pressure because I couldn't drink too much with people who saw me as a pastor. But it was, I would find myself like almost fidgety to finish that happy hour meeting so I could get home and drink the way I wanted to drink.

So yeah, I can always have one or two and restrain myself when I'll have the pastor hat on. But then when I get home, we're going to get after this. And so, you know, I knew that was different and weird. I knew if I ever traveled for meetings, you know, I always knew that I drank harder when I was by myself. Now, I didn't know it at the time, but looking back when recovery friends gave me language, that we do our best drinking when we're by ourselves. Because nobody's there to judge us.

You know, nobody's there to say, hey, isn't that a little, oh, hell no, let's do this thing, you know. So I knew that was weird. The other thing that I think about, probably about six months before I finally got sober, I would wake up just, you know, feeling like a card hit me from the night before. that was just a typical Tuesday night. And I would Google, how many drinks makes you an alcoholic? And so I knew logically there was something wrong, but I was trying to Google, you know, does this make me an alcoholic? And now I realize if you have to Google your drinking habits, you got a problem with your drinking habits.

Yeah, that is so true. Yeah, I had one person. And I always love this story because I think so many of us have been there for the Google thing where she shared on the podcast that she Googled it and then it, you know, somewhere she landed on the questionnaire. But then it wasn't honest with the questionnaire. And it's she, you know, looking back, it's like, whoa, red flag, right? It's just a questionnaire with ourselves. So interesting, right? Because I think, obviously, in the day and age of Google, I've heard that story countless times about how many of us end up there to figure out, you know, ask questions, some questions about our drinking. And I think

for sure, there's definitely something there to be looked at a little bit deeper if we're, we're plugging into to Google to, you know, look at or figure out how to moderate too. I think that's another one, right? Like how to, you know, then I could switch to this or switch to that or have a little bit less of a hangover in the morning, you know, I give all kind of ideas. Yeah, yeah, at one point I was like, oh, bourbon, that's my downfall. So let's keep some gin. So because I drink bourbon way too fast. And then it was like, well, now I'm drinking both bourbon and gin at night. And it was like, well, let's have wine. Wine's a step back. Well, then I'm having bourbon. urban gin and someone, the moderation, it just, it's a form of our insanity.

It's just, it's insane how hard we work and how much emotional and brain power we use to try to configure what's the right calibration when it's just, I got a problem. Yeah, no, I'm with you 100%. So you finished up school and, I mean, you did well in school, though, go to graduate school, do school. So I mean, at this point in your life, other than, you know, probably internally, right, knowing that, you know, waking up, not feeling great and a little bit of that, I should not be doing this, but I'm doing this other than maybe that stuff. Like, this isn't really bleeding out into other areas of your life, or is it? I was beginning to have some health issues. I was beginning

to have some memory lapses, some wet brain type stuff. I was beginning to have these moments where my wife and I would, you know, we'd watch whatever we're binging on Netflix, right? And of course, you know, she's having two glasses of wine and she doesn't realize because I'm talking so much and moving that I'm having six and eight, you know, drinks in that same time period. And the next day, we would, she would recount something and I would kind of look funny. And she'd go, you don't remember we. And so I was beginning to have some things that were, that were, we're setting in, that I knew I wasn't thinking right. My brain wasn't working right. My memory was starting to have some big lapses in there. I don't know what would have happened had I kept drinking. I was a nightly

drinker, a heavy drinker every night. And I mean, I wasn't a bender per se, but I was a consistent show up at 8.30 p.m. and I'm sitting down with a drink every night, and I'm going until midnight. I don't know what would have happened because I took my perfectionism so seriously to be a husband and a father and a pastor. That said, I don't know if it would have been that I would have failed at those things or if I would have gotten a medical diagnosis, you know, like cirrhosis of the liver or, you know, some other liver issue or brain issue or something that would have, you know, done it. But I physically was beginning to slowly deteriorate. Yeah. Yeah. When did that, if you kind of have an idea, when did the daily drinking start for you?

Was it always that way since you started? No, I think honestly, if I'm being truly honest, the daily drinking started about the time my wife got pregnant with our first child. And part of that was I was acting out because I loved going out and being social and all of that. And, you know, your spouse gets pregnant and your life and then you have a baby. Your life gets very centralized at home. You know, it's like boot camp. You know, you're lucky to get four hours of sleep and all that kind of stuff. And that was my way of selfishly holding on to something that I thought was my.

as I would drink. And then it just, well, I don't know. It's almost hard to pinpoint a moment because I just look back and go, when was the last night? I was sober. Oh, yeah. And you can't remember. And so then it just kind of grew from there.

I tried to do like a dry January in 2020. And I actually did it. And then, of course, 2020. And the pandemic. And then it was just off the rails and probably drank more from 2020. to the end of 2021. And my sobriety date is January 1, 2022. But those two years, I probably drink more than I drink in my life.

Yeah, that's a story that, I mean, especially throughout, yeah, the COVID time, a lot of people that have come on the podcast, they've shared, you know, things really ramped up because our connection, our routines, a lot of the stuff we were used to doing is at home. And the drinking went from, would it be 5 o'clock or 8 o'clock, went to 7 o'clock, 6 o'clock, and, you know, just kind of kept creeping back for people. So you have kids, you have two kids? I do. I have two kids. I have a almost 13-year-old daughter and a seven-and-a-half-year-old son. Wow. Great stuff. And so did that change anything, too, when they were born for you? I mean, now it's, you know, things kind of change a little like you mentioned there, too, right? I mean, does that kind of add to how you're feeling about your drinking, the shame and everything that's kind of built into it? Oh yeah, for sure. You know, I have got stories of passing out on the couch. My wife is a nurse, and she's a nurse practitioner now, but she's a floor nurse early on, and she would work in the night shift. And so I was the only one on duty with a baby. And I mean, I've got stories of passing out essentially on the couch, and my toddler has a bad dream, and she wakes up and she comes looking for me. And of course, she goes to my room where daddy's supposed to be at two in the morning. But then,

then she almost instinctively knew because that's just where I always ended up to come out in the living room where I was passed out from drinking and watching TV. And she wakes me up and just the flood of shame when your baby comes out, you know, crying, looking for you and you're trying to pull it together and you're too drunk, you know, to. Oh, yeah. So I feel a tremendous amount of shame for that. It was a little bit different with my son because my wife wasn't working on the floor as a nurse anymore. But it was definitely, there's a lot of shame for some of those. those early baby nightly calls, you know, when babies need you. And I'm just, I'm not able. I mean, there's one story particularly. I remember that my wife, my son was having a rough night,

and my wife had gotten up like two or three times. And she finally said, could you please get up this time? And I go and get up. And I was still so drunk that I fell and hit my head. And my wife is a very patient woman who was not a shame. My mother could be a travel agent for shame trips. Sometimes my wife is not that way. But I remember looking up and my wife going, are you really this drunk? And then she went to go take care of them. And yeah, there's a lot of shame for some of those nights for sure. Yeah. With that story too, just kind of going from there, was your wife mentioning anything to you? Or like, how did that go? Every now and then, what she didn't understand was the brain power I would have to use to make a rain.

to get booze whenever we traveled. That was something she goes, why do we have to stop and get something? Why do you have to go out and get something just because we're traveling? And she didn't understand that piece. She, luckily, I was not a mean drunk. I was actually more fun and funny. Like I said, it made me comfortable and loosen up a little bit. So that part was okay. It was the memory stuff she started saying stuff about. It was the frequency with which, you know, she realized I was going to the liquor store. But truly, you know, for any of us who have kept it a secret, you know, or worked to do that, there were things she didn't know that I made amends for later, that I just said,

you need to know, like, I was refilling liquor bottles at the beach, you know, and we would get, this is our weekly allotment while I was running out two days later, and I was going down there and getting shot bottles, and when you weren't looking, refilling them, sneaking around. You'd go to, I'd say, you go to the bathroom, and I'm tiptoeing. to refill my cup and top it off, you know, all these things. And so she was surprised, I think, by some of that too. So yeah, a little bit, but she also, I don't think, realized how bad it was. Yeah. And that's another thing you bring up there that I, I think a lot of us, like, end up in that spot too where we've lost complete control of this thing. And we don't want that

to get out for other people. And it's, for me anyway, it was kind of like that denial thing. I was with you too when you shared that other thing where you would put on your hat for in a pasture and put on your hat and you'd go and have two drinks or whatever it was. You were able to do that. I hated that going over to buddies places. I've shared on the show before. My buddy was just, it was just drinking far too slow. And I'm thinking, man, just cut the conversation, get back to your fridge. At one point in my life, I still had those manners.

So I didn't want to, you know, help myself to his beer fridge. But I'm just thinking, come on. Let's just get going. Let's get something going here. We need three or four. and then we can ask our chat after that a little bit more. But we do a lot of it alone. That's a big story, you know.

We do a lot of it alone and a lot of people shared on the show and wait for their wife or their partner or whatever to go to bed and then carry on in, have the drinks and then maybe take the bottles out. I'll feel the shame around the recycling bin, you know, recycling bin, cling, clink, but then take them. Some people load them up in their car and take the bottles, other places. So I would do it. I would go to the other room and why. I began there at the end of watch TV by myself because I just wanted to be alone. I mean, I was isolating in doing that. But I absolutely, what you just said, I just had a flashback to our cabinet where I would hide empty bottles and pull full bottles out so that it wouldn't look like.

So I would throw them away all at once because if I had an empty bottle every night sitting in the recycling, she would know how much I'm drinking. So you just hide the empty bottle back there where she can't. see and you just pull the more full bottle. So it just looks like you had one or two. But there's this whole manipulation system that you have to be mindful of. And then I can remember she would, one of the worst habits I would get into or little secrets. She was there, okay, I'm going to bed now. You know, we watch her program or whatever.

And I'd say, I'm going to go have a snack. And what that, now I did go have snacks, which was terrible for you. But it was part of that was to try to help the hangover. But it was also where I would then take my same tumbler and fill it up. about three more times with wine. You know, that box wine, it's like never-ending why. And I would just fill it up three times and just, and I would carry on from a whole another hour in the kitchen and just get drunk.

And I don't know, you know, different people, like there's a whole range of emotions because alcohol helps us find those feelings that are hard to find. I would be fun until I just felt like I needed to be sad. And I can remember late nights, sometimes I would watch YouTube videos that I knew would make me cry and I would do it on purpose just so I could drink and cry. And it just thinking back, it sounds so pathetic, but I didn't know what to do with these feelings. And that was the only way to get them out was to get drunk enough to finally get them out. Yeah. Yeah. And that's it too. I mean, you'll see that with a lot of people for drinking too. I think it shifts, right? Where it's

like fun, exciting, involved. And then it's like the sadness comes out too afterwards. Right. So yeah. So, I mean, I'm really curious, too. You've obviously done a lot of work in this direction with things. And you kind of mentioned there too with your wife. You know, it's kind of like we got the people around us fooled. I think they're a lot smarter than maybe we realize at the time when we're going through it. Right. It's like this trick, that trick. And it's they probably know. What was the effect on yourself though? I mean, because I think there's a for some of us anyway, there's an element of denial. I mean, we're doing all this stuff. When we look back into. it through this clear lens of sobriety, it just screams insanity. It just screams red flags. But when we're going through it, I mean, was that something you experienced too? It just becomes kind of normal? Yes, very normal. It's just what I did. It's what grownups did. It's what we did to relieve pressure. It was the one thing I looked forward to every day. The tightness in my neck would start at about five o'clock, but I was like, you can't drink this early. But for some reason I'd been at 8.30 as a time, but I think that was about when my kids went to bed,

because I didn't want them to see me doing this either. But that was like clockwork, 830 hits, and I've got a drink in my hand. But it just became so normal. I didn't, I mean, that's the piece of, I didn't like the way I felt the next morning and the shame spiral and all that. And yet I would magically find myself right back in that same scenario that night, forgetting all the shame I'd felt that morning and just right back into the routine because it's almost like you don't know another way. Yeah. So things for you, I mean, you ended up putting down the drinking in January of 22, right? January 1st, 22. I'm a cliche. The first too. We did it. Yeah. So we're bringing us back there, like a couple weeks leading up to that. I mean,

what are your thoughts going into this? I mean, was this something you had planned out? What did it look like for you. Good question. So I'm a pastor, and that month leading up to the new year is a very busy time for pastors' church and pressure and festivities and all of these things. And I would drink really heavily. And the truth is, my birthday's in mid-November, and I would tell people that those six weeks to the end of the year were just non-stock, because it would be part celebration with my birthday. It would be part coping, because then there's thanks a week. Thanksgiving and family that, you know, things aren't great with sometimes. Then it's part of stress drinking because, you know, you got all the different activities

and everybody wants you to come to their party and all these things. Exhaustion, celebration. It was like this never-ending, you know, bouncing around all these different feelings. But it would be about six weeks through New Year's of just almost, you could, like, I can wake up and almost smell myself in the booze, you know, coming out of me kind of thing. I'm going, I knew I needed to cut back and I, but I was too smart. And so I said, you know, I did a dry January that one time. Let me do one again.

And so I didn't realize the pink cloud effect that would set in about two weeks into it. And so it, I sort of took it month by month for about two months, but I was white knuckling the whole time. I mean, I just was, I started going to bed at nine o'clock at night because I was afraid to stay up late for fear that I would drink. A couple months into it, I realized I was at a thing and drinks were being had and I'd been about three months sober, which meant I got, you know, all the physical dependency, you know, should have been shaken by men.

And I found myself playing the tape, as they say, when someone said, well, do you want to have a drink? It's been a while for you. And I played the tape. And I immediately without even realizing it played it all the way. I was traveling. So I was out of town to, I'm going to drink here. Then I'm going to go to the liquor store.

Then I'm going to go back to my hotel by myself. And then, and I knew where that story ended. And in that moment, it was almost like one of those scenes from a TV show where the main character has a flashback. I realized I have got a problem. Normal people do not stress out like this over being offered one drink. And so it was then that I called a friend who is in a recovery program. And I said, hey, I'd like to go to a meeting with you because I think I've got a real

thing here. Something in that moment just did not set well with me, and I realized this is heavier than just a dry January. Interesting. Yeah, three months into it. So did anybody else know that you were doing this to begin with? Did you tell anybody? My wife knew, and then I told one or two friends, I'm trying to, you know, cut back or however we rationalize it out. But no, I was very secretive about it. And part of that is the shame of realizing if I tell someone and then I go back and drink again, there's the whole embarrassment of I'm a failure at this. And so I didn't really quite know what was wrong. I knew that not drinking was beginning to make me feel better quickly. And like I said, I was having health

problems and things that were really beginning to suck the light out of me. And they were almost instantly feeling better. So I knew that was good. But I was slow to come around to the notion of recovery as a lifestyle. Yeah. So more of the early approach of if I just remove the booze, then life will be grand and I'll be kind of on my way. You know, it's so interesting too, because I think when a lot of us get into this, right, that's our thing, right? We see alcohol is this being the problem. And if it's kind of like a, if there's a nail in my tire and I remove the nail in patch it, well, my tires, it's good. But with alcohol, if we remove alcohol, then we're left with self.

We're left with ourself. And then if we go back to, you know, just hearing, and I'm sure there's so many more layers to your story, but just hearing how it was growing up and this perfectionism thing, which I hear a ton on the podcast. I can't personally relate to that,

like in any way. I'm more of like, done is better than perfect. That's sort of my thing. But I get it, though, how it can really creep into areas of our life. And then,

you know, you have all of that stuff that's kind of leading up to drinking is the solution like you kind of hinted on earlier. And then we removed the alcohol and then we're expecting like everything just to be, you know, gravy. And, you know, I'm sure there are people out there who they do that and things look good. But then there's other people where we have to continuously work. And like you mentioned there, live a sober lifestyle and change our lifestyle,

change to people, places and things that we hang out. We're not going to fit into all of those, you know, old things, right? I've rarely seen this work for somebody who puts down the alcohol, but still does everything that they used to do, you know, a year later, right? Most of the time, we lose interest, right? Me anyway, I get really bored places where people are doing a lot of drink. And I can go for a bit, but then after a while, I'm so bored of the hearing the same stuff over and over again.

So at three months, though, you're like, okay, there's something kind of more to this, maybe more to the story. and then you explore, you know, connecting with other people. And did you find that's really helped you get to where you are now where you're really good at identifying, you know, sort of what was going on? Yeah. You know, I found a 12-step recovery program that clicked for me. Got a sponsor, you know, the whole nine yards. And for me, and I know, everyone finds people in recovery can find recovery in any number of ways.

And God love you. I mean, whatever helps you stay sober is great. But I know what worked for me. And it was taking on a program of recovery, you know, practicing principles in all of our affairs, trying to live a sober life. And the big piece of that is just trying to discover what does it mean to be emotionally sober. You know, it's one thing to be, you know, physically sober, but, you know, it's like the big book says we can be dry drunks too. Your ego and self-will and all these things that were us. I had the biggest ego in the world.

I was a perfectionist because I was going to be the greatest at everything. It didn't matter. And I would do whatever it took to be the best and to realize how much of my self-will and my ego and the lack of humility and all of that, you know, that played into that. And then trying to be honest about it and deal with it in a way that says, you know, like you said, to change people, places and where we hang out, it's also changing how we show up. how do I show up in my everyday life? Do I show up as a person full of ego and self-will? Or do I try to show up as something different? And for me, that requires that I stay sober, that I try to pray every day to ask for these things because they don't come naturally. I won't show up as that big egotistical personality, but I have to pray for acceptance

and for this notion of letting go and letting life come to me and trusting that God's going to lead me there and all those things. So, oh, yeah, absolutely. I mean, and that's why recovery is a daily journey. You know, we're sober one day at a time. I just turned three years sober. And, you know, as a friend reminded me, you know, you're not 20 years sober yet, and you won't be until you hit 20 years. And so I don't have to worry about being 20 years sober.

I can just be three years sober today. And then hopefully tomorrow I'll pray again and live a life and all the things and I'll be sober another day. So yeah. Yeah. It's all those other things that have to change as well. Going back to working with the church, how did that process shape up for you in kind of, how did you approach that? Because you've mentioned it before and we chat a little bit, you know, an email before

too, right? Harboring that secret and feeling like we have to keep it. I mean, we talked to before about a full-time job, right? Not only just making sure we have enough to drink, but also making sure that nobody else picks up on how much we are drinking. It really keeps us busy. So how were you able to work through that? When did you, you know, bring this to everybody if that's something you did? Or, yeah, what was that like? So I was about 14 months sober and before I said anything publicly. I nurtured my recovery like a newborn baby. You know how like when you have that new baby, you don't take them places because

you're afraid they're going to catch something and, you know, all of that. And they haven't had all their immunizations yet, so let's be real careful and wash hands. And that's how I treated my recovery. A friend of mine who's also a pastor who has been sober 20 years said to me, when I turned a year sober, he said, you know, Ben, you're going to want to say something at some point. I don't know when and God will tell you when and all that kind of stuff, but you have a story to share and you have no idea who might need to hear it. And so I did. I did. happened of, you know, being that I have a job where I talk for 15 minutes a week with undivided attention, you know, I preached a sermon series from Lent one year, you know, that season where we

give up things, I did a sermon series on the 12 steps and kind of broke them up, you know, weekly leading up to Easter. And I just decided that in the first one that I would preach on the first step and, you know, just made mention that I know some of these things are true because I'm a person who's in recovery. I'm 14 months sober. You may not know that, but I feel like I should share that with you. I will say I know pastors who have done that and it caused real issues for them. I am very blessed by some wonderful, open-minded, compassionate, caring people in my church, who some of them kind of shrugged and said, huh, okay, I have people who are in recovery in my church and they rallied behind me like I can't don't even have words for the the graciousness

that they had for me. So I've been lucky that I could be that authentic and that honest about something that was my terrible deep, dark secret and it be received in such a loving way because that's not always true for everybody. And it's amazing, by the way, how many unique opportunities since I did that over the last, I don't know, year and a half or so since I shared that, my grandson, my sister, my husband, here, I want you to talk to somebody. You know, all these secrets start to come out from people who didn't think they could share their deep, dark secret. And all of a sudden, now we can meet each other in a very tender place to say,

let's really talk about what's going on in our lives. So in that respect, my recovery has also turned out to be my greatest gift. Yeah, wow. Were you nervous for bringing that there? Or like, just kind of picturing that, you know, leading up to that. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, you know, what I loved about my recovery meetings was that I didn't tell people what I did for a living. I was just Ben. Hey, I'm Ben or not. I'm an alcoholic. We didn't go into job descriptions and none of that. And I did not want people to know that. I just wanted to be Ben, the drunk who's trying to get sober. So, yeah, it was weird and I never shared it in such a public way. I'm glad that I did. You know, like I said, because it's turned out to be a gift.

But, yeah, it was daunting. I was very nervous. Yeah. Yeah. I can only imagine. But it is good, though. I mean, because I think that like what you mentioned there, right, everything that can come out of it, it's a big reason for here on the podcast, right?

Why we share these stories? One of my big missions, too, I think going into 2025, I got this email. from somebody at the end of 24 and going into 25, I'm like, I really want to hone in on sort of my mission, my vision. What do I want this all to be about? And this, I got this email and I was like, this is exactly what I've been thinking about without the right words for it. And it's so simple. But just this president sent the email just about normalizing this struggle, normalizing that this is a thing and not make it this big, you know, shame-filled thing. And just normalizing the conversation. that I think that action that you took and that so many people do in their own ways and their own careers, their own lives to say, let's just have a conversation about this and this is, you know, where I'm at, this is what I'm working on. And I think that's really cool. Well, and I think it's, I've told people there's a, it's a disease. You know, it's like diabetes.

And you're diabetic. I mean, you're diabetic. You're not going to go eat birthday cake because you're like, that birthday cake is potentially going to kill me. Do you love being the diabetic? No. Do you adapt to it and normalize it? Sure. Because, you know, there's all kinds of ways you can live without having to consume sugar. The same is true for drinking. I have a disease that affects, you know, some 8, 10, I forget what the number is, percentage of society. And my disease gets activated when I use alcohol. So do I love that I have a disease? No. Does it mean that I can live a very full life having it and carrying it as a chronic condition? Sure. I just have to make sure. I just have to make sure. sure that I live a certain way that I don't engage in the thing that will kill me and alcohol will kill me. Yeah. So after we did share a little bit that it opened up conversation for topics, maybe not directly related to drinking, but for people to talk with you about stuff. I mean, what would you say, though, if somebody came up to you and was like, maybe this

has happened or maybe it hasn't, but I'm struggling with alcohol. Like, what would be a response that you would share with somebody? Me too. I'm allergic to it. Yeah. I mean, I've had. people share that. A lot of times it's a loved one is struggling. What do I do with them? And that's an Al-Anon question. I can't recommend Al-Anon more highly because that's where we learn how to have good boundaries and love each other in healthy ways. But I try to normalize what an alcoholic's life, even with the insanity of it, is for this loved one who's, I don't understand why they, and I'm going, oh, I understand, I know exactly what they're going through here. And I find that's a ministry that can help people, of course, pointing people to resources,

where do we find meetings, you know, all that. And again, I'm in a church that has a lot of people who are open about their recovery. And so, you know, we probably have two dozen on any given Sunday. And so, you know, they are fine with me pointing them at, too, to say, hey, there's someone here that will quietly set you up with and y'all go to lunch or have coffee. And so it's a beautiful way of doing some quiet matchmaking so that we get into the healing space where, as we know, once you share your story and you hear someone else's story, I mean, that's where healing happens, is that we can just be seen and see each other for all of our humans. Yeah, that's beautiful to connect people.

And so much truth of that, I think too, probably from a lot of loved ones and a lot of people that are going through it, like we feel that sense of being alone. I'm the only person who's going through this or the only family. And once you get connected and you hear other people's stories of people going through the struggle, but also things improving for whether it be families or whether it be the person struggling. And it can bring some hope into our life that maybe things are going to work out too. Yeah. So overall, I mean, have there been some struggles that you've had to work through in the last three years?

Yeah. I've had to deal with childhood trauma. I told my therapist that I thought drinking was the big thing I needed to work on. And it turns out drinking was the thing I needed to work on so that I could work on the thing that I really needed, which is childhood trauma. As long as I was drinking, I never had to face the difficulty of a childhood experiences that I've had. now that I'm sober and have some of the tools to deal with difficult things now, right? I mean, because remember we said that without a program, then you're just sober and it's the same, it's the same shit. It's just the same, you know, you're just dealing with it.

And you're still bringing yourself to it. But then when you begin the work of transforming yourself, then you can deal with things in a little bit different way. So now I'm finally in a place to deal with the difficult things, which is what do I do with the childhood that, that in many, ways had such broken places. So, oh, yeah, there's that ongoing piece. There's always the ambition and the drive and all the, I'm a workaholic too, learning to pace myself, learning to prioritize my family better, learning to, you know, it's more than just saying you want to be a good father and a good husband. It's actually showing up and doing it. And, you know, and those have been ongoing growing edges, if you will. So yeah. Yeah, so a lot of good things too. And yeah, I mean, I

think that's where a lot of people, you know, get with time, right? I have so many different conversations with people that are considering sobriety or already into it, right? And it seems like early on, I mean, it's good, but it's going to be different for everybody, but they're eager to really get down to the nitty gritty. And I'm like, whoa, two weeks in, let's just, let's just get 90 days without drinking. We don't need to uncover stuff. But it is really good to hear that you're still plugged into the process. of the healing journey and everything else that goes into it when the time comes, right, to work on it. You just name the number one thing that you're right. People won't fix their lives.

And it's no, give this drinking thing under control. And it takes time. Let that time set in. And then we can get to those deeper things. But oh, yeah, you're a thousand percent right. Yeah, because sometimes I've seen people do it to where they dig into all that stuff. they get into therapy and things get so overwhelming and then they're back to drinking again because you can't go through all those different emotions right it's already a lot to walk away from drinking your lifestyle changing friends are changing what you're doing changing career might change a lot of changes can happen in first six months or so but it's so cool to to hear furthering it too you had mentioned too that you have published did you just published a book

I did. I did December of 24, so it's just come out, published a book called Grace Rediscover, Finding Hope and Healing Through Recovery. It's a book that's largely about my recovery story, but it's really, people say what's it about, I would say the easiest way to print it, it's a 12 steps for everybody. My wife early on when I was kind of excited about going to meetings and what I was learning and all that, She said, you know, those 12 steps really could work for like people who aren't alcoholics too. And that stuck with me. And so the framework of the book is a lot of it is kind of walks through the steps, especially the first three. What does it mean to kind of work on yourself?

That's the, you know, the character defects and the inventory and all that. What does it mean to learn about forgiveness? You know, that's steps eight and nine. What does it mean to have a spiritual life? And part of that is how do we pray? How do we not put things like work and success ahead of the things that really matter? That's steps 10, 11. And then the end of the book is how do we share this story of healing, our story of healing with others?

And that's step 12. So there's the framework of the steps without being explicit about that. But yeah, it's the 12 steps for everybody. Now, I will tell for anyone who's it does come from a Christian perspective, because I am a Christian pastor, I believe that we all find a higher power. As long as we find a power greater than ourselves to lead us in recovery, you can name that power whatever you need to name it. I do take, because I've just been born and raised in the church, so I take a Christian approach. And I'll say for those who share my view, the ideas of God and salvation and healing and hope and all these things,

they became very different when I experienced recovery. It was like something you always sort of grew up hearing about, became very real for me. And so that sobriety date for me means a lot more than just physical sobriety. It's where I became closer to God in a very meaningful way. And so the book really kind of explores how can we get through whatever existential crisis we're going through that we're just sick and tired of being sick and tired over and experienced through the framework of these steps and beyond hope and healing in what, whatever recovery we need in life. Yeah.

And it's opened up to, you know, beyond, I guess, just the struggle of addiction, right? Any recovery that you're going to. Any workaholism, any, you know, whatever it is that is a thing. There's all kinds of things we can be addicted to. We can be addicted to trying to fix other people's problems. You know? I mean, there's all kinds of stuff. So, yeah, it's addiction in a big sense, but it's how recovery,

we all need some element of recovery in our lives. Yeah, 100%. What motivated you to put this book together? Partly, I think it was cathartic. Like I said, the dealing with my own wounds, it just felt like I needed to put something in writing. Part of it, my wife, I said, inspired. Part of it is my friend that I mentioned,

who said, you've got a story to share. And this kind of became the story I wanted to share that it's okay to not be okay. and even those among us who appear to be, have it all and be successful and spiritual and, you know, all of these things, we're not okay all the time.

And so it really was, like you said earlier, normalizing being not okay and then saying, now that we've gotten that out of the way, let's talk about how we can all live into some hope and healing. Yeah. Well, yeah, and that's what it's,

that's what it's all about when you come to that spot. And I think maybe that's, some of us get stuck. I think we realize maybe early on, maybe halfway through, maybe towards the end that this isn't going to get us to where we want to in life and this isn't in line with our life and we got to do something about it. But now we need the tools. We need the know-how of how we're going to, how am I going to get myself out of here? Because we all know that just he brought the kind of the dry drunk thing and we just not drinking. It's just not going to be the solution. Like that, some people will figure it out.

But for a lot of people, I feel pretty safe saying, we're going to need to be to work on ourselves and get honest with ourselves that we got some work to do to make this an enjoyable process. Or else it's just going to be, it's just going to be miserable just like the drinking was. If we don't do anything different, if we just carry on everything else to say. Yeah. I read somewhere that the most powerful word we can utter is the word help. Hmm. To ask for help. and to have an open hand to receive the help that may be out there.

And so it's changed my life asking for help. I'm grateful to those who've offered me to help, and I hope that this book and the story in it can offer a little help to the dad who's trying to overfunction, to the pastor who wants to be all the things, to the, you know, whoever it may be. And there's hope and healing available, you know, if we move in that direction. Yeah, 100%. Anything else that we've missed here?

hear, Ben, that you want to share? You know, I, I, for anyone early in recovery, because whenever I, just hearing your voice takes me back to some early days of recovery when I was trying to consume everything about sobriety that I could and podcasts, you know, were a big one. And so anyone early in, in this journey, I especially just want to tell you, you are not alone. You know, we, many of us have been there. we walk with you in spirit and just take it one day at a time that's all you have to do is just

one day at a time and god will be there with you through it all yeah awesome i always love that approach it keeps things grounded right because we can like you mentioned there earlier right the 20 years it's all about just today i mean i always look at it too from i don't know maybe a weirder perspective but i'm just like today's all we got i mean tomorrow you know what like we'll wake up tomorrow, everything's going to be great. But the reality is, like, I don't know that to be fact. So why worry about everything else that I can't do everything about, you know, a year from now, two years from now? I wake up every day with the mindset of I'm just going to do the best I can do today.

Some days I do better. Some days I come up a little bit short. Some days I hit the bullseye, but I keep it going. Yeah. And I also find that living a day at a time like that helps me be more grateful because I'm not assuming or feeling entitled to tomorrow or the future. I don't have it. And so every day that comes is, oh, man, what a gift.

I have today. And then you wake up the next thing, you say, oh, man, what a gift? Here we are. It's helped me be more grateful to try to live that way. Yeah, I love that approach. Since you brought that up, before we go, after this, we'll wrap things up. Gratitude. I mean, did you have that in your life, an element of that?

Or do you feel it on a deeper level on this journey of sobriety? Yeah, I would love to say I did have that in my life. And I guess I did to a degree because you're a pastor and a professional spiritual person. I did not have gratitude the way that I have it now. And I think I had to learn what it meant to be utterly desperate for something and to experience, you know, as we hear in recovery promises, you know, sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly, but God leads us there. And I look back at my sobriety and every day that I'm sober. Today makes more. 1,104 days. I keep a daily in my gratitude journal, a daily count, and I'm 11.04 now. Gratitude is so much deeper out of recovery. And I don't know that I can ever know this level of gratitude had I not known the desperation of trying to break free of the addiction. Which is also to say to that person who's early in recovery, stick with it because one day your greatest wound will will always. be a gift because it will teach you the most meaningful things in life. It's the paradox of recovery,

right? It's the inside outness of it that somehow the things were ashamed of, God can transform them into this thing that makes us appreciate life so much better. Yeah, well said, well said. Thank you, Ben, so much for jumping on here and sharing your story with all of us. Thank you. I appreciate the opportunity and more than anything, just to share my story. What a gift it is that we share our stories with each other. I'm grateful for you, by the way, for this podcast, and you have no idea, because I'm one of your listeners, you have no idea how you're helping folks find their way. Beautiful, man. Thank you. Well, there it is, everyone. Another incredible episode. I'll drop Ben's contact information for Instagram down on the

show notes if you enjoyed the episode or could connect to anything that he shared. And I always love when you guys reach out and just let people know, thank you. It's not the easiest thing in to come on here in front of everybody kind of in their car, wherever you guys listen to the podcast and share your story. It takes a lot of courage. So I appreciate it so much. Another plug here, too, at the end of this episode is come and join us in the sober motivation community.

It's truly incredible. When we step outside of ourselves, we become part of a community, become part of a group where people are just working on getting this thing figured out. We've got people who are starting out and people who've been sober for years. So we've got everything in between. It's a safe place to land. It's a soft place to land. And we want to support you with your goals of not drinking.

So if that answers you at all, there's a month for free. Check the show notes. Check my Instagram channel. Send me an email or send me a message on Instagram with any questions you have. My best piece of advice, though, is just do something. Try something. If things are not working for you, you're not getting the results you want of sobriety. Then you have to add more stuff or you have to try something different.

we can't continue to do the same stuff and expect the outcomes to be different. So much love as always, everybody. Have a great day and I'll see you on the next one.